"Yes. But if anything happens to us, just finish it. Agreed?"
"Right you are." The tapping prelude to the strike of the hammer ceased and Blackbird stepped back to my side. Even though the hammering on the anvil was necessary to our task, it was a relief that it had paused. "If your companion will stand down, then I will do likewise," Raffmir offered.
Blackbird looked towards me and then nodded.
I eased my hold on his defences and, as I did, he recalled his gallowfyre. It wound back towards him like a great tentacled beast slipping beneath the surface. I recalled my own and had to smile as the image repeated itself.
"Now, we can talk. Yes?" Raffmir spoke smoothly, unexcited.
"The smith has stopped work, but he"ll continue if anything happens to us," Blackbird told him. "What do you want?"
"I would have thought that was obvious." The voice floated across the black oily water. "I want the barrier to fail and the world to return to the way it was, the way it should be," he explained.
"It can"t," I interjected. "Too much has changed. The world belongs to people now, human people. You can"t turn the clock back," I told him.
"Oh, I don"t want to turn it back. Humanity has its uses after all, but I"m afraid that the balance of power will have to change. Humanity must learn some respect." He laughed in a warm rich tone at his own joke. "And how do you propose to teach them that respect?" I asked him.
"Ah, well. That is where the old ways are the best, don"t you agree?"
"No, not really."
"And there you have it. You have a mixed background and it clouds your judgement."
"They will not give up their hold on this world easily. They have developed considerably while you"ve been elsewhere."
"I know. My sister and I have watched them. They have come far, but they still have nothing to rival the power of the Feyre. Speaking of power, that"s an unusual talent you have there. "
"Talent?"
"Summoning gallowfyre is not a talent usually displayed among those you refer to as the Gifted. Do I have the term right?"
"That is what we call ourselves, as you call yourselves Untainted," answered Blackbird.
"Quite so. You see, my sister was sent to kill your companion and she failed. She came back with a story about a human summoning gallowfyre and no one would believe her, certainly not those that set her the task. But it seems she was neither dreaming nor hallucinating? "
"It appears so," I admitted.
"And do you know how you came to inherit such a gift? "
"Do you think I would tell you if I did?"
"I suppose not, but there"s little harm in asking," he shrugged. "You do realise you cannot stand against us? "
"We won"t know until we try, will we?" said Blackbird.
"Your companion hasn"t yet the control to match my own and my sister hasn"t even begun to use her considerable talents. You will die here if you defy us. "
"Then why are we even having this conversation?" she asked.
"I am giving you the opportunity to withdraw. There is no need for us to come into conflict over this. We are of the same blood, are we not?" The taint of falsehood hung over that last sentence.
"And you"ll just let us walk away, will you?" Blackbird asked.
"Of course. There will be time later to engage in the settling of old scores."
"And the smith?"
"The smith stays," he stated in a cold voice, but then warmed again. "Surely we are not going to come into conflict over one measly human life?"
"You forget," said Blackbird. "We are each part human ourselves. Human lives mean more to us than they do to you."
"Your own lives should mean more. Leave now and we"ll spare you, this once. "
"We are not leaving," Blackbird told him.
"Come now, he knows he cannot best me and you are no match for my sister. We already know which of us is the stronger."
He was right, but I had remembered something else. "It is true that you bested me in our first contest. But that was before I knew you. That was before I could name you, Raffmir."
There was a momentary pause. Then he erupted into laughter, a chocolate sound, completely at odds with the situation. "Oh, that"s rich." He laughed. "I won"t ask how you came by that name because you wouldn"t tell me. "
"Your sister told me."
I dropped it into the dark pool of his laughter and it faltered.
"I did not!" Her denial was filled with spite.
He could hear the truth in my words so he would know she had indeed told me, though not the circ.u.mstances. I blessed Blackbird for showing me that trick in dealing with Fenlock and Carris. The name might give me the edge I needed.
He turned to her and spoke in low tones for a moment.
"Never!" she screeched. "He"s lying, I tell you."
"It"s almost as if she doesn"t know what she"s saying any more." I used the same oily tone he"d adopted with us.
"Shut up!" she spat. "Half-breed mongrel sc.u.m."
"Peace, sister. I would love to know how he came to know that name, but it matters not." He addressed himself back to me. "Will you bargain with me, then? We both want something, do we not?"
"I don"t want anything from you," I told him.
"That remains to be seen. Come, there must be something I can be tempt you with?"
"You have nothing I want."
"On the contrary, I can offer you the one thing no one else will. I can offer you a place for you and for your daughter. I spoke to her, you know?"
"She wouldn"t speak to you." Now I knew who had called her mobile.
"You left her number on the phone-pad in your flat. It said "Alex new mobile". Unusual to give a boy"s name to a girl. Initially I used the telephone but it said she was out of the area. I could still reach her, though." I kicked myself mentally. I had been through the flat three times and I had still missed the numbers written on the phone pad in plain sight.
"There is nothing you could possibly offer us."
"Has your companion not explained to you how things are yet? How interesting." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Has she not told you that you will never be accepted into the courts of the Tainted? The Six Courts are very fine, and they accept humans, mongrels and pure Fey almost without discrimination." He laced his words with sarcasm. "But they will never accept one of the wraithkin. "
"Why not?"
"You would have to ask them that, of course, but I believe they are repelled by our kind. We are uncanny to them and they will not allow us that close. Instead, you and your daughter would be orphans, renegades, unprotected and vulnerable to anyone that"s prepared to set a price on your heart."
"I can look after myself," I told him, putting faith behind that a.s.sertion.
"And your daughter? If she shows her Fey genes then she will be as my sister. You see, my friend, our kind have a choice. We can be shunned and spurned as abominations, labelled as feeders on life and harbingers of doom. Or we can be respected and feared. But only the Seventh Court can offer you legitimacy and security. The others will not have you. Ask her."