Page 11 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

Edward’s stare was discomforting. If Pitch was not mistaken, there was a tinge of citrine now spreading through the grey. ‘You know of what I speak. Time is of the essence. We have already delayed here too long–’

‘Because you are lying half-dead in this bed, Edward. You cannot be moved, and you are the only one who knows where we must go next.’

‘The escape from the Fulbourn taxed me greatly.’

‘Taxed us all fucking greatly.’

Edward carried on as if he had not spoken. ‘The divine magick of the Holy One is not meant for one such as I, just as the burden you carry is not meant for a creature even so powerful as yourself. You are at your limits, Vassago…Tobias. You must know it. But there is much to be done. Give me your hand. Let him see how you fare.’ Edward gasped and his body jerked, a hard contorting shift that bucked his hips off the bed. His head slammed down against the pillow.

‘Shit.’ Pitch shoved the chair aside. ‘Charlie! Bess!’

‘Not yet. Your hand.’ Edward panted, eyes rolling in his head, unable to find focus.

‘No. You need help, Edward.’

‘Please, Tobias…he must see the flame.’ A savage spasm rent through him and he cried out. The veins in his neck bulged. ‘Your hand.’

Every fibre of Pitch’s being was repelled at the idea of letting Edward touch him. He wanted the angel–or whatever the fuck was consuming Edward–nowhere near him or his flame. The creation flame was for a daemon as a heart was for a purebred. The source of life, the core of being.

At least, that was how it usually was. That was how itshouldbe, if an angel did not meddle so thoroughly that a daemon couldn’t be sure which, if any, parts of himself were truly his own.

‘He intends no harm, Tobias,’ Edward gasped, his legs twitching beneath the covers.

‘Harm is exactly what he intends. Is that not the whole point of this?’

Edward grimaced, rolling onto one side, causing the pendant watch to dangle and swing. Footsteps came from further down the corridor, perhaps Charlie or Bess heeding Pitch’s summons.

Perhaps Silas returning.

But the bedroom door swung shut, closing with a definitive click. The lieutenant’s discomfort gurgled from him, along with a thin trail of blood from his nostrils.

‘Shit.’ Pitch abandoned thoughts of telling Seraphiel, or whatever had Edward writhing, to fuck off and leave them all be. The idea was as ludicrous as his notion of running away.

If the Fulbourn had taught him nothing else, it was that pretending something didn’t exist did not make it so.

‘Enough. Stop, you bastard. Seraphiel let him be.’

Pitch snatched up Edward’s hand.

CHAPTER FOUR

SILAS SANKbeneath the surface and his scream bubbled and boiled. The cold struck his heart, squeezed his lungs and cries from him until he was empty and desperate for air. He clawed at the surface, a rabid wild animal seeking escape from tall grass in a jungle. Silas erupted from the water with a holler that barely tainted the air, for there was no breath to strengthen it.

Panting, dribbling the gritty pond water, Silas inhaled until his chest puffed and his nostrils could flare no wider.

Christ.

He was upright. He was jellied by fear, but goddamn it, he’d done it.

Silas’s laughter was sharp. He raised his arms and punched at the laden sky. ‘Did you see that?’ He hiccoughed his ecstasy. Asking the question of mindless clouds and the hidden frogs, the only audience to his great feat. ‘Did you all see that? I was under…I was under…and I did not lose my mind.’

Not entirely.

He was, though, in danger of losing the tip of his tongue with how violently his teeth chattered. Silas shoved his hands through his hair, slicking the finger-length strands tight against his skull. The grit was a pumice against his skin.

Shit, he was cold, but one brief moment submerged would hardly suffice. He must go again. Further out.

The loch that had taken him was unfathomably deep. There had been no hope of finding solid ground. He should go deeper this time, somewhere he could at least pretend there was an abyss beneath him.