Faerie Lord

Thirty-Eight

‘Mr Fogarty saw the future,’ Pyrgus said.

Blue looked at him blankly.

‘Well, remembered it,’ Pyrgus corrected himself.

Frowning, Blue said slowly, ‘Are we talking about his fever?’

Pyrgus nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what we’re talking about.’ Now he’d decided to tell her – at least tell her some of it – he was feeling an enormous sense of relief. He’d never liked the idea of cutting Blue out of their plans, not least because of the trouble he’d be in when she found out. Besides, she might have some sensible ideas. Light knew they were going to need all the help they could get, even with everything Mr Fogarty told them.

‘You can’t remember the future, can you?’ Blue asked.

‘No, I -’

‘And you’ve had the fever.’

‘Yes, but -’

‘Then how come the Gatekeeper could?’

‘If you’d let me get a word in edgeways, I’d tell you,’ Pyrgus said crossly. He wondered what life would have been like if he’d had a brother. Then he remembered he did have a brother, or a half-brother at least, but that was Comma, who didn’t count. He realised Blue was standing silent for once and went on, it’s different for humans. With me – with us – with faeries – it’s just a blur mostly and even then only snatches of your own future. But Mr Fogarty could see other stuff, things that would happen elsewhere in the Realm. Like a prophet. And when he came out of the fever, he remembered.’

There was a long silence in the cabin of the flyer. Then Blue said, ‘Oh.’

‘What he remembered was Henry finding a cure for the disease.’

‘Henry?’

Pyrgus nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Finding a cure?’

Pyrgus nodded harder. ‘Yes. Yes!’

Blue still looked bewildered. ‘Well… that’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Sort of,’ Pyrgus said. ‘The trouble is, Mr Fogarty also remembered Henry not finding a cure.’

‘This is silly,’ Blue said sharply. ‘You’re making it all up so I -’

‘No, I’m not – I swear.’ Pyrgus came across quickly and sat down beside her on the flyer bench. ‘During the first bout of fever he had the first memory – Henry finding a cure. Then he had a second bout very quickly after and this time he came back with a different memory. Henry didn’t find a cure and the disease spread and it killed thousands, Blue – hundreds of thousands. It just about wiped out the Realm.’

‘But-’

‘He didn’t tell anybody but Madame Cardui and she thought the illness was giving him hallucinations: what he saw wasn’t the future at all. But Mr Fogarty thought the future wasn’t set yet and what he saw were two different possibilities. In one possible future, Henry saved the Realm, in the other one he didn’t.’

‘Why didn’t Mr Fogarty -?’ Blue began, then stopped, as the answer to her own question occurred to her.

Pyrgus said, ‘Mr Fogarty thought that if he risked a few more bouts of fever, he might remember enough details to make sure we reached the right future. That’s why he wouldn’t go back to the Analogue World. He knew that would stop the fever attacks and the rest of us might drift into the future where the Realm was wiped out.’

Blue was staring at him intently. ‘You mean he sacrificed himself to save the Realm?’

‘I don’t think he meant to,’ Pyrgus said. ‘He probably thought he could survive more fever bouts than he did. But – yes. Yes, he did sacrifice himself for the Realm.’

There was a tiny clock built into the dashboard of the flyer. Blue suddenly realised she could hear it ticking. She licked her lips. ‘Did he…?’

‘Remember enough to make sure a cure is found? Sort of…’ Pyrgus said. ‘Yes and no.’

‘Yes and no – what?’ Blue asked irritably. ‘Are we in the future that has the cure or aren’t we?’

‘It depends.’

Blue closed her eyes the way their mother used to do when she was exasperated beyond measure. ‘On what?’ she asked quietly.

‘On whether we do it right,’ Pyrgus said. ‘Mr Fogarty couldn’t see everything all at once. He got a detail here, a detail there. He didn’t find out how to bring about the future with the cure, but he did notice certain things happened in the good future that didn’t happen in the other one. So he had the idea that if we all did the things he’d seen us do in the good future, then that might help bring it about, even if what we were doing had nothing to do with the cure or Henry or anything obvious.’

‘That’s why Madame Cynthia used the transport,’ Blue said in an instant of revelation.

‘Yes,’ Pyrgus said. ‘We didn’t know how that would make a difference, or even if it definitely would make a difference, but Mr Fogarty saw it happen in the good future, so we thought it best for her to do it.’

‘Even though it put Henry’s life at risk,’ Blue said flatly.

‘Blue, we had to -’

‘I know, I know,’ Blue cut in quickly, ‘I’m not blaming you. It’s just – ’ She shrugged. ‘You know.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Pyrgus said kindly. ‘There was an awful lot of discussion. We all love Henry too, you know.’

‘Yes,’ Blue said. She stared at him thoughtfully, her face set. ‘So Madame Cynthia transported him because that’s what Mr Fogarty remembered?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re going after him because that’s what Mr Fogarty remembered?’

‘Yes.’

‘So while everybody’s racing round doing what Mr Fogarty remembered, what am I supposed to be doing?’

Pyrgus licked his lips warily. ‘Actually, Mr Fogarty couldn’t remember you doing anything. I mean, he didn’t say you were just sitting there doing nothing, he didn’t think that. But as I said, he couldn’t remember everything, otherwise we’d all be certain what was going on. And I expect you were doing a whole lot, I mean really contributing, but he just didn’t remember that. For some reason…’ He trailed off lamely.

Blue opened her mouth to say something, but Pyrgus suddenly got a second wind and said, ‘We talked for ages, all of us, about whether to tell you. I mean, that was really, really important, you being Queen and everything. But eventually we decided it would be better if you didn’t know.’ He saw her expression and his enthusiasm disappeared again, ‘In case you did something you… shouldn’t… do…’

Blue flipped the obsidian disc into his hand. ‘Start the flyer,’ she said crossly.