Page 63 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Sleep was rushing in. An irresistible fatigue.

But Pitch was determined to see one last task done. Concealed beneath Silas’s body, he pushed up a sleeve and pressed his longest nail into the fine skin beneath his wrist. He ground his teeth and bore down, slicing his fingernail through flesh, opening a wound deep enough to hide his treasure.

Beneath the slumbering weight of the ankou, Pitch moved blindly, unable to keep his eyes open any longer. He pressed the pendant watch into the deep incision, hissing his displeasure as the points on the crown snagged on vulnerable flesh. He shoved it deep, to where it nudged at the bone. Pitch brought a pinpoint of flame to his fingertip, just enough to cauterise the wound. His prowess for rapid healing would do the rest.

He entombed Seraphiel’s trinket in his body as surely as he and Silas were sealed in this gods-forsaken room.

Sleep hit in a swamping wave as he tugged down his sleeve, dragging Pitch down far below the surface, where he could not fight anymore.

CHAPTER TWENTY

SILAS SOUGHTescape from slumber the same way he sought to escape drowning at the hands of his brother in each of his deaths.

In a frenzy of mindless panic.

Reaching for the surface with a desperation that was all consuming.

His eyes flew open, his mouth wide, gasping for breath. And the name flew from him before he took stock of where he was.

‘Pitch. Pitch, where are you?’

Silas blinked, his voice echoing around him. The light was too bright for him to see clearly.

‘Here…I’m here,’ came a slurred response.

Silas tried to turn and move towards where the daemon was, somewhere off to his right, and found the bite of iron digging into his wrists. He grunted. Christ, he was groggy, his head filled with cotton. Or bricks. His skull was so bloody heavy. He wondered if he’d ever be able to lift it again.

Silas blinked once more, willing himself back to sensibility. He concentrated on breathing in air that no longer held the coarse and nefarious dust.

He was not lying on the ground. Pitch was not beneath him, as he’d been when sleep overcame them both. And this room, wherever it was, was far brighter than their stone cell.

He could not make out much of his surrounds but knew now he was on his knees. His coat was missing. Which meant his bandalore was too. His pulse thumped harder, and he had to work at keeping down the nameless panic once more. Silas breathed, as he so often told the prince to do. The Morrigan had already tried to take the bandalore from him. It was not so easy as it seemed. The scythe would find its way back to him. He must believe that, more fervently than ever before.

His arms were pulled out at an angle to his sides and held fast. He swayed, trying to keep steady enough to put up a decent struggle against the weight dragging at his wrists. The rattle of chains came with his movement.

Silas blinked more furiously. The sting of brightness faded, his vision clearing a little – though, he might have preferred it had not.

The prince was a few feet from him, also on his knees. His wig had been removed, his light waves a knotted mess. His coat was gone too, and his wrists bound in iron cuffs linked to chains that were anchored to the floor. A wooden floor, polished and gleaming.

‘Are you all right?’ Silas called. ‘Can you hear me?’

Pitch shrugged his shoulders, his chains clinking. ‘Fine. Fine. But I’d be better if left to my dreams.’ He turned his head and emerald glinted, the Lady’s alterations no longer evident. ‘You were doing marvellous things with your –’

‘Your eyes,’ Silas hissed. ‘They are green once more.’

‘You sound upset about that,’ Pitch said, swaying side to side against his chains. ‘You were not so in my dream, Sickle. Gods, you were –’

‘Stop.’ Silas did not mean to shout it. He glanced about, but the glare was still too much to see far. ‘Please, say no more. You need to rouse yourself –’

‘I was doing fine with that thanks to your –’

‘Dear god, stop talking. You’re half-asleep still. Wake up.’ Silas halted, thinking he’d heard something in the far recesses of the room.

A large room he surmised, from the way it had made his voice echo when he first called for the daemon.

‘Fuck my head hurts.’ Pitch shook himself, and the jangling of chains was like a badly orchestrated violin concerto. ‘Gods damn it, we’re in chains.’

‘Yes. I know.’ Silas exhaled. ‘And we’ve been moved. Do you have any idea where this might be?’ He squinted, which was helpful. He could just make out the spread of honey-coloured floorboards and white walls with fanciful gilded embellishments. Not sigils, thank Christ, rather the ordinary type of gilding one would find in a London ballroom. At the far end of the room was a raised platform, empty save for a smattering of potted palms. The sight tickled at Silas’s memories. His squint turned to a frown, and he tilted his head.