Page 124 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Silas released a contented sigh. ‘I am very glad you heeded him.’ His caresses struck up again. ‘Is there a chance you found Edward?’

Pitch was still scowling at the splatters upon his ankou, imagining the ways he would pick apart whoever was responsible. And it was just as he was considering how he might pull off their nails one by one that he spied the hulking masses approaching.

‘Gods.’ He untangled himself from the ankou. ‘Look out, Silas!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE FLAMEwas at Pitch’s fingertips too quickly, for it had barely heeded his demands to sink below the surface to begin with. The glow cast itself upon the monstrosities lurking behind the ankou.

Four great deformities, every bit as large as Silas but with a decided lack of his considerable charms.

‘No, no. Pitch, stop.’

The idiot, the absolute fool, wrapped his hands about Pitch’s wrists, staying just clear enough of the flames to avoid burns, but far too close otherwise.

‘Silas, damn it.’

‘Listen to me. These teratisms helped me find my way to you. Pitch, they heeded me. They overcame the Blight tolistento me. They are not lost.’

In this den of misfortune, Silas was happy. So very obviously astonished and delighted by his own achievement it was difficult not to grab at his solid chin and kiss the man soundly. But Pitch had already coveted the ankou too long.

‘I found Edward.’ It was blurted from him.

‘God, that’s wonderful.’

‘And Charlie.’

Silas’s breath ran uneven. And he seemed to hollow beneath his layers of grime and foul things. ‘Alive?’ he said, in a voice too tiny to belong to a man so great.

Perhaps Pitch left the air empty a moment too long, but the instant he brought Charlie to life, the ankou would take his soft touch and his warming gaze elsewhere.

Pitch was a selfish prick.

He opened his mouth to unbreak the ankou’s heart. And was beaten to it.

‘Silas Mercer, you look terrible.’

Gods, the look on the man’s face. He knew the lad’s voice well.

‘Charlie? Oh my god, Charlie.’

He did exactly as Pitch knew he would. The ankou left him. And though he knew, gods, heknewhe was being irrational and stupid and all the miserable things that came with this intolerable lunacy that was caring too deeply, Pitch could not bear to turn around and watch the reunion between them.

He listened to it. Heard the cries and the sobs and the breathlessness as they embraced. The jumble of words as they spoke over the top of one another. The hurried questions, the rushed answers. The joy of finding one another when all hope had been lost.

And Edward was not exempt. Silas was generous with his happiness, almost as verbose in his delight at seeing Edward again as he’d been with Charlie.

Everyone was so fucking happy. As though they’d forgotten where they were, and how stuck fast in that place they had become.

Pitch stared at the teratisms. Contorted, ugly versions of what they might have been once. And they stared back at him. At least as well as they could. One of them had a smoothed face of skin and no features. For a moment he was jealous of the monster who could see nothing, hear nothing.

‘You have the bandalore?’ Silas cried.

‘I have no idea how.’ Charlie laughed, slightly manic in his gaiety. ‘I woke to find it with me. I thought perhaps you had gotten it to me somehow…to keep me safe.’

‘No…I wish I could say it was…’ Silas’s confusion played through his words. ‘It found you somehow.’

‘It saved my life. Well, that and the bracelet…’ He held out his arm.