Page 134 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Pitch swung his legs over the edge of the window seat, pleased with how easy it was to do so. He could feel nothing of the tightness of the amuletum at his back. It had not been replenished, and yet no angry aches and pains plagued him.

So far.

The sitting room he was in was a cosy affair, with a wall of books and a couple of armchairs resting before a healthy fire, and there was a faint waft of something baking beyond the closed doors.

His bare feet searched for the ground and touched instead on something cool and hard and rounded. He’d almost trodden on a pile of tangled necklaces, pearls mostly, along with a hairbrush, a mahogany comb and a hand mirror with a soft embroidered back needled with a posy of violets.

As he scowled down at the collection, the doors to the sitting room opened in a rush. Pitch raised his head, the ankou’s name on his lips.

But it was not Silas at all.

‘Fire man.’

The squeal might have annoyed him far more if all his attention were not stolen by the sight. The irritating child from the Crimson Bow entered the room in a peculiar fashion. Tilly sat perched atop the skriker like a tiny jockey. Fat little hands stuck into coarse black fur, her chubby legs clad in yellow knickerbockers, a white linen blouse covering the rest. Her fair hair, near to snow in colour, was caught up in all manner of clips and bows that sparkled as Silas’s hound lumbered across the rug, baleful eyes set on Pitch as it went.

‘Fire man,’ the child said again, those distinctive olive-green eyes with their rim of amber were wide with delight. A dreadful smear of claret marred her lips. She had evidently decided to play with someone’s rouge with disastrous results.

Pitch drew his legs back up onto the window seat. ‘Shoo.’ He flicked his fingers. ‘Go away. Both of you.’

Forneus heaved a sigh and plonked himself down just shy of the gathering of trinkets on the floor. Tilly dismounted with all the grace of a lush arriving home after a night of swizzling. She thumped on the ground. Momentum rolled her onto her side, but she managed to keep ahold of the article she clutched in one bunched fist. She got to her feet and toddled towards him.

‘Oh shit, go away…Silas!’ How long did it take the blasted ankou to negotiate a few rooms? ‘Silas, for fu–’ He caught himself. ‘Where the blazes are you?’

‘You safe.’ Tilly was a determined little changeling, no doubt about it. Forneus trotted off to lump himself in front of the fire, no use at all. ‘You safe now, fire man.’

She reached out, uncurling her stubby little fingers. She held the pair to the amber earring she’d given him, the one with a tiny flower embedded in the rock and a gold leaf forming the clasp. Pitch had handed the one he’d had over to the itchy, bloodied man in the Fulbourn.

‘I don’t want your earring.’

Tilly was not taking no for an answer. She grabbed at the blankets, meaning to hoist herself up.

Footsteps thumped into the room. And finally, there he was. Pink-cheeked, slightly wild-eyed, his jawline shaded dark with the creeping return of his beard giving him an unkempt, deliciously brutish look.

‘What’s wrong?’ Silas scanned the room.

‘This.’ Pitch jabbed his finger at the child, who leaned over the edge of the seat, legs dangling, trying to draw herself up by using the blanket as a climbing rope. ‘What is it doing here?’

‘Damn it, don’t frighten me like that.’ Silas exhaled. ‘It was not safe to leave Tilly and her mothers behind. Likely Old Bess will harbour them at Harvington Hall once arrangements have been made.’

‘And we are where?’

‘It belongs to a benefactor of Ada and Nancy’s who went abroad years ago and decided not to return. He’d always extended an invitation to them to use it when they saw fit…’ Silas lifted his arms. ‘And well, they saw fit. We are a decent way from Cambridge, a few hours northeast. The Fulbourn is far behind us.’

Pitch could not help his shudder. ‘Why were we not taken back to the Village? To London?’

Silas made his way across the room, glancing at Forneus by the fire. ‘There are some concerns that it is not so secure as we may like. I told Satine of how the sorceress seemed to know you’d been ill for days with the Gu, of how they seemed to know of your phone call to Kaneko too, plus the places that appeared in the Sanctuary, like the hallway from The Atlas. She did not take it well.’

‘Have them start with Kaneko if they are looking for a traitor.’

‘Any reason?’ Silas leaned against the wall beside the window. ‘Or just because he does not fill your glasses as full as you’d like at The Atlas?’

Pitch’s scowl veered too close to a smile. There was something oddly pleasant in being known so well. ‘He was at the soirée. He might have noticed me and alerted them. Did Macha not say there was a tsukumogami at the marquess’s ball they used to watch you tread on people’s feet?’

‘She did, but is that to say every single tsukumogami is a spy? Could not the phone at The Atlas be rigged somehow? Besides, at the soirée the elixir was still working well. Kaneko didn’t know you were there. And Macha said Mr Fothergill was their peeping Tom there.’

‘Regardless.’ Pitch huffed at the common sense. ‘Kaneko is a terrible barkeep.’

Silas’s placating smile should have been very annoying, but clearly Pitch was not himself, for he thought it rather charming.