"Life is choices, Rabbit. We are defined by the choices we make."

I stood up and followed her to the edge of Trafalgar Square and then back up St Martin's Lane.

"So what does one do when one is introduced to one of the Feyre? Shake hands?"

"Touch is an intimate thing amongst the Feyre. You don't touch another Fey unless you're invited. "

"But you touched me." It wasn't meant as a criticism, but she gave me a hard look.

"The other circ.u.mstance when one touches another Fey is when one is using power, Rabbit, or when fighting or killing. That is why it is considered discourteous. "

"So you touch someone to do magic on them... to them?"

"Some of our gifts require touch, and touch can enhance other gifts, making them stronger. Some of it works without touch, or even presence. "

"You can use power over a distance?"

"Some can. The spell that binds each Fey to their court works regardless of distance, or even presence. A Fey who broke that spell would risk their life, even if they were a world away, like the Untainted." We continued along our route through the back lanes and side alleys of Covent Garden. There would appear to be a dead end then we would turn a corner and find a gate or the way through a fire escape. People didn't leave their back entrances open in central London because they didn't want drunks or druggies hanging around the fire escape, yet all of these opened to her hand.

"Are you using magic to open these gates?" I asked her.

"Stick to the path, Rabbit. That way is safer." She hadn't answered my question.

We wound our way in a loose spiral around Covent Garden, with me catching occasional glimpses of landmarks I knew and several times finding myself walking in the opposite direction to the one I thought we were going in. "Do we have to come this way?"

"The straightest path is not the shortest," she said.

"What does that mean? Are we talking some mystical geometry here? Surely the shortest path between two points is a straight line?"

"That depends on what is between you and your destination."

"So what would be between us and our destination? "

"This way is safer," she said. "Believe me."

She squeezed her way past a fence post and around the back of a huge wheelie-bin into the rear courtyard of an office block. Two curious smokers, ostracised to the outside, watched us thread our way through and then along the back of the building and through a hole in the fence to the next.

"Now they've seen us, the hole won't be there next time."

"Yes, it will. They won't remember seeing us."

"Why? Did you do something to their memories?"

My voice fell to a hush as she approached the corner of the building more stealthily. Two pigeons were strutting around each other in a doorway, but there didn't appear to be any other hazard to be wary of. "I didn't do anything to their memory. I used my glamour, the part of my magic that affects my appearance, to make us unremarkable. By the time they've finished their cigarettes, the conversation will have moved on to something else and they won't think enough about us to mention it to anyone. "

"So are you using your... glamour to affect my appearance too?" She was walking slowly up behind the pigeons. "Glamour is the least of Fey magic. It allows us to alter our appearance to suit our surroundings or our circ.u.mstances. It's all a matter of knowing how you look and willing it to be so. It's a bit like driving, it takes practice, but once you know how, you don't even think about it. As far as they are concerned you are standing in my shadow, in a manner of speaking. The impression it leaves can spill over."

She took a soft brown sack from her bag, then reached down and lifted one of the pigeons off the pavement. The other looked bemused, as if its playmate had vanished. After a moment it flew upwards towards the strip of sky overhead. Blackbird eased the docile pigeon into the sack.

"Why are we catching pigeons? "

"It's a gift."

"Do you mean the catching of them, or that the pigeon itself is a gift?"

"It's bad manners to turn up on someone's doorstep when you haven't seen them for months and not have something to offer." She opened the door, stepping out onto the edge of Covent Garden Piazza. "Which reminds me, you need to do a little shopping. "

"I do?"

She opened the alleyway door and strolled out into the open square as if we hadn't just been furtively sidling around the back of offices. I followed and the door slammed shut behind us, an anonymous doorway in a row of Georgian houses.

"Oh, I've missed this. It's one of the old places." Her mood lightened as she crossed onto the cobble stoned plaza.

I corrected her. "It's not as old as people think, actually. The flower market is only late nineteenth century. "

"And why do you think they built a flower market here?"

"Well, I guess it was part of the original settlement. Maybe there were market gardens here once? "

"Oh, there were gardens here, convent gardens actually, and there was a market here long before Christianity and for much more than flowers. Herbs and potions, talismans and wardings, you could buy anything here, once." She stepped up onto the paving around the covered market and breathed in as if inhaling a heady scent.

"Blackbird, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you, exactly?"

"Didn't I tell you it was rude to ask someone's age?" She arched an eyebrow at me, but I was prepared for her evasion this time.

"No, I don't think that's actually what you said. I think you asked me what age I thought you were and then, when I told you, you laughed and said you were a lot older than that, but you never told me how much. "

"Perhaps I thought you were being nosey." The comment was not harshly made and left just enough of an opening for me to ask once more. "Are you going to tell me?"

"No, I don't think so, except to say I have rolled in the b.u.t.tercups here and come away dusted in their pollen. I have slept here under the stars on the solstice and been gifted with dreams of the future and I have fought for my life here and come away bloodied, but unharmed. It is a place that has been special to me for a long time." Her words hung in the air despite the milling tourists that pa.s.sed us by, unaware of her reminiscences. "b.u.t.tercups, huh?" I mused.

"Trust you to latch on to that." But the smile she flashed me was one that hinted of the young woman in the square.

She walked through the meandering tourists and I followed her, walking past numerous stalls until we came to one selling semi-precious jewellery. We stood waiting while an elderly couple debated the merits of a haemat.i.te pendant versus a pair of olivine earrings. The stallholder was a middle-aged woman with fair wavy hair which fell around her shoulders. She wore a peasant skirt and a bronze top with an open neck. Her earrings were made from coloured feathers and beads and her belt was a band of interwoven colours with more beads strung from it. If this were the Sixties then she would have been one of the flower people. Her face was lined as if care-worn and she looked pensive; worried even. Then she smiled and twenty years vanished. Her eyes were alight with humour and her creases became laughter lines.

We waited until the couple had made their decision and their tiny gift-wrapped parcel was handed over. She wished them a good day and turned to us.

"h.e.l.lo, Blackbird." To my surprise, she walked around the front of the stall and embraced Blackbird with affection, which Blackbird returned. She had told me that the Feyre didn't touch others, but here was Blackbird greeting this woman like a sister.

"How's everything?" she asked Blackbird. Her voice was deep for a woman and had a worn quality, as if it had once been soft and low and someone had taken sandpaper to it.

"Things are good," said Blackbird, holding onto her hands for a moment. "I would like to introduce you to someone. This is Rabbit. Rabbit, this is Megan." She turned to me and extended a hand in greeting. "Pleased to meet you, Rabbit."

I took her hand, figuring that if Blackbird had embraced her then it must be OK. Her hand was warm and, like her voice, had a delicate roughness to it. "Pleased to meet you too."

Closer to her, I realised that what I had thought were beads were actually polished stones. Her necklace, earrings and even her belt were adorned with small stones, carefully matched for shape and colour.

"Megan and I have known each other for some time, haven't we, Megan?"

"It's been a while, Megan agreed, "but it all goes by so fast. I can't keep track," she admitted, shaking her head and leaning back against the stall.

"Anyway, this isn't entirely a social call. Rabbit would like to choose some stones from your excellent selection."

"I would, would I?"

"Have a look and see if there's any that take your fancy," Megan gestured across the selection. "It is a test of sorts. You cannot pa.s.s or fail, but it may tell me something," said Blackbird.

"Is it something you should know?" Blackbird appeared to have my interests at heart, but there were still too many unknowns for me not to ask the question. "Well said, Rabbit, and by your choice I will do you no harm." She said it as a promise or a vow, and I believed her. After all, if she lied to me I thought I would know. "How many? "

"As many as you will, and no more."