Page 26 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

The daemon tensed in his arms and stepped back with a suddenness that stopped Silas from preventing his escape this time. ‘I’m not cold.’

Silas tilted his head. ‘Pitch…you and I both know that is a lie. Will you tell me–’

‘Silas, for the gods’ sake…it is nothing…’

‘It is notnothingif it’s bothering you so. We must be open with each other. We have come too far for anything less.’ He was very aware of his own hypocrisy. ‘Speak your mind.’

Pitch waved his hand, seeming to battle with himself a moment. ‘Fine. You wish to know what is bothering me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here.’ Pitch threw out his hands, palms raised. A weak sheen of golden light lay beneath his skin. ‘Here is what is fucking wrong, Silas.Me.I am wrong.’

The glow was barely strong enough to reach into the narrow space between them.

‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Silas said carefully.

Pitch growled and turned to thrust one hand towards the kindling. A thin weaving flame sprouted from a single fingertip, not much bigger than that of a simple night candle. ‘I am stifled, Silas. Look at this piece of piss my flame has become. I can draw it out no more than this, not even when I knew you to be at the bottom of that fucking pond.’ He snapped his wrist, like he were trying to cast off his hand entirely. ‘Fuck, he has cursed me. The arsehole has fucking cursed me.’

Silas struggled to follow. ‘Who has done such a thing?’ He longed to be closer, to wrap his arms around the daemon who was so clearly in distress, but such a move was not wise when the prince was in a temper.

‘Who do you think, Silas? I went to see Edward!’

Silas waited, giving the daemon time to gather himself. Hating that he’d not been there. Pitch had been avoiding Edward’s sickroom like it truly held the plague.

‘The lieutenant has stifled your flame?’ Silas asked quietly.

‘Edward is a tool. Seraphiel did the stifling. I’ve heard him, again. And he had a lot to fucking say…’ Pitch paused, staring at the small flame he’d made.

‘Pitch? Go on.’ The daemon had told Silas of hearing the angel speak to him through Edward, at the Fulbourn. And with the divine magick used to ultimately save them from the asylum, it was clear that something monumental had occurred when the lieutenant received the watch. But what exactly? Even Pitch seemed at a loss to say.

‘The angel wishes me muzzled and the monster inside me buried deep.’

Pitch curled his fingers into a fist, extinguishing the flame. He stepped around Silas, who did not try to stop him, and made his way over to the most impressive piece of furniture in the room: a rectangular oak table with carved sleigh feet, far too elaborate for such a space, likely gracing a room in the main house before a new purchase had seen it abandoned here.

He stopped by a bucket which sat atop the table. A few days ago Silas had decided to begin conquering his fear by dunking his head in a bucket of rainwater. It turned out to be an embarrassingly inadequate solution. The daemon stared at his reflection in the water, the surface as still and blackened as night.

‘The angel gave my monster a name. Isn’t that nice? Behemoth, he called it.’ Pitch’s ridicule was rife. ‘Gods, the idiot was always one for grandeur and hyperbole.’

‘Behemoth? Are they not a creature of the Bible?’ Where that tug of knowledge came from, Silas did not know or care.

‘And as mythical as most others you shall encounter in the pages of those books.’ He took hold of one of the dun washcloths Silas had seen fit to bring down here when his dunking idea had seemed reasonable. Pitch balled up the cloth like he wished to squeeze the colour from the thread.

‘There is no such creature?’ Silas asked.

‘Not until now, apparently,’ Pitch replied. ‘And whatever it is, the Seraphim does not think me capable of carrying his burden so well anymore. He has sealed the wildness in. He told me it would weaken me but failed to tell me it would make me next to impotent.’ Far more than the chill caused Silas to shiver. ‘I thought you were drowning, Silas. I thought you in harm’s way…and I could not do a fucking thing to help you. I could not do anything but lose my bloody marbles.’ He shook his head, gripping the table. ‘You were seeking to make yourself stronger for me, while I was being made a greater burden for you.’

‘You are no burden, Pitch.’ Silas stood close, but not too close, behind the prince. Trying to fathom why the angel would disable the daemon so.

‘Says the man who carried me like I was a sack of fucking grain because I could not manage to walk myself.’

‘Well, I don’t mind carrying you, if I’m honest.’

Pitch teased the flame from his fingertip, singeing a black mark on the tabletop. ‘If you intend to find a silver lining with this, I think I shall throttle you.’

Detecting a lighter note in the prince’s tone, Silas moved up behind him and wrapped his arms about his waist. Pitch went stiff, and Silas enveloped him tighter.

‘With what you have just told me, it is certainly understandable that you feel so disconcerted. But we have been sorely tested before, we shall see our way–’