Page 68 of The Simurgh

Tyvain reached the bottom of the short flight of steps as Jane sent a gust of wind ahead, funnelling it at the thick chestnut panels that made up the double-sided door. There was barely a protest from the wood, the doors swinging open to slam against the inner walls.

‘That was worryingly easy,’ Jane said, and jogged inside.

She stopped dead, nearly ending up with a soothsayer up her arse.

‘Jesus, what’s wrong?’ Tyvain peered around Jane. ‘Oh, feck me.’

Tyvain stared wide-eyed at the chaotic state of the altar area. It was bathed in light streaming in through a huge stained-glass window that took pride of place behind the raised altar. An idyllic scene with a woman in blue, and forest animals galore.

Less idyllic was the interior of the church. Most of the pews were overturned. An overhead chandelier hung at a discerning angle.

Old Bess leaned hard against the marble altar, which was missing a huge chunk from one of its corners, pieces scattered like hail over the wooden dais. There was something mighty unpleasant beneath it too, but Tyvain kept her gaze from the blackened piles for now, worried more about Old Bess. He looked bloody awful, to say the least, hair worse than a birds’ nest caught in a storm, linen pewter-grey gown full of tears and gashes, not to mention being so horribly plain Bess must have been in a bad way when he put it on to begin with.

‘Just stay where you are, both of you.’ Old Bess warned, fixated on one person alone. The woman standing at the opposite end of the altar.

‘Well, if it’s not the giant boil on life’s butt,’ Tyvain growled. ‘Palatyne, the Melusine traitor. Got a nice ring to it, that does.’

The fight must have been one-sided, or Bess had been caught unawares, for Palatyne was far less bedraggled than her brother. Her gown, corsetless in the empire style with a floral print of every known colour, was clean, with only a few tears down near the shortened hem where low-slung puce slippers left her ankles on display.

Palatyne laughed, sounding amused as a man in the mines being told they were on a double shift. ‘Nothing gets past you, does it, soothsayer?’

‘Bess, are you all right?’ Jane was tense, poised to fight but like Tyvain, unsure of what exactly was going on here.

‘I’ve seen better days.’ Old Bess winced as he hitched his shoulder. ‘Palatyne does not agree with me interfering with the entranceway.’

‘I did ask nicely for you to stop meddling here, Brother. For your own good, might I add.’

‘Quiet, the both of ya. I don’t give a fuck about ya siblin’ rivalry,’ Tyvain stomped down the aisle, picking her way over pieces of wood and burned carpet, dragging that foreboding feeling with her like a cannonball chained to her heel. ‘Alls I want ta know, is where the hell is Mercer?’

Old Bess and Palatyne mirrored one another, turning to the stained-glass window, and pointing.

‘He’s in there,’ Bess said. ‘In the cockaigne.’

‘And he’ll not be coming back.’ His sister’s smile crawled up her cheeks. ‘Neither of them will.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

PITCH BURNED. An inferno ripped from him a part of himself he’d never thought to covet, had never even consideredhis, until now, when it was being torn away.

‘Stop,’ he gasped, to Gabriel and the wildness both. ‘Stop.’

His words came in a spray of blood. It was parched dry the moment it left him, like raindrops touching a hot stovetop.

‘Hold steady, Badh!’ someone roared. ‘Do not fail me now. It is close.’

That was not a lie.

Gabriel no longer touched him. Pitch wasn’t sure when he’d withdrawn but it didn’t matter anymore. The damage was done.

The cage was open, Seraphiel’s seal broken.

The beast clawed at him, ravenous for its freedom, burning Pitch alive in its haste to leave.

So why fight it? Did he not long for his freedom, too?

If so, then here it was. In all its fire-and-brimstone glory. The wildness was leaving him.

Another violent spasm took him, and he screamed. Not so much with pain but with rage. Fucking, animalistic rage for this bloody, stupid, endless mess he was in. The constant push and pull of his own wants.