Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

SILAS DESPISED Sanctuaries. They were intent on making his life difficult. He was being led astray, he knew: sent up stairs and down, along corridors that kept their ends from him until he was seething with impatience, only to find a doorway that led to yet another fanciful parlour, or empty dining room, bedroom or library. There was a potent number of libraries in the place. As though the Sanctuary sought to taunt him with endless words he could not read.

Every one of those rooms was empty, nary a sign of a fly, let alone Jacquetta or the prince.

‘Pitch?' he called, yet again.

And yet again, no answer came.

He was foolish for thinking this would be a simple task, to reunite, but Silas had liked to imagine their connection transcended name-calling now. That Pitch would simply know that Silas looked for him.

He huffed at his sentimental folly.

‘Jacquetta, I've had quite enough of this. Come out, at once.'

The palace was thick with utter silence.

Silas paused in the middle of a music room, piano gleaming, sheet music waiting for a musician to strike up a chord.

Silence. He ran his thumb over the ring, the double scythe every bit as quiet as the rooms of this enormous dwelling. The moment he found Pitch, he'd separate the scythes again, and give him the second ring. Then he'd never have to run about senseless again; they'd have the constant connection he craved.

A tiny thrill came over him. He spread his fingers, staring down at the ring.

Pitch had worn Balthazar Crane's scythe.

‘You know him.' His voice was loud in the quiet space. The ring hummed against his finger, a tickling vibration. The first hint of its voice in a long while. ‘Find him.'

The humming continued, but nothing more. He wasn't sure what he was expecting. He'd not sought to use the scythe as a hunting dog before. And there was the small matter of Pitch being very much alive. These were tools of death.

But the idea had ignited, and Silas would not let it burn out.

He left the music room and stepped out into another impressively wide corridor. Every inch decorative, elaborate, and, of course, golden. He surveyed either end of the way and found it endless once more. But he'd been in just such a predicament before. At The Atlas, and more significantly at Harvington Hall where the spectre had taught him special lessons in how to find his prince.

Do not believe the illusions. Strike out where the way is most denied. But too many ways lay open here to choose from.

‘Wake, and aid me.' Silas clenched his fist, squeezing the ring between his fingers. ‘Do you know his melody?' For Silas did not. Pitch had always been a quietness to his ear. Perhaps the prince had been too meddled with by the Seraph for his naming melody to hold readable notes; who knew? But the scythe had laid upon Pitch's skin. Izanami herself had held Pitch back, as Silas battled her sister Morrigan. Death knew the daemon.

The certainty swelled like a rose blooming in Silas's chest.

‘You know him. Find him.' His command made the sconces' candles flutter, the chandelier sway against their fittings. The ring hummed harder, the vibration travelling along all the tiny bones in his hand, moving up his arm.

Silas unfurled his fingers. The shifting light glanced off the ring, catching it in a way that reminded him of the glint of Crane's spectacles.

His hand jerked forward, a sudden tug that had Silas taking a stumbling step forward. Towards the wall. The pull at his fingers led him to the smooth surface, the plaster like silk beneath his palm.

‘Of course it's through the bloody wall,' he muttered.

With an exhale, he shook his shoulders, readying to strike at something that did such a good job of seeming solid. But he'd not be played with any longer.

Silas moved a few steps back, giving himself a chance for a slight run up, then leaned into his conviction and ran at the wall; shoulder lowered to take the brunt of the impact that seemed certain.

The illusion evaporated, as though fearing his touch, and Silas went racing into a new room, nearly coming off his feet after putting far too much effort into his barge.

His hand lifted, the tug of the scythe now undeniable, and he kept on, straight through a buffet filled with an assortment of figurines and dust-gathering trinkets, through another wall, and onwards into a room gripped with confusion. The place did not seem to know what it was. His headlong path had the Sanctuary working frantically, it seemed, for this room shivered between designs: a half-tester canopy bed with gold tasselled cushions and damask covers sat at one side, whilst on the far side of the room an enormous cast-iron stove glowed with heat in its furnace, and pots bubbling on its surface.

Silas was driven towards the stove. Dragged forward by the scythe that now followed his command with the eagerness of a hunt hound scenting a downed pheasant.

Silas did not hesitate. The heat reached him when he was still several feet away from the stove, the fire that burned warmer than he'd expected of illusion.

But he'd not doubt the scythe. He'd not doubt himself. Silas felt free, strange as it was, after seeing Rossdhu House and the jetty. The past had been such an anchor, the good and the bad of it. He'd hungered to know of it, but looking at the remnants of his past, in the shape of that mansion and its gardens, and its loch, it was as though his desire sank into those waters. His period of mourning was over.

What was done was done.

More important was what remained to be done.

He ran on.

Heat bit at his knees, and he swore he felt the sting of boiling liquid sear his front as he passed through the pots.

Silas emerged into a small room, a chapel, perhaps, though who knew what gods were worshipped here. The altar was plain, marble cut, with only two gold candleholders for decoration. There were mats upon the floor where pews might be in a church, lined up for a handful of worshippers. The floor itself was a marvel, a mosaic of opalescent tiles, with gold pieces strewn seemingly at random among them. But most glorious of all was the window, an arch of glass so pristine in clarity he thought for a moment the room to be open to the elements.

Beyond the glass, an incredible array of wildflowers grew upon a slope in the ground, with the jut of moss-covered stones visible through their colourful display. They were in something of a circle, the stones, and Silas wasted no time lingering here as memories of the greenswards' faerie circle disturbed him.

He was led out of the door, this time, into a white-tiled corridor. The ferocity of the scythe's guidance abated, softening from the near-painful prickling in his arm, to only a feathering at the tips of his fingers. A door, with half its body made of frosted glass, lay ahead. Silas opened it and stepped inside.

The conservatory was modest, with its glass ceiling set within a thick white wooden frame, and filled to near overflowing with many wondrous ferns and orchids, plus an untold number of blooms he did not recognise. Everything was bathed in that gold-hued light the Sanctuary so favoured. As was that which lay beyond the glass, where the wild flowers he'd seen from the chapel continued, interspersed with adders's tongue ferns, and some astonishingly strange plants, one with leaves of onyx and blooms as colourful as Scarlet in their full rainbow array.

Silas made his way through the unseasonal orchids, their spectacular flowers as large as his palms, and the fronds of ferns that had grown far beyond their natural size: moonwort and maidenhair and holly-fern large enough to rise over him and hang in his way, giving him the sense of being lost in some exotic jungle.

The tingling at his fingertips vanished. And voices reached him. Soft murmurs. One stood out.

‘Pitch?'

Silas swept back the drape of an enormous Harts-tongue leaf.

Pitch stood with Jacquetta. Very close. The Child of Melusine had one hand upon Pitch's cheek, whilst she rubbed her thumb over his lips.

They jumped at Silas's voice. Jacquetta stepped back, thrusting her hands into hidden pockets upon her silver tunic.

‘Mr Mercer, where did you come from?'

Never had a pair looked so guilt ridden, but Silas cast aside any notion that this was some intimate indiscretion.

‘What's wrong? Are you all right?' Christ, he longed for a time when there would be no need to ask that of Pitch constantly. ‘Are you hurt? What did they do? I knew I should not have left you.' He reached the prince, and was stopped from saying more by a press of slender fingers to his mouth.

Pitch was warm, his eyes not exactly bright but gleaming enough, and he managed a small, wry smile.

‘Silas, stop. I am fine.'

Admittedly, he looked so. His lips were full pillows of pink flesh, shining and damp.

‘What has she given you?' Silas spoke against the fingers that pressed at him gently. ‘Are you in pain?'

To his great surprise, Pitch nodded. ‘Some, but nothing worrisome. Jacquetta's balm will set me right.' He withdrew his fingers, and Silas leaned into the loss, following the closeness he coveted.

‘Were they able to repair the Cultivation?' He touched his hand to Pitch's belly, and with the thinness of his shirt, the tensing of muscle was evident.

‘I do not have it. Seraphiel took the simurgh, to see what can be done.'

Silas planted his hands on Pitch's shoulders, bending his knees so he could bring them eye to eye. ‘And was he unkind with it? That can not have been easy for you.'

Pitch's smile looked like it came easily. But Silas suspected he was working hard to make it rise. He glanced at Jacquetta, who was watching them from where she stood by an odd plant, one with garish spikes up its short trunk, and tiny white flowers clustered at its peak. For a moment he thought her about to speak, her focus firmly upon him.

‘Thank you, Jacquetta, that will be all. I'd like some time alone with Silas while we wait. If you don't mind?' Pitch said, catching at Silas's trouser waistline, hooking his fingers there, urging Silas closer.

‘Are you sure, your highness? That being alone is what you wish for?'

‘Quite sure, thank you, Jacquetta.' Pitch was precise, sharpened to a point.

Silas wore a bemused frown, glancing between the Child and Pitch. ‘What is this about?'

‘Lack of privacy,' Pitch said, airy, intent on pressing in against Silas.

‘As you wish,' Jacquetta agreed, though to what Silas could not say. ‘I wish you all the best, my lords.'

Silas turned from his study of Pitch's features to look at her, but he was waylaid by another press of warm fingers.

‘Don't mind her, my dear,' Pitch whispered. ‘We won't have long to be alone.'

He raised his eyes, and something in their shock of emerald gave Silas pause.

‘Are you sure everything is alright?'

Needlepoints of laughter followed. ‘Of course not. Nothing is right about this, silly oaf. But I'm hoping you can at least make it feel better.'

The prince rose onto his tip-toes and pressed in, covering Silas's mouth in a feverish kiss. One which Silas opened for, and welcomed.

Pitch did not taste of his usual, particular bitter-sweetness. There was another floral hint there. The balm, he supposed, but Silas was not about to spend a fortune in time wondering. The kiss took a rather desperate turn. Silas wrapped his arm beneath Pitch's arse and lifted him off his feet. The daemon folded his legs around Silas's waist, hooking his ankles at his back.

Pitch's teeth found the tip of Silas's tongue, nipping, forceful, and Silas groaned into his mouth. He dug the fingers of his free hand into Pitch's hair, shaping around the back of his slender neck, the ring catching a fine strand of hair. With a soft, tantalising whimper, Pitch pulled away.

‘Let's go outside,' he said, hoarse and warm. ‘I want you to fuck me in the garden.'

Silas answered with a grunt more worthy of a beast than a decent man, but Pitch hardly needed an answer. He could feel Silas's eagerness well enough.

Silas sized up the location of the doorway before returning his attention to the feverish man in his arms. He knew Pitch was passionate, and hungry for ravishment, but he'd never known him so…needy; whimpering when Silas had lifted his head to eye his way, and pressing in as though he were trying to bury beneath Silas's skin.

It was glorious to know he was making this creature come apart in his arms, but terrifying, too. For Silas felt the desperation in Pitch's want; and understood it well.

Silas kicked at the door, caring little if he cracked panes or broke latches. He was not about to let go long enough to twist a handle. The door gave way easily, as though it had already been opening when he raised his leg.

Two stone steps weren't easy to negotiate blind. Silas stumbled, and their teeth clacked. He was light-headed from the lengthy press of mouths, but neither moved to surrender. Pitch's moan hummed against Silas's lips.

A narrow stone landing gave way to a pathway of moss–shining moss–that seemed oddly familiar, but Silas was too preoccupied to place it. His arms brushed against the curtains of delicate wildflowers and ferns that surrounded him. Orchids, of all the colours imaginable, bobbed as he carried the prince down the path.

It was a short distance to where the path opened wide, and the wildflowers gave way to a spread of moss; a deep natural cradle as round as Silas was high. The perfect place to lay the prince down. Beneath the verdant, vibrant layers, tiny fronds shimmered with gold like morning dew. There must have been larger things buried at the edges of the circle, for the moss jutted higher at regular intervals around the circumference; affording privacy, if such a thing were possible in a place like this.

But Silas could not have cared less if the entire population of Scotland watched on. He wanted Pitch, with a potency that choked him. A desire that carved him hollow.

Silas went to his knees, lowering the prince carefully, when he was suddenly overcome with dizziness.

He gasped, touching one hand to the moss.

‘Sickle?'

‘It is nothing…I'm fine.' As though to prove him wrong, the world tilted. ‘Oh, my.' Silas sat back on his heels, but that too had him reeling. His hand went wide, searching for a hold, landing on one of the peaks beneath the moss: a tree stump perhaps, a stone, overridden by the wild growth of the garden.

‘Here, lie down, quickly.'

Pitch guided him softly, gently, but with purpose. Too calmly. The first stirrings of alarm gripped Silas. He ran his tongue over his lips; lips still heated from their kiss. ‘Pitch…'

‘Hush now, you don't seem well. Lay your head down, Silas.'

‘But I want to –'

‘And you will. I am yours to take however you please. But perhaps just a brief rest first?'

The shrills of alarm rang louder. Silas knew things were amiss, but he could find no strength to protest. And the world was losing its substance. The colours about him seemed to drip. The vision of loveliness that was the daemon would not quite be drawn into focus.

Silas clenched his eyes shut, laying back with a grunt. ‘Just give me a moment.' Of all the confounded moments to become unwell.

Softness brushed over his legs, covering them with a pleasant heat, at his waist too, a soft slithering, but he couldn't open his eyes just yet. He just needed another moment.

The faint crackling of moss came as Pitch shifted closer, taking up Silas's hand and wrapping both of his around it. His warmth was sublime.

‘You will be fine,' he said. ‘This shall pass. Just rest.'

Those alarm bells were clanging now. Since when was Pitch so ready to forgo intimacy? Silas opened his eyes, and his heart seemed to freeze mid-beat.

Pitch was ethereal, utterly exquisite with the frame of golden light about his head. His hair was all but spun gold now, not far removed from that of the Seraph. And his eyes glistened. Not with any mirth or devilry, not with a hint of flame or vibrancy, but with unshed tears.

Silas's world seemed to fall from beneath him, leaving him in a terrible abyss of realisation.

‘Pitch…what have you done?' He fought to keep his eyes open, to keep them fixed upon the daemon, who should have been indignant with denial just then; protesting against the accusation.

Pitch raised Silas's hand to his mouth and pressed his lips near the ring. He whispered, ‘I renege on my deal made. I return thee to the fae who made claim upon thee.'

Silas rolled his head. He was hearing things, surely? Those words must be part of a fever, its suddenness felling him. He tried to pull away, but he'd lost control of his limbs, and nothing at all happened, despite his best efforts.

He moaned, though he'd intended to call Pitch by name.

The prince bowed his head, the glare of him nearly too much for Silas to gaze upon. ‘I will not give you up, Sickle.'

Silas fought to keep his eyes open, cursing every fae he'd ever known for the magick that was rendering him so utterly useless. Pixie dust perhaps, though this was far crueller, for he was not asleep at once. He just lay there, his body insensible as the moss covered him over.

Silas could do nothing but watch, whilst Pitch made a terrible mistake.

‘No…no.' Silas's lips tingled. ‘Pitch…'

‘Hush. It is what I want, and I will have my way in this.'

Silas's moan was borne of desolation. Realisation settled on him like the Morrigan's ravens. ‘Don't…leave me.'

Pitch shook his head, a blur of golden brilliance, with a hint of green gems and fire at their midst. ‘They cannot take everything from me, Sickle. Do you understand? They will not have you.'

‘Stop…stop it.' Silas worked at forming the words, but he could not tell if they actually made it from his mouth. ‘Let me…go.'

‘You don't belong in Blood Lake, you fool. Can you imagine the suffering you would shoulder there? You must live, however much time you have. I want you to live. And I shall ensure it is without the Blight to plague you. Think of how wonderful it will be, spending your remaining days tripping over your own feet and fussing over your dead with your pretty little sickle. You will drive your ghosts mad with all your intolerable gentleness and patience –'

‘No.' Silas felt the world cracking open; readying to swallow him.

‘It must be this way. You'll see it soon enough.' A childish fervour clung to Pitch's words, a plea to be believed. ‘They'll not make monsters of both of us, Silas. Do you hear me? One is enough. And I am used to being vile. I was made ugly, but you were born in defiance of your maker. If you were to succumb to Samyaza…I fear what my rage would make of me in that place. I would be beyond the Berserker Prince, beyond an angel's Cultivation. I would bring down an apocalypse upon us all, if you were taken from me.'

Silas stared up at him. His vision was hazy with a crushing need to sleep, and the boil of tears. Anger simmered, too.

‘Bastard.'

He was sinking, drifting down where the air and light could not reach him. The moss made a steady creep over his body, and the scythes were useless about his finger, ignoring his unspoken commands for help.

‘I tried to tell you what I was,' Pitch said. ‘But you would not listen, my stubborn, remarkable oaf.'

Pitch was all but a blur; a setting sun delivering its last rays of warmth and promise.

The moss tucked him up like a body in a shroud. The plant life he had always felt such an affinity for betrayed him in the worst of ways: aiding Pitch in abandoning him.

He struggled against it, but Christ, he wished to sleep; to close his eyes to this nightmare.

Pitch leaned over him; leaned down and leaned close.

‘Goodbye, Silas Mercer. What a wonder it was to have known you. You have carved a heart in this chest of stone. Now sleep for me.'

His kiss was serene and impossibly unfair.

The caress of daemonic enchantment swept over Silas, and he knew the battle lost. The prince's incubus charms fed on feelings that already existed; inflated them and rendered their owners insensible.

Silas would already do anything for him, without manipulation. Now, he was Pitch's slave.

He gave in. He closed his eyes and slept.