Page 27 of The Simurgh

‘Those were not the words I thought to come from your mouth.’

Silas glared at the Dullahan, who sat, legs crossed, in a wing-back chair by the fire. He wore a fitted brown leather coat with gold buttons and creme lace cuffs draping over his white gloves, with contrasting black leather trousers that were insensibly tight. He held a small crystal glass, a golden brown liquid within. Sherry. The sweet scent hovered in the room. It seemed a ludicrous idea, a headless horseman with a drink in hand. But perhaps not so much as it had been before now. Before Silas was rendered unconscious he’d thought he’d glimpsed the Dullahan’s features. Now, it was undeniable. Byleist’s true face was evident with the glow of the hearth behind. Faint still, like a watercolour not yet finished, but discernible. Firelight caught at the pointed tips of his ears and clung to the array of ringed gold earrings that rode from lobe to point. His hair was draped over one shoulder, long enough to pool in his lap. Its hues were shifting shades of purple, from lilac to violet, with a glimpse of plum at the shorter lick of hair that framed his cheek and hooked beneath his sharp chin.

‘Are you quite well, Lord Death?’ The Dullahan tilted his glass back and forth, the two black pits he had for eyes fixed upon the shift of the liquid.

‘No, I’m not damned well…I was dreaming…’ He halted, realising what he’d missed. ‘Your hand.’ The Dullahan woretwowhite gloves. His left hand, the hand that had for so long held the bone whip, and the one that Silas had cut away, was restored.

The Dullahan lifted his glass, two fingers and a thumb around the narrow stem. ‘Believe me, the gloves are necessary. But I’m grateful for the growth nonetheless. Unexpected, but welcome.’

There was something bothersome about Byleist’s words. An anomaly Silas could not quite land on, on account of his head feeling full of marshmallow, and the fullness of his thoughts still trapped in that dark place with Pitch.

‘Why did you do that?’ Silas said absently.

‘Grow a new hand?’ The not-quite-headless horseman shrugged. ‘I truly have no idea.’

‘No, not that.’ Silas scowled, though it was indeed perplexing. ‘The pixie dust. Why the bloody hell did you just knock us all out?’

‘Because he told me to. And it was in your best interest to comply.’

‘Who? Who bloody told you? Mr Ahari?’

A groan came from across the way. Tyvain rolled her head back and forth, her red strands catching at her open mouth. But she did not wake. Nor did the angel.

‘Shit, Sybilla.’ At least they had managed to get the angel onto the settee before Byleist decided they all needed a nap, but she hardly looked comfortable. One leg had slipped off the edge, her slipper touching the well-worn rug. She had one arm flung overhead, as though she sought to grab a hold to keep herself from sliding off entirely.

The Valkyrie snored heavily, her damaged nostrils and throat working against the air she tried to breathe.

‘Wake them, now, Dullahan.’

‘I’d prefer you call me Byleist, my lord. I’d rather forget that part of my–’

‘Good god!’ Silas roared. ‘Wake them now, before I decide it best you lose all your limbs.’

Silas lifted Sybilla’s leg gingerly, the thin fabric of her nightgown doing very little to conceal her wounds.

‘She is far more comfortable asleep, I assure you. Those are some very nasty burns.’

Silas sent his most unfriendly glare the Dullahan’s way. Byleist inclined his head, setting down his glass and rising from his chair.

‘As you wish, my lord.’ He moved to Tyvain, who was having quite the mumbled conversation with her dream companions. ‘I thought they might all wake now, as you did. But that was foolish of me to think so, for they are not Silas Mercer.’

He was struck by what it was that confused him about the Dullahan. Something beyond the appearance of his face, or his hand.

‘You are speaking,’ Silas said. ‘In the true way, I mean. Not in my mind.’

Gone was the whispering tenor, the brush against his mind like fields of wheat bowing in the wind.

‘I’m not sure if you are asking or telling? But yes, I have found my tongue. And the rest, it would seem.’ Byleist swept his palm beneath his chin. ‘I’ve been admiring myself in the mirror while you groaned your way through your dreams. Aren’t I quite lovely?’

‘Why?’

‘Just born lucky, I suppose.’

Silas’s temper flared. ‘Not that. Why are you changing so? The face, the voice…your hand returned.’

‘Not quite returned, unfortunately, but better than a stump, I suppose.’ Byleist’s features were still difficult to read. Firelight or not, he was ethereal, fine to the point of barely existing at all. ‘And we are all changing, are we not? Lord Death, restorer of angels.’

Silas could not find a reply.