Pitch felt the darkness move, shift against him. Not the ankou but the darkness itself.
‘Silas, what is happening?’
He did not feel so calm now. Secure, yes, with Silas near, but there was an undercurrent beneath the solidity. And that knocking on his mind’s door grew stronger.
‘It’s all right. It’s going to be all right, Pitch. Do you hear me?’
He did hear him, but was suddenly unsure why…or how.
‘Pitch, do you hear me?’
The ankou touched him, ran his unseen hands over that place on Pitch’s collarbone that quietened the whispers at once, and stirred heat instead. This was Silas.
He knew the feel of those fingertips like he knew the back of his own hand.
‘I hear you.’ The door in his mind cracked open, just a sliver. And that was enough.
He remembered.
His glass coffin.
Grave dust. Loneliness. ‘Oh gods…Silas, don’t let me wake up. I don’t want to wake.’
He reached again. Grasped at the ankou the darkness hid from him. Found him right there. An anchor like no other.
‘Pitch, darling, listen to me. I need you to tell me where you are. Where are you being held?’
There was an urgency behind the ankou’s words, and it made Pitch’s dream-self struggle to find his breath. ‘I don’t know…shit, I don’t know, Silas.’ He was drifting, there was a tug at his senses. A discomfort rising from his belly. And with it the stirring of that godsforsaken panic that came too easily now. ‘The bandalore…I have it….does it not tell you where I am? Silas, why can’t you find us?’
‘I will find you. Understand that, if nothing else. I will find you.’ Silas’s voice slammed the door closed, frightened off the tendrils. Pitch settled into the velvet, felt the run of fingers through his hair, the brush of lips against his own. ‘There are barriers between us. The bandalore has not found me yet, but it will. Do not doubt that.’
Everything steadied. Found its rhythm again.
In. Out.
‘I don’t.’ The panic slithered away, and Pitch would not see it return again. He spoke through kisses, their tenderness restoring sensibilities. There were things the ankou needed to know. ‘There is an Archangel here. Gabriel. You need to tell the Lady, and Mr Ahari. White Mountain must know.’ His stomach ached with what he had to say next. ‘Silas…Sybilla…she tried to protect me, but Gabriel…he…’
Silas’s hands stilled for a moment before they continued their gentle rub at his back, tracing around the halo’s scar. ‘Sybilla lives, Pitch.’
‘What?’ It was astonishing enough to warrant pulling from their kiss. ‘But I saw…’
‘She lives.’
‘She lives.’ He needed to say it with his own mouth, to hear the words against his ears. Even here, in the abyss.
‘She does.’
‘Thank the gods.’ Had he ever thanked them for a thing in his life?
The ankou’s breath was a miniature furnace against his skin. ‘Has he hurt you, Pitch?’
‘Hmm?’ He was still bathing in the utter relief it was to hear of the Valkyrie’s survival.
‘The Archangel, has he hurt you?’
‘Not yet. But he will try.’ There was not time for lies. Pitch sought out the ankou’s mouth, found him there in the impenetrable dark.
‘He will regret that,’ Silas said, from deep down where words were growled rather than spoken. ‘Think, darling, think hard on what you know. Is there nothing of what you’ve seen that you can tell me?’
