Page 60 of The Simurgh
Bess groaned, clutching his hands to his chest. ‘Not safe for you, Silas. No. No, I cannot do that.’
A surge of rage threatened, and the ring pinched at him fiercely.
Silas saw his way clear. ‘Forgive me for this, Bess,’ he said. ‘But I cannot waste more time.’ He reshaped the ring into a tiny carving knife, and before Bess could utter another word, Silas sliced the tip against his forearm, a cut of no more than an inch.
Hoping against hope that the scythe’s touch might kill off, or weaken, the enchantment that gripped the half-fae.
‘Gods!’ Bess cried. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re…’ He winced, as though the utterance were bitter, and the shadow left his features. ‘Oh Silas…my head…stone the blasted crows…’ He thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘Curse that bastard…you are right. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Silas. That daemon had me all befuddled.’
Silas nearly bubbled out of his own skin with urgency, Tyvain’s words loud in his head. ‘Pitch is running out of time. Can you help me into the cockaigne?’
Bess’s glassy-eyed look was gone, replaced with heart-wrenching desolation. He shook his head, and dust shifted from slackening ringlets. ‘My sister’s strength is astonishing…I thought Jacquetta the most powerful of us all…but I fear Palatyne has deceived us for a long time. I don’t know if I can do it, Silas. I don’t know if Iwantto do–’ Bess gasped, slapping his hand across his mouth. ‘Fuck that devil. The enchantment still compels me. Cut me again.’
With only the briefest hesitation, Silas did so, this time with Bess watching closely as the blade drew blood. A tinge of grey marked the edge of the skin around the first cut. The storm-cloud, bruised pallor of the freshly dead.
Both saw it, he knew. No one spoke of it.
‘Better, better.’ Bess’s inhaled deeply. ‘Oh gods, Silas. I fear I am not strong enough for this.’
‘You are. I do not doubt that.’
‘You’ve always been a sweet man, but Lucifer has great strength. Not magick, not exactly, but without his aid, I doubt I could have opened the gateway.’
Silas took hold of Bess’s stubbled chin, ensuring they were eye to eye. ‘I am strong. Much more than when last we were together.’ He let his hand slip to Bess’s shoulder. The master of Harvington Hall was a solid man, more muscular than his usual attire of pretty gowns revealed. ‘I struck down the ankou who deceived us. I have Balthazar Crane’s scythe now. I will find the strength you need for this,’ he decided against any mention of Sybilla’s brush with death, ‘but please hurry.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Bess squeezed his eyes closed. ‘Gods know I failed Tobias once already after Kaneko died, blaming him as I did…’ He leaned into Silas, who encircled an arm around him. Bess wore a corset somewhere beneath the layers, which only made Silas’s desperation worse. ‘Help me to the window. Are you here alone?’
‘For now, yes. But Jane and Tyvain are on their way.’ Silas omitted word of the Dullahan, for he would give Old Bess no reason to delay with more questions. ‘What must happen with the window?’
‘Rather it’s what happens within it.’ Bess grunted, shifting from Silas’s hold to lean upon the narrow sill at the foot of the huge stained-glass window. He tugged at the buckle beneath his neck, where a clasp fastened the blush-pink cloak. ‘Take this. Lucifer bade me bring one for him too. The cloak will shield you, much the way as the indifference hexes Sybilla put upon the carriage you had. I’ve added an extra touch that marks you as nonthreatening too. The cloak shall be too short for you, but far better than nothing.’
Silas would have put a hessian sack over his head if it meant Old Bess was ready to open the way into the cockaigne. He took the cloak, indeed about a foot too short, and threw it across his shoulders. The fur trim bunched up his hair at the back of his neck. Despite the thickness of the material, it was like wearing a layer of chiffon, so soft as to be barely felt.
Bess bent over, gathering up the folds of his pewter-grey gown, a simple affair of linen, something more suitable for his bedchamber than gallivanting about the countryside, indicating just how quickly he must have left the Sanctuary to answer Mr Ahari’s summons. His lifted hem revealed feet clad in thick-soled boots. Hardly of the fae’s normal elegant style, the footwear was more suited to a soldier.
‘Take these too.’
‘I don’t need shoes, Bess.’ Silas was curt. ‘Please, hurry.’
‘They are seven-league boots. Take them, Silas. Now. How do you think I got here so damned fast as it was?’
Silas quickly aided Bess in removing one boot, then the other.
‘How do they work?’
‘As normal shoes do, until you break into a run. Then be prepared for some whiplash, you’ll cover great distances with ease and…I’m not sure this is a good idea….’ Bess righted with a sharp flick of his head, as though a bug were irritating him. ‘Oh my word, that blasted daemon, he’s still got my mind in a right muddle. I’m one chipped tooth from saying no to you again.’
‘I’ll ensure that does not happen.’
‘I don’t doubt that.’
Bess pulled some items from a hidden pocket. The first was a quill pen with a brass tip and a huge, delicate snow-white feather; and the second, a wound scroll of parchment.
‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Yes, do hurry.’ He bent over, tying the laces upon the boots, spending no time marvelling at the way they adapted to his feet, a size considerably larger than their owner’s.
Old Bess inhaled, and held up the scroll of parchment. They allowed it to unravel, until its bottom edge almost touched the ground. Upon the yellowed and stiff parchment was an ink sketch of the very same window they stood in front of.