Page 64 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Three chandeliers ran the centre line of the ceiling, fine pluming displays of cut crystal. Despite the glare filling the room, they appeared unlit, and with only a few paltry sconces along the walls, their flames tiny and frail, the reason for the brightness in the room was puzzling.

‘Why are we in a ballroom?’ Pitch grunted. ‘Are they going to try to dance us to death? Make our brains bleed through our ears after countless hours of Brahms?’

‘I doubt that is their first choice in punishment. Does this place seem familiar to you?’

‘In the way of half the ballrooms in London.’

Silas looked to him. ‘Are we back in London, then?’

‘Not unless they have used their pissy magic to make pixie dust far more enduring than it is. It lasts an hour or two at most on any natural I’ve known. A handy come-down when one has indulged too hard in snowier things.’

‘So we are unlikely to have been shipped back to London,’ Silas said.

‘Very unlikely.’ Pitch ducked his head, wincing. ‘Gods, my head. It is positively splitting. I think they struck me.’

‘While you were sleeping?’ Utter bastards.

‘More likely because I was not. I’ve used the dust so many times…maybe I didn’t sleep as deeply as they’d have liked.’

‘It seems so bright in here. Yet there are only a few candles lit.’

‘That’s the dust. The sensitivity to light will fade quickly. Which is good, because right now, you look a fool with all the squinting.’

He stared hard at the daemon. ‘Really? That’s all you can say at a time like this?’

‘Apologies, should I mention again that we are chained? Like goats set out to tempt the wolves?’

‘No.’ Frustration and panic raised Silas’s tone. ‘Bloody hell. You should be talking of ways to extricate us from this predicament, damn you. Saying something useful instead or resorting to pointless dribble about goats.’

Despite his best attempts to steady his breath, to try to stay the terror that bubbled inside him, Silas’s lungs were tight to the point of suffocating.

‘Pointless dribble?’ Pitch sniffed. ‘Says the man who can wax lyrical about a weed all bloody day. Oh, or a gooseberry bush. My gods, that day you tried to convince me of their merit was excruciating.’

Silas glared. ‘Damn you, it was not a gooseberry bush. I knew you weren’t listening to a word I said.’

‘I didn’t care to hear about your weeds.’

‘It was not a weed. It was a blackberry bush.’

‘Either way, it had prickles which you did not warn me about.’

‘I told you several times the blackberry had them.’ Christ. Even at a time so dire the prince was infuriating. ‘But you insisted on snatching at one without so much as your gloves. I distinctly told you to be careful.’

‘I think I have the thorn still in my thumb. It pains me to this day.’

‘Youpain me, honestly.’ Silas shook his head, edging about on his knees so he could better turn towards the daemon. He forgot for a moment what dug into his wrists. ‘And that thorn is long gone. At least the blackberry thorn is. Who knows what else you’ve been up to. I removed it and recall it distinctly because you actually thanked me for it. An event so rare as to be memorable.’

‘Clearly the toxin from the shrub had gone to my head.’

In spite of it all, a laugh spilled from Silas. ‘They don’t bloody have toxins. The berries are really quite…’ He fell silent. The tightness in his chest had eased, he had a crooked smile on his face. He nodded at the prince, who was smiling too. ‘Thank you.’

The ludicrous conversation had him breathing again. He blinked and the glare deadened. The room was actually in the grip of twilight, as though only one or two shutters were opened to allow the day in. But there were no shutters nor day, just the smattering of candles in their sconces to cast shadows across Pitch’s face as he watched Silas.

‘It shall be all right, you’ll see,’ the daemon said. ‘But keep yourself clear-headed for me, my knight. Put your fears down deep as you can and lock them away, for there is no place for them here. You’ll not be able to help Charlie if you cannot rescue yourself.’ He paused. ‘Stay with me. Keep to my side, and I promise you, we shall meet this challenge as we have all others. Do you understand me?’

Silas stared at him.Nowhe could imagine Vassago at the head of his legion. A glorious vision, his words dripping like honeyed wine, stirring his soldiers on.

‘I understand,’ Silas whispered. ‘I will always stay with you.’