Page 118 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

He was so busy losing his mind that Pitch hardly registered that the knife he waved about like a mad conductor’s baton was no longer a knife at all. Or remotely a baton.

What he clutched so grimly, as though it might spring feathers and fly him out of this nightmare, was rounded, smooth, with an embedded warmth that distinguished wood from stone, nestled in the curve of his palm like it ought to be there. Pitch snatched his hand to his chest. Heat seared his eyes.

Silas’s bandalore.

Pitch’s entire world narrowed down to those two circular discs, with their bloodstained string.

He fell, but despised it all the more now.

The air was a roar against his ears, the snap of the coat wild around him, and he wished he could imprint a message on this blasted thing so when he was a sack of broken bones with nothing to say, Silas would hear him. He’d know how sorry Pitch was for saying too little, and being far too much.

Too much even for death’s blade to rescue. Far too much to deserve handling with any affection. Pitch closed his eyes. Fuck, he hated falling. And being silenced, when he had so much to say.

Scarlet punched him, right in the earhole. A fucking jolt to the senses if there ever was one. His eyes flew open, and he spewed a curse against his bind. The wisp dove under his chin, punching there too, forcing his head up.

Zaquiel. The angel was coming for him, one arm already reaching out, seeking to claim the falling daemon again. Pitch took up his clawing of the air once more, trying, albeit vainly, to make it more difficult to get ahold of him. All he managed to do was get himself tangled in Silas’s coat, a slap of material over his mouth, a whip of it against his arse.

Zaquiel was a mere foot away. He was so close to grabbing ahold that if Pitch could coordinate himself, he might manage to kick the bastard’s fingertips.

The sky lit up. Silver light streaked with yellow hues.

Zaquiel made a horrendous gurgling sound and grabbed at his own neck before he dropped from the sky. A bleak shadow stretched over Pitch, a darkness he feared was the ravens returned.

He was grabbed, a firm arm around his chest, his downward trajectory banished so suddenly that his chin nearly broke his collarbone. Pitch struggled, certain Harut held him, his world blurring through tears pricked free by the icy air.

‘Hold still, or would you like to keep falling?’

He heard his rescuer’s voice at the same time he saw the deep ebony of their hand at his chest. Pitch was struck through with bone-numbing relief.

The Valkyrie had him.

Sybilla wrapped about him, the astonishing shimmering plume of her night-struck wings distorting the air. ‘Can you turn around? Hold on to me so I can free my hands?’

He would do anything the Valkyrie wished, kiss her feet and nibble at the crud beneath her nails, so long as she did not let him fall anymore. The turnabout was far from elegant, and Pitch hoped to the gods she could feel nothing of his damp trousers. But with Sybilla’s assistance, the angel’s translucent wings, brushed with midnight hues and catching the light as though it were from the moon and not a sickly winter sun, swept them both upright. Pitch wrapped his legs about her middle and his arms about her neck, keeping the bandalore held tight.

‘There is a will-o’-the-wisp in your hair.’ Sybilla eased into forward flight. ‘With quite a lot to say.’

Pitch grunted.

‘Dear gods, tell me they have not cut out your tongue, because nothing else would keep you this quiet.’

Pitch lifted his head from her shoulder, where he’d been resting like an exhausted infant, and gave her an indignant glare. He mumbled against his bind, shaking his head and tilting his chin, a weird performance he hoped might give her the necessary clues. The angel though, was distracted, her eyes set on the clearing sky ahead, and above, and below. Skies that had become settled, no longer wind struck, the fog peeling away to allow hints of pale blue winter to push through. Skies unsettlingly devoid of other angels and raven hordes.

‘What are they playing at?’ she muttered.

Pitch dared loosen one hand long enough to touch her chin and gain her attention. When Sybilla scowled at him, he jabbed his fingers frantically at his lips, only for a few seconds. That was all he could stand before he needed to cling to her again.

But Sybilla was no stupid creature. ‘You can’t speak?’ The angel swore, and she shifted one hand from where it had pressed lightly around the small of his back. ‘Don’t let go.’ He huffed and rolled his eyes. Did she think him a lunatic as well as useless? They were still ridiculously high in the sky. ‘Tilt your head back. I need to see your mouth.’

On any other occasion, his reply would have been suitably crude, but Pitch was obedient. The Valkyrie brushed her fingers across the stone wall that kept him silent. The language of the angels whispered from her. How pompous that language usually sounded to him, revelling in its own vain exclusivity, but what utter music to his ears here.

The pressure at his mouth gave way, and his breath gasped free. And though his tongue was thick and the backs of his lips raw from the scraping of his teeth, Pitch’s words burst from him. ‘Silas…is he safe?’ He rasped like he’d smoked all the cigars in Mayfair. ‘The forest…Sherwood…did you see him?’

‘No, I haven’t seen him.’ Sybilla flew them about in a wayward pattern, never keeping to the same height for too long as the fog faded around them. ‘I’m sorry.’

Don’t be sorry!Pitch wanted to scream.Go and bloody find him!

‘Where the fuck has everyone been? Lalassu…she’ll find him, won’t she?’ He was a flying bundle of knots, but none greater than the twist at the centre of his chest. ‘Sybilla, you must take us to Sherwood.’