Page 5 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Go in, Silas. Don’t be such a dolt.’

Hidden frogs croaked their agreement. Apparently a crowd of them had gathered to watch this show.

Silas shook himself, prepared to move. ‘He’ll not see you lose your senses again over a tub. I’ll not have it. Now bloody well get in and get it over with.’

Certainly, he’d rather eat one of those raucous frogs than allow the daemon to see him brought to tears again by a harmless body of water.

Harmless body of water? Good god, who was he kidding?

Silas swallowed hard.

He did not truly see a weed-laden pond or, the other night, a copper tub filled with steaming water. What Silas saw was a massive, frightening, churning body of water. A loch. A grave.

His fear was a tattoo set beneath his skin by hundreds of years of pressure. Christ almighty, of all the memories he could have lost, why not the one that contained his death?

But resenting his lot would not protect Pitch. The Morrigan were many things, but Silas doubted they were foolish enough not to understand Pitch was the Horseman they should fear most.

That the prince was their nemesis.

‘Finish this, man,’ he hissed at himself as something splashed further out in the pond.

Pitch was coveted. By the Morrigan. By the Seraphim who still plagued him. And by the Order.

None of them wished him any peace. None loved him. So far as Silas could see, he was alone in that.

He put one foot in front of the other. The water rose, crept up his belly, played at the bottom of his ribs.

His fears darted about, swift as minnows, but he was not yet paralysed by them.

‘You are braver than a fish, you fool,’ he muttered. ‘And they don’t mind the water. Move your grand arse deeper.’

The silt was disconcerting, thick in an unpleasant way, like he’d stood in a heap of fresh dung.

Another splash. This time closer to where he stood. The strangled croak of frogs lifted higher. Silas paused.

He should not have done so.

The hesitation gave his fear a place to settle its claws, rousing the murderous weight of a thousand deaths.

‘Fuck.’ Cold as he was, he grew colder still. The type of chill that only the mind could muster. ‘No. No.’

Silas dug his feet into the silt, desperate to ground himself somehow. The chorus of the frogs grew in unison with the rise of his terror. The rain drummed a shallow beat upon his skull. Hammering him down.

Memories, as brutal as the Dullahan’s whip, tangled about him. Over and over they wove.

His brother pushing him from the boat.

His cries that tore his throat to shreds.

Theknowingthat he would not be saved.

Oh god, he couldn’t do this. He was failing.

Silas bit his tongue so hard his mouth filled with copper and heat. A scream built in the middle of his chest, and the water shook as he began to rattle himself to pieces. Silas closed his eyes tight. Staring straight into the monstrous eyes of his fear which roared up to meet him.

He was sinking, but not in the way he’d intended.

The choir of frogs hit their high notes. A piece of the real world seeping into the darkness he was drowning in.