Her head tilted a little to one side and she fixed me with her jade-and-jasper eyes. “You get nothing in this world if you will not shed a little blood. And the girl will not be harmed.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad you’re asking me to perform a non-fatal bloodletting.”
“There is always a price to pay,” she replied. “My reflection was far too willing to pay that price herself, and see where it has left her.”
She had a point. Nim had been self-sacrificing to a fault. But the problem with being self-sacrificing is that eventually you wound up getting sacrificed. And that was kind of a crappy deal for the people you left behind. “In her defence, she did mostly manage to avoid carving up teenagers.”
“A small pain, for a great glory.” Words could not quite express how much I disliked the green lady. As a rule, I was very much not a fan of things wearing my friends’ faces, but things that wore my friends’ faces while also being able to make a coherent case for actually being the friend whose face they were wearing, while still also being basically evil, were a whole different level of suss.
I sighed. “You know, you should really learn to quit while you’re ahead. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to do what you want me to do. All this preening is just making me uncomfortable about it.”
Moving forward with a graceful menace, she took my hands. “You’re right. But you need only be strong a little longer. Then all will be well.”
I wasn’t sure that was helping. I felt a touch on my arm, and as the city fell apart I realised that somebody was rocking me awake.
“Hurry up, please.” whispered Nimue’s voice as the world faded around me. “It’s time.”
34
Blood & Silver
I woke up in the back seat of Patrick’s Volvo S60R outside London Bridge hospital. It was well after midnight, which meant we were nowhere near visiting hours, but given how mysterious and misty it had got last time, I didn’t think that would be a major cause for concern.
For a weird moment I intensely wished that Tara was there. This was all beginning to feel final and it would have been nice to see her before whatever was about to go down went down. I could have texted, but she’d be unlikely to have her phone on her and, anyway, she was probably neck deep in werewolf bullshit by now.
Flick and Sofia were still asleep beside me, and I didn’t think it was fair to wake them, so I leaned over the front seat, whispered to Elaine that it was time, and slipped out of the car. She and Patrick followed me through the main doors of the hospital, and while we made a weird looking party I was hoping that the ambient magic would stop us getting too many awkward glances. Certainly it seemed to work on the receptionist—still on duty despite the hour—who when I told them who I was here to see, they got that same faraway look as they had last time and waved the three of us through without a thought.
Once we were in the hospital proper I decided I couldn’t put off the bleeding issue any longer. “So…” I began. “You know how I said that the Prince of Wands might want to drain your blood to turn himself into magic vampire King Arthur?”
“Yes?” She didn’t look exactly thrilled.
“Well… turns out I wasn’t totally joking. I think your blood might be the key to all this.”
Patrick had me pinned to a wall with a hand around my throat faster than—well about as fast as he always reacted to things he thought threatened his girlfriends. “I knew you planned to betray us,” he snarled.
“Okay,” I tried. “Normally I’d be calling you out for being an overprotective wanker right now but that’s actually perfectly fair. I don’t need to kill her, or even hurt her very much…”
His grip tightened. “Very much?”
“Can you please just let me go,” I managed. “I don’t want this to turn into a fist fight in a hospital.”
“I will not let you harm her.”
Again, he was bizarrely close to being in the right here and that was making me very uncomfortable. “And I won’t, I promise, let me explain.”
He put me down and backed very slightly off. “Speak.”
Prick. “I had a dream last night, and I was told that to wake Nimue I have to spill some of