Page 82 of The Simurgh

Pitch threw up his hand. ‘Wait. Stop.’

‘Pitch?’ Silas’s confusion was palpable now. ‘Are you all right?’

Pitch’s chest was one giant knot of longing. It was absolute torture to stand there and not reach for him.

Silas took another step.

‘Just stop.’ Pitch let his flames tease at his palm, attempting to show off his strength, but the truth of it was that he could barely stand upright.

‘You’re frightening me now, what is wrong?’

‘I just need a moment, please.’

‘I’m not sure we have one–’

‘I’m taking one anyway.’

He’d not meant to snap, and regretted it the instant Silas flinched.

‘Of course…I’m sorry.’

Pitch nearly groaned aloud. Would any but Silas apologise when they were so absolutely right? They must leave, now. But Pitch had been forced too many times. He’d take his time here.

If this was illusion, then they had done a marvellous job on the ankou. Every wrinkle was just as it should be, each crease of concern exactly where Pitch remembered.

But if he were wrong…if this was not Silas…he swallowed, tasting desperation and exhaustion.

Then this was the illusion that would undo him.

He glanced at Macha. Immobile still, the blood running off the side of her face and pooling beneath her cheek. He doubted she lived at all.

Silas would know for certain. He’d have taken in all the death in the room the moment he entered. There was so much to prick at his senses. But he’d not once taken his eyes from Pitch.

‘What was the last thing you said to me?’ Pitch cast the question into the space between them.

‘What do you–’

‘When you left me that night, in the forest.’

Perhaps the fae could mimic Silas’s features, his voice even, but could they know his memories, his every private word?

Silas tilted his head, the pained twist of his lips exactly right. ‘I know what I wish I had said.’

No. That wouldn’t do. The Erlking, or whoever controlled this illusion, might already know the ankou capable of sickly-sweet endearments.

‘Tell me exactly what you said,’ Pitch demanded…shouted. He thought he heard a moan come from behind him, a weak sound made weaker by his lack of attention to it.

‘I see what you need. I understand.’ Silas’s eyes never left him. ‘You told me you had fed from me. Assured me it was just a little. And asked if it was all right that you had done so. I said it was. That it always would be. That all I am is yours to have. Then I left you there, lest you see me cry. And it was a mistake I shall never forgive myself for.’ The weight of it darkened Silas’s features. Of course the ankou would be punishing himself for not being there. For not foreseeing the attack. He would blame himself for Blood Lake too, if left to his own devices.

It was more than Pitch could bear.

‘Mistake?’ he scoffed. ‘You needed to piss. A good thing you left, for no one likes a damp bower.’

Silas laughed. The way he reserved for Pitch alone, deep and hearty but laced with undeserved enthusiasm. The sound was unmistakable. Its effect undeniable. In that cavernous space inside him, Pitch felt as though a hundred butterflies were loose. In the past, he would have blamed the wildness for such feelings. But he was beyond pretence now. It was this great dunderhead of a man who made him so unsettled.

Silas’s smile was soft on his lips. There was such want, such longing in the man’s eyes. Even when Pitch must have looked like he’d lost ten rounds against a heavyweight champion, the ankou’s gaze drank him in.

‘Leaving you was the very last thing I truly wished to do,’ he said. ‘That night with the forest folk was perfection, the dances we shared, the dewberry wine, the cottage we imagined, I’ve never been so content. And to make love as we did, do you have any idea what heaven it is to be inside you? To listen to you, and feel the heat of you? To know you were safe in my arms…and that you were content..and happy. There are no words for how that made me feel.’ Pitch winced at the sentimentality, and drank it in at the same time. The illusion-makers could not deliver such saccharine talk, surely?