Page 155 of The Death Wish

‘I do. Those are the Siltron Ranges.’

‘I see. And where do those ranges lie?’

Silas guessed it, Pitch knew from the waver in his voice, but he was waiting for Pitch to say it aloud. To speak more impossible truths.

But a new and altogether too cheery voice interrupted their stunned reverie.

‘They lie in Arcadia, my fine fellow. Welcome to Arcadia.’

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

A YOUNGman, with an astonishing tangle of golden-orange curls, stood just inside the doorway. He was plain faced, neither stunning nor unattractive, with several large dark freckles on his sun-kissed face. He held a bunch of flowers, whose type Silas was not even going to guess at, after what he’d seen beyond that window.

Silas stepped between the new arrival and the prince. Realising as he did so that the scythe was gone.

There was little time to fret.

‘Oh, shit,’ Pitch gasped. For a moment Silas thought him about to faint, but the daemon was doing something equally strange.

He went to one knee and bowed low at the waist.

The hydra, the remarkable creature with three heads and legs as nobbly as a giraffe’s, though half as long, seemed to lose all of his minds. He threw himself to the flagstone floor, covering his central head with a clawed hand.

‘My Lord Enoch.’

Silas’s own knees went rubbery. ‘What? He’s the…that’s the…’

Pitch grabbed at Silas’s blanket, no doubt trying to urge him down, but with Silas’s shock came a loosened grip. The blanketslipped away, and both Pitch and Silas met the Lord of Arcadia utterly naked.

A strangled cry left Silas, but the prince kept his head bowed, and was no bloody help at all with the retrieval of the blanket, slapping at Silas’s hand as he reached for it.

‘Kneel, damn you. You’re embarrassing me.’

Silas glared at the top of his head. ‘We have our bloody balls out.’

‘He’s seen such things before. Get down.’

It took a moment to register the laughter. Another moment for Silas to wade through his cheek-burning mortification, to realise the young man, the ruler of daemons and angels, laughed.

Rather heartily.

Enoch clutched at his chest through the white smock he wore. Both it and his knee-length breeches were smudged with a dark substance Silas hoped was dirt and not blood. Considering the lord’s feet were also bare, and also dirty–with darkness between the toes–soil seemed the more fortunate option.

‘If there were any doubt of your humanity, Silas Mercer, it is eased now. What a specimen you are. The goddess has a fine eye all round.’

Lord Enoch smiled, and the breath left Silas’s lungs. He forgot he wore not a jot of clothing; forgot the horrors he had just endured, and the land beyond the window he did not recognise. There was nothing in the world but that smile; it bathed the entire room with radiance, an ethereal lightness beyond comprehension.

A jab at his leg startled him.

‘You are staring,’ Pitch hissed, shoving the blanket at him.

Silas took it absently, holding it so just enough covered his most private parts. What point was there in hiding from thisbeing? His presence must filter into every crack and crevice in the world.

‘My Lord, forgive us.’ Pitch was flustered. ‘We didn’t know…it has been very…I truly don’t –’

‘Don’t understand. I know Vassago. But I assure you, we meet again under very different circumstances to the last. All of Arcadia gives thanks for what the pair of you have achieved.’ Arcadia’s master, in the guise of a farm boy barely free of his childhood, extended the bouquet. ‘Welcome, Silas Mercer. I hope these flowers please you.’

Silas nearly tripped over the dragging blanket as he rushed forward to accept the blooms. Roses, perhaps? They were tied with a simple blue string, and must have been picked some time ago, for they drooped a little.