Page 142 of The Simurgh

He was not drowning.

This Flood could not touch him.

Silas met the glass, a blur of wonderful colours, and slipped straight through without shattering a pane. Lalassu’s hold upon his waist loosened.

Silas hit the wooden floors of the church, sliding with a shout down the middle aisle. He was vaguely aware of being surrounded. The church seemed full to the brim with figures, but only one mattered. ‘Pitch, look out.’

The daemon was in a dazed crouch, halfway down the aisle, a puddle of water about his knees. Further back, the Pale Horse stood framed in the doorway of the church.

‘Get outta the way, you daft sod!’ Someone all too familiar cried as they lunged for the prince, dragging him clear as Silas careened past. He stuck out his hands trying to grab a hold of the passing pews, but only succeeding in dragging them along with him, making all manner of a ruckus.

A wind caught him, buffeted his steam train barrage to a slow dawdle. A jasmine scented breeze that finally brought him to a halt at Lalassu’s feet.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE MAREsnorted, nuzzling at his cheek, and Silas laid his forehead against her muzzle.

‘Thank you, my friend,’ he whispered.

A hand settled on his shoulder and without looking to see who it was he reached and covered it with his own.

‘Are you all right, my love?’

‘I am.’ Pitch knelt beside Silas, and laid a kiss against his sodden hair, lingering there. ‘And you?’

‘All the better now.’

‘Jesus, you pair were sickenin’ enough when I last saw ya, but this is a whole new kettle ‘a fish.’

Silas raised his head.

‘’Allo, Mercer.’ Tyvain stood over him a wide grin on her face, her freckled cheeks flushed pink, her face damp. Water, or perhaps sweat, earned from wrestling a daemon out of harm’s way. Her auburn hair was in the most atrocious tangle of knots he’d known. ‘Don’t you fellas believe in wearing clothes anymore?’

He opened his mouth to reply, right as the timbers of the church let out a deep, rumbling groan.

The soothsayer’s smile vanished. ‘Oh, come on. Ain’t we all had enough for one day?’

Pitch sighed. ‘Apparently not.’

Silas rose to his feet, aided by Pitch and Tyvain who was being very plain about what she thought of the state of them.

‘Look like bleedin’ ‘ell, the pair of ya. Mercer, that’s not an exaggeration for you. You’re drippin’ something fierce.’

‘I’m quite aware.’

The moans of the church continued. But were not entirely made by the structure itself. The faint song of the teratisms found him, though he could barely make out the souls who watched from the shadows in the corners of the church.

They drifted towards him, growing more defined. Not all were teratisms, at least not yet. Among the range of foul injuries, including one who looked to have been run over by a wagon, there were those who’d simply not been ready yet to let go.

‘Silas? What is it?’ Pitch nudged him. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Tyvain chuckled. ‘Bet you’ve been wantin’ to say that a while.’

‘So long.’

Silas ignored them both.

‘There are lost souls all around us.’