Page 2 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

The daemon had slipped his hand behind the ankou’s neck, urging him closer, vanishing any ambiguity. With a hushed sigh, Silas had leaned down.

Only to be slapped back.

‘Gods, get out! Get out!’ The daemon had rolled away, lunging for the chamber pot beneath the bed, and been very, vigorously ill.

That gut-churning path had continued for him ever since. Reaching for the pot once or twice an hour, according to Jane, and Tyvain, who had only dared go in the once and not again, for fear the daemon would make good on his promise to tip the severe black liquid he was vomiting all over her.

Silas had not been allowed anywhere near the sickroom…his own bedroom…ever since.

Now here he stood, flowers in hand, listening in like the voyeur Pitch accused him of being.

‘Oh fuck,’ the unhappy prince cried. ‘Are you not done with tormenting me, you daft elemental cow?’

‘Do stop carrying on. So long as the akaname are still feeding, it means you have Gu left in your blood. Wouldn’t you rather it all be gone, or do you think it quite fetching to be doubled over and hurling your guts out?’

‘Piss off.’

‘Good gods, sit still, will you?’ Jane admonished. ‘They keep sliding off. You need to let them get their pincers into you.’

Silas set his hand on the door handle, his guilt growing. If he had heeded Pitch’s warning about Balthazar Crane, they would never have stopped at Gidleigh House. And there would be no need for the daemon to havepincersset upon him at all.

‘Right, well that’s all of them. None left after this, so we best hope they finish the job,’ Jane said. ‘Mr Ahari says you are to leave them on as long as you can endure.’

Rightfully so, Pitch thought little of that and voiced his displeasure in no uncertain, rather bawdy terms. Silas was so preoccupied with how painful this supposed treatment was that he heard no sign of Jane readying to leave until the door handle turned beneath his grasp.

He took a hurried step back, as though he were the sort of man who could slink into the shadows.

The door opened and Jane appeared. The oddest thing occurred. A melody played in Silas’s mind. One he could read as though it were sheet music before him. The way an educated man might read the newspaper.

Elemental. Air.

Of course, he’d already been told what type of natural Jane was, but now Silasknewit.

Silas could not see the hues, the auras, that surrounded naturals, for the most part. He’d glimpsed the aura on the traitorous ankou, Balthazar Crane, and the melody denoting his presence had played along, sure enough. But that day it had been the bandalore singing the ankou’s truth. Not today. The scythe was in a mother-of-pearl inlaid jewellery box on the mantel downstairs.

The greensward had, it seemed, done more than shake loose distant, ancient memories.

‘Did I startle you, Silas?’ Jane smiled. ‘If you were seeking to hide, it can be difficult to do from one like me.’ She touched her nose. ‘Especially when you have those lovely specimens with you.’ Jane nodded her head at the flowers in Silas’s grasp.

He hid them behind his back. ‘How is he?’

She wore her long hair tied back in a single bind, and a dress of loose chequered linen. ‘Aside from cantankerous, whiny, and generally in a mood?’ she said. ‘He is handling it reasonably well. He’s not being ill so often and says the cramps are not as bad now. It looks promising.’ She patted the small metal box she carried, a biscuit tin for shortbread normally. ‘Can’t say the same for the akaname though. They don’t last long after they have a full belly of the stuff. But they aren’t known as filth-lickers for nothing. Their propensity for a diet of fouler things seems to be getting the job done. Mr Ahari made a good call with recommending them.’

Silas nodded, peering over her shoulder. He could just make out the foot of the bed, and a lumpy shape beneath the covers that might be Pitch’s feet. Heat emanated from the room, as likely from the daemon himself as the small crackling fire in the hearth.

‘Would you like to go in?’ Jane stepped aside.

‘He doesn’t want me there.’

‘Go away, Silas.’ Pitch was muffled.

‘See?’

‘He’s an idiot.’ Jane shrugged. ‘And you are here anyway.’

‘I said no, Silas.’ The daemon was firm. Definitely cantankerous.

A displaced wind moved against Silas’s back, sending his hair into his eyes. The force of the sudden breeze pushed him forward, sending him across the threshold of his room.