Page 79 of The Death Wish

‘What sort of power?’ Silas cast a glance over his shoulder. ‘Are you sure I can’t help you Charlie?’

‘Do I look like I need help, Silas?’

‘No, you don’t.’ He smiled, and his gentleness always managed to melt something in Pitch. No matter the circumstances. He became the focus of the ankou’s attentions once more. ‘Forgive me. Go on, what power do you think is here?’

Pitch shrugged, more to ease the tension in his shoulders than anything else. ‘At a guess, perhaps one of the seals is nearby. Three were set, and Seraphiel was responsible for one. I don’t see why else he’d be so intent on bringing me here otherwise. Do you sense anything of the Blight?’ But he knew the answer already. Silas was untroubled by souls. Pitch felt that he knew the man well enough–knew each tick of his jaw, every flicker of his eye–to know if Silas were in any distress.

‘No.’ Silas did not let him down. ‘In fact, there is more peace here than I experienced before we found the Priest’s Hole.’ He touched at his ear. ‘Though my ears are still ringing. Their din was terrible.’ Silas sighed, and rubbed at Pitch’s back. ‘I wish I had been able to find my way out of the loch, so I could have saved you from this place.’

Pitch laughed, and Edward made a small sound of discomfort at the sudden jolt. ‘Truly, you are the most sopping romantic I’ve known, and I’ve known my share.’

‘Oh, my dear fellow, I have barely begun. Once we have settled this matter, prepare to be swooning, noon and night, as I court you with an extravagance and charm of which the poets shall write, for ages to come.’

‘Do you have a fever?’

‘Only one that burns for you.’ Silas’s wink was ridiculous.

‘Charlie, hurry up at once. Silas is trying to kill me.’

The lad was close behind, not even puffing with the effort of carrying the king of Daemonkind; carrying Lucifer in such a way that his knees were very close to his chest, no doubt in a bid to keep his feet from dragging in the water thanks to the lad’s small stature. Pitch hoped for Charlie’s sake that the king wouldn’t wake soon. He’d not be pleased at being carried about like a bundle of rags. A bundle of rags being made a home for a will-o’-the-wisp, no less; Scarlet was there, half hidden by collar and hair, their glow subtle, a singular colour, a soft yellow, as though they sought to match themselves to the glint of leaves and air.

‘It sounds like a blasted lovely way to go,’ Charlie said. ‘If you ask me.’

‘Well, no one bloody asked you,’ Pitch huffed.

Silas’s low laughter held the gravitas of mountains. And Pitch grinned back at him. They were both acting a little mad; holding a nervous energy that needed placement.

Stupid sweet talk might be the only thing holding them both together.

They halted, just short of where the coarse sand gave way to the delicate velvet of verdant moss, and the gathering of trees; with their grand golden leaves and bone-white trunks. The thickness of their crowding was substantial, and at a glance Pitch could see no evident way through.

‘Are we supposed to chop our own path?’ he muttered.

Silas moved closer to the woodlands, where many of the trunks wrapped one another like serpents, whilst others stood straight as pillars. He strode up and down the beach, frowning, and muttering about how there seemed no visible way. The leaves shifted with a wind that did not reach them, Pitch felt no brush of it against his skin.

‘Perhaps it needs a taste of your blade,’ he called, casting an anxious glance down at Edward. He preferred the man thrashingabout, to this new…deadness. ‘Cut the fucking trees down, and let this be done with.’

The axe was not required. Scarlet whisked from their place at Lucifer’s collar, and flew straight past Silas who was pushing at a tree trunk, as though considering simply shouldering his way through. Pitch had no doubt it was possible.

Scarlet chirruped, their colours pulsing with the rainbow’s spectrum, though the yellow hues shone brightest of all, as though intensified by the damned amount of gold in the surrounds. Scarlet vanished between two trees that curved in towards one another like dancers bowing.

‘That’s too small a gap,’ Charlie said. ‘For me, let alone Silas.’

The ankou traipsed the line between sand and moss, moving to where the wisp had entered.

‘Scarlet?’ Silas leaned in towards the bowing trees. And took a step.

He promptly disappeared. Charlie gasped. Pitch scowled, gripping Edward tighter, letting more flame tease at his fingertips.

‘Silas?’

‘Illusion, another blasted illusion,’ The ankou shouted, and stepped back into view. Scarlet perched on the top of his head, waving bloated fingers, as though they’d been missing for months. ‘Rather clever though. Come on, this way.’

‘Go on, Charlie.’ Pitch nodded the lad ahead.

Silas vanished again, and then Charlie and his daemonic passenger did the same. Pitch stepped up to the bowed trees. They were not, as it had first appeared, side by side at all. But rather one was set at a short distance behind the other; and the gap between them allowed glimpse of a pathway. Silas and Charlie stood waiting, another tangle of trees just behind them, but, Pitch suspected, another gap was to be found there.

A trick of the eye; a well-loved trademark of the fae.