Mike Shevdon - The Eighth Court

There was a rhythm to it: people came, people went, documents arrived, documents were taken away. I found myself lulled by it, until my series of disturbed nights began to wear on me. I felt my eyes droop and shook myself awake to find someone sat across the table. It was Raffmir.

“Late night?” he said. I grabbed for my sword, but he just pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair. “Too late, cousin. Far too late. If I wanted you dead, your blood would be all over that glass by now.”

I retracted my hand, realising that he was right, and I couldn’t harm him anyway. We had both sworn under Feyre law not to harm the other under the rules of trial by ordeal. He had expected me to die that day. It was a great source of satisfaction to me that I was still here.

He looked through the glass at Claire working her way through another journal. “What’s she doing?” he asked.

“None of your business,” I told him.

“I see your temper hasn’t improved in my absence,” he said.

“Pity you came back,” I said.

“Nor your manners,” he added.

That was also true. With most people I didn’t like I could manage to be polite or at worst ignore them. Raffmir brought out the worst in me.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

“Perhaps I was simply worried for your health,” he said. “That looks nasty…” he slid his fingertips up the line of his jaw in the place the gates at the Royal Courts of Justice had left their impression on me.

“You took a vow,” I pointed out, “not to harm me or allow me to come to harm.”

“It wasn’t me that harmed you.”

“Your driver, then,” I said.

“And yet here you are in the peak of health,” he said. “A little marred, a little tainted — normal really…”

“What would you have done if it had killed me?” I asked him.

“…still as rude as ever,” he finished.

“I’m serious,” I said. “It’s execution, isn’t it, if you’d killed me? I’m quite sure that Blackbird wouldn’t have let that go.”

“The witch is still with you then?”

“Don’t call her that,” I warned.

“Shall I not call a goose, a goose? There is power in names, Dogstar, I think you know. And how is your lovely daughter? Such treacherous curls, it makes you want to cut them all off.” He made snipping signs with his fingers.

“You swore not to harm her too,” I reminded him.

“Unfortunately, she does not seem to have the same attitude to me,” he said. “I do my best to preserve her sorry little hide, and how does she repay me?”

“I’ll ask you again, Raffmir, what do you want?”

He leaned across the table, clasping his hands together and meeting my gaze with earnest intensity. “I’m meeting the terms of my vow.”

“You’re not harming me? You could have done that back wherever you came from,” I pointed out.

“You’d think it would be easier than it is,” he said. “You are my burden, and I suppose I must bear you, at least until the end.”

“The end of what?” I asked him.

He smiled, long and slow. “Prophesy, it’s such a fickle thing, don’t you think?”

“I wish you’d just come out and say whatever it is that you came to say,” I told him, “and then leave.”

“You haven’t thanked me for my last gift yet, and once again I find you are ungrateful.”

“For what? I have to be grateful because of something you haven’t done for me?”

He stood, straightening the lapels of his coat as he moved around the table and looked down his nose at me. “Not long now, Dogstar. The world turns.”

“As it always does?”

“Soon,” he said, turning. I watched his retreating back as he walked away between the tables. I shook my head, and glanced in at Claire. It looked like she’d had enough too. She was slumped across the books asleep. At least I thought she was until I noticed the dribble of red off the edge of the table.

“Shit!” I grabbed my sword and burst into the room, wary of someone hiding behind the table, under the line of the windows, but there was no one. I lifted Claire by her shoulders and she flopped back in her seat, exposing the long slit across her throat. Blood was soaked into her clothes. Her dead eyes stared up at me.

How? She was OK a moment ago. I’d watched her while Raffmir asked me what she was doing. No one had entered or left since then. Except me. I suddenly realised what this looked like. People were staring at my sudden activity. I stood out in the quiet archive like a food-fight in a convent. I pulled my glamour around me, but they had already seen. When asked later they would make the connection, exactly as Raffmir had wanted.

I pushed the journals away from the growing pool of blood, streaking red across the surface.

Blood running down translucent glass. Watching it form into sticky droplets.

I shook my head. Not now. I had to get a hold on myself. I grabbed the journals from the table, leaned Claire’s body forward across the table again, as if she were resting. Pulling the tatters of my glamour around me, I left. With my glamour in full force, no one saw me leave, but that wouldn’t matter. They had all seen me arrive, all seen me sat outside the room. The archivist would attest that she had told me that I could not go into the room, and they had all seen me enter it.

Bloody Raffmir.

“You were supposed to be guarding her,” said Blackbird.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Now what are we going to do?” said Blackbird. “It was bad enough that we’ve lost the knives and the horseshoes without losing the Remembrancer’s clerk as well. You’re sure she was dead?”

“Her throat had been slit.”

“Well I suppose it was quick, but hardly what she deserved,” said Blackbird. “This goes from bad to worse. I warned her to keep the horseshoe close.”

“The horseshoe?” I asked.

“Yes, she was carrying one with her. Don’t tell me you left that behind as well?”

I thought for a moment. “She wasn’t allowed to keep her bag with her. The archivist wouldn’t allow it. She put it in a locker. It’s probably still there.”

“Or the police have it,” said Blackbird.

“Well funnily enough, I didn’t stick around to ask them about it,” I said.

“Perhaps we could try and keep the discussion constructive?” said Angela, trying to calm things down.

“Perhaps if you hadn’t dosed him with your memories,” said Blackbird to Angela. “We’re in a bind, and no mistake.” Angela looked hurt, but Blackbird was in no mood to be sympathetic. “We’re up against it, Angela.”

“We still have time,” I said. “I can go back for it. If I can find some way of transporting them, I could retrieve the one from the flat too.”

“We have less time than you think,” said Blackbird. “Teoth and Krane are insisting that the Eighth Court moves out of the High Court by the winter solstice.”

“But that’s only days away,” I said.

“Where will we move to?” said Angela. “We won’t all fit in my house.”

“That might be the only choice we have,” said Blackbird, “and I’m truly grateful for the offer.”

“It wasn’t an offer,” said Angela. “I was being sarcastic.”

“Do you have a better idea?” asked Blackbird. “Sparky, Alex, Niall, you, me and the baby — that’s not so many. The others will just have to stay where they are until we can find something larger. It’s not supposed to be a full-time home for everyone — more of a place to gather.”

“We’ll be camping in the garden,” said Angela. “What about Andy and the bees? Julie’s about to lose her flat.”

“Who’s Julie?” I asked.

“She’s one of the newcomers,” said Blackbird. “She came in last night with a guy called Hathaway — I’m assuming that’s his surname. Word is spreading, Niall. They’re coming to us because we offer the best hope there is.”