Page 32 of The Death Wish

‘Oh, I suspect you do.’

‘You are no detective then, I assure you,’ Charlie coughed with laughter, chasing the bleakness from the room. ‘I could not think of anything worse.’

Silas sighed, playing his part in the charade. But he kept a careful watch on his lover. Despite Pitch’s return to vulgar form, Silas did not trust the honesty of his mood. The prince was not so carefree as he sought to appear.

‘I need not go with you, if you’d like a moment alone?’ Silas was struck by how rarely the daemon had such an opportunity. If Pitch were not in the hands of his captor, he was a prisoner of a different sort, with Silas unwilling to let him out of his sight for fear of losing him again. ‘I shall not be insulted in the slightest if you’d like to be on your own for a while.’

Pitch stopped where he had paced halfway to the door. He stood, saying nothing for so long that Charlie tugged at Silas’s sleeve, giving him a questioning look. He shrugged, uncertain the cause of this strange pregnant pause.

‘What of you, Silas?’ Pitch said, finally, in the hushed way he so rarely adopted. ‘Do you wish to distance yourself from me?’

Silas frowned at the sudden frailty. ‘You know the answer to that, Pitch.’

‘But perhaps your goddess gives you no say in the matter. Perhaps, you are yet to tell me that you too have been instructed to end our journey here.’

There it was. The crux of the matter. Understanding the prince’s darker thoughts nearly buckled Silas’s knees.

‘My goddess knows better than to waste her divine breath with such pitiful notions. No such instruction has come, and if it did, then heaven help the messenger, for they would have all manner of blasphemy to carry back to her.’ He strode up to Pitch, who had not yet moved. To his relief he caught the subtle lift of a cautious smile on the daemon’s lips. All the knots which had wound themselves, unravelled quickly, but he had one morepoint to make. ‘Do not ever ask me again, if I am considering leaving your side.’

‘Or what?’ Pitch was returning to himself, the wickedness hinting in his eyes once more.

Silas ran his hand over Pitch’s arse. ‘Or, I shall take you to the Royal Botanical Gardens in London, and make you listen, as I list every single plant by their Latin name.’

Pitch’s sharp intake of breath, the flutter of fingertips at his mouth, made Silas’s blood warm. ‘You are a monster.’

‘You had best believe it.’

Charlie coughed. ‘Gentlemen, the consensual torture shall have to wait, I’m afraid. We are about to be bombarded.’

CHAPTER NINE

TYVAIN WASat the forefront, her voice booming through the entire inn. ‘Where the bloody hell is he? Gonna tan his bloody hide.’

Silas moved to call to her, but the soothsayer had already found them.

Charlie leapt to his feet, dashing past Silas and Pitch to meet Tyvain halfway across the room. They collided in a messy hug that saw them falling onto a red velvet chaise by the wall just inside the doorway. The soothsayer gave the lad a loud telling off.

‘Scared me half to death. If I had a switch, you’d be getting a beating right now.’

Charlie laughed off the berating with his usual good-nature. ‘Well, I’ll be grateful for small mercies then.’

‘Look at the state of ya. Too skinny by half.’ Tyvain adjusted the creased smock she wore. Her skirt, a plain navy blue, was equally as creased, and her hair even more haphazard than normal, Silas suspected she’d been sleeping fully clothed.

‘I’m fine, Ty. And not undernourished at all, I assure you.’

‘Well, ya too pale then. Freckles have multiplied.’

Jane swept into the room, her hair in the most delightful braid, with ribbons of white interwoven throughout, contrasting the creamier hue of her morning dress. She nudged thescrutinising soothsayer to one side, dropping a small basket she held, before helping Charlie up from the chaise to deliver her own hug. ‘So very good to see you, my dear. We’ve all been worried.’

‘How is Edward?’ Sybilla was the last to arrive, and Silas could not help but marvel at how easily she moved, the grim suffering of before all but gone; only the scars remained. ‘Is he holding up?’

Charlie’s smile faded. ‘He’s strong, remarkably so, but I doubt…’ She glanced to where Pitch stood at Silas’s side. ‘It is best we do not delay too long, that’s all.’

‘Fine, but no way in all the hells are we headin’ off, without a moment for you ta catch ya breath, and get some food in that tiny belly ‘a yours,’ Tyvain declared.

‘I am rather famished, I’ll admit.’

The soothsayer clapped her hands, rubbing them together. ‘That’s sorted then. I’ll see if we can’t get some breakfast sorted, maybe there’s stew left over from last night. Could smell bread bakin’ when I was outside, sure to be a cook about somewhere. We need to be heading off on full stomachs anyways. Now how’s about you lot who need washin’ do somethin’ about that? Charlie, Silas and Astaroth, that means you. I’ll sort things with the kitchen.’