Page 65 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Tobias. I think he has a damned cold. He should barely have a sniffle, let alone a cold. Why did you not tell me the full extent of his woes?’

With both of them deeply hooded against the weather, Silas did not have to look her in the eye.

‘I did try, at the stables as we readied the carriage. But it has been a tumultuous day.’ Silas cleared his throat. ‘There has scarcely been chance to speak of it again.’ A woeful excuse, and he knew it.

‘No chance to tell me the Berserker Prince is weak as a fucking lamb?’

Silas did glance her way, but he saw only the fabric of his own hood. He’d assumed Sybilla knew Pitch’s full identity; she’d been the one to tie his tongue, after all. But her words reminded Silas this was not the only secret he’d been keeping.

‘I told them,’ he blurted, like a firework suddenly lit. ‘In the Fulbourn, I let it slip that he is the prince.’ Silas had not known the weight of his secret until it was being shed. ‘They suspected already…after he survived the Gu and the…’ He stopped there. He’d not breathe the Alp daemon’s name. ‘I made a terrible mistake, I didn’t know I could be heard. Now they know for certain who he is.’

Sybilla sat beneath her hood awhile, the carriage rattling its way over a road that grew increasingly rutted by the heavy rain.

‘I’m not sure it truly matters anymore, Silas. Regardless of his rank, the Morrigan know he is the one they want, and have likely known since Gidleigh Park.’ Silas’s grip on the reins tightened at mention of the place. ‘And after the lengths you went to, to retrieve Edward, it is clear he is important too. There is nothing more vital now than getting the both of them safely to this blasted Sanctuary.’

‘I’d feel a damned sight better about doing so if we had Lalassu and Sanu with us.’

Sybilla sighed. ‘As would I, Silas. But do you not think they would be here if it were possible? Or was the right place to be in the circumstances?’

‘Are you suggesting they have better things to do than protect the man who is being hunted the length and breadth of this country?’

Sybilla shifted beneath her folds, the rain loud against the stiffer leather of her coat. ‘Sometimes the best protection is distance.’

‘What a load of rot,’ Silas fumed. ‘He is vulnerable, Sybilla. You’ve seen it. This is far worse than how he was after Goodrich Castle. At least then he still had the flame, he could still defend himself. He is vulnerable now as he’s not been before.’

‘Which would have been very, very useful to know before we headed off on our little journey. I’ve given him a sleeping draught to settle him because he was driving me mad with wishing to be out of the cabin. I’ve never known him so…so fearful. And I see why. He’s not healing as he should. I’m quite certain his bone is still fractured, and the skin has barely begun to knit. He is cut and bruised badly from a strike to the head that might have left barely a bump before. Even when he let himself get pummelled in the boxing ring, it took a decent few rounds to damage him. Damn it, Silas. What has happened? Was it the Fulbourn?’

‘No. Well, that drained him, certainly. But it was made worse when he went to see Edward. The angel meddled with him again, Sybilla. He has placed a seal on his flame.’

‘Why would he do that?’

A vicious snap of thunder stole Silas’s answer. The horses shied, dragging the carriage far too close to the muddy gutters. ‘That thunder seemed close.’ Silas worked to bring them back on track. ‘Still no word from Matilda?’ He grunted as the bay on the left resisted him.

‘Nothing.’

‘Does that not worry you?’

‘Very much so. But it is midway down on a long list.’

The world shone white and brilliant, and both Silas and Sybilla twisted in their seat, trying to catch glimpse of where the lightning originated. That particular strike was gone before they could turn, but only a few seconds later another took its place: a sear of white due south, piercing the ground with three prongs, a design not unlike Pitch’s tattoo.

A great wind struck the carriage, bullying Silas’s hood, trying to unbalance him from his seat with its fierce rush. The carriage was pushed forward, spooking the unsettled horses. Silas wrenched his attention back to keeping them on the road, but his mind raced.

‘Has the storm not tended west until now?’ He raised his voice against the strength of the wind. ‘Or is that another front there to the south?’ He tried to peer past his hood. West. Where only a faint haze of grey sat now. The ominous darkness of earlier gone.

‘It is the same storm.’ Sybilla stood and turned to rest one knee against the seat, holding fast to the metal rung that trimmed the carriage roof, her gaze on the land behind them. ‘And from the suddenness of the shift I’d say its certain now there is nothing regular about the weather.’

‘Matilda? Or the Hunt?’ That last did not sit well to think on.

‘The Hunts I’ve known did not include air or water elementals, but those were before the time of the Morrigan, nothing is as it bloody seems anymore.’ She shouted to make herself heard over the beating of the rain upon the carriage roof and the wind hissing across the open landscape. There was no sign of a decent tract of forest to shelter in so far as Silas could see. The rain came down as though Enoch had decided to wipe out the world with another flood. ‘And if it is Matilda then she is using all her might to vex something in her path. I don’t like either of the possibilities. Nor do I like how it has shifted far closer than before.’

‘But it’s not following us, is it? The hexes you’ve placed on the carriage, they keep us hidden. That’s what you said.’ Silas’s pulse pounded in time with the horses.

Sybilla cursed and dropped down heavily onto the seat. ‘And that’s what they do. I did not make the tale up.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m just –’

‘Concerned. I know. So am I, Silas.’