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  “Wait!” Kalen cried, but it was too late. In one powerful move Silas thrust the blade up into his robes, driving the metal deep into his heart.

  “One death for another,” he said, letting Kalen bleed freely until his lifeless body slumped down onto the cobbles.

  The alleyway fell silent. Kate dared to peer carefully out over the window ledge and saw Silas crouching down, pressing his hand to Kalen’s forehead. The air rippled strangely around him, like heat rising from a roof on a wet summer’s day, and everything seemed to slow down. Kate did not know what she was seeing. Silas was impossibly still, his eyes closed, concentrating on something she could not see. Kate had forgotten to breathe and only when the air settled back to normal again did the full horror of witnessing a man’s death hit her. Her knees felt weak and she stumbled back.

  “Kate!” whispered Edgar, abandoning his hiding place to help her.

  That was all Silas needed.

  He saw Edgar move, drew his sword, and strode toward the broken window. Edgar did not see him approach. Silas’s boots made no sound upon the cobbles and no shadow crept across the shop floor. Only Kate saw him standing there just two steps from Edgar’s back, his sword raised ready to strike.

  “Move!” she yelled, pushing Edgar hard into the curtains as the blade fell. The sword missed, the point dug into the wooden floor, and the metal rang out.

  Edgar stood frozen against the wall. Silas was inside the shop, standing right in front of Kate. Both of his hands were on the sword, but he made no attempt to free it from the floor. He just stood there, looking at her.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  Kate nodded firmly, trying not to give away her fear.

  “Then you should know that no one escapes me once I have set my mind upon their capture. No bargains are granted, no freedoms or mercy are offered or given. You have something I want, and I believe you can help me find something I need.”

  Kate didn’t know what he was talking about, and she didn’t care. “Where is my uncle?” she asked, sounding far braver than she actually felt. “He’s not one of the Skilled. He’s not what you’re looking for.”

  “I know that.” Silas tugged his sword from the floor and raised it a little, enough to make Kate flinch. “I knew it as soon as I saw his face. The eyes do not lie, Miss Winters.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I have been ordered to find you,” said Silas. “And I believe you may be of use to me. But first . . .” He turned to Edgar, whose face was a picture of terror. “First I must put down the boy.”

  “No!” Kate shouted. The blue blade whipped up to Edgar’s throat and stopped only a hair’s breadth from his trembling skin.

  “No?” said Silas. “Why not?”

  Kate glanced at the dead body out in the barrow alley. “Because I . . . I’ll go with you,” she said. “You don’t have to hurt him. He’s not in your way. He won’t stop you from taking me. Will you, Edgar?”

  Edgar shrugged his shoulders as much as the blade would allow. “I was going to give it a bloody good try, actually.”

  “I’m not going anywhere if you hurt him,” said Kate. “And I certainly won’t help you.”

  “You will do as I say, or you will die right here next to your useless friend.”

  Kate thought fast, not knowing what to do, but Edgar had a plan.

  With Silas distracted he took his chance, heaving on the green curtain with all his strength, making the rusted curtain pole break from the wall and spilling the wooden rings from its end. He had hoped to catch Silas beneath the fabric, but it was too heavy, and the curtain flopped straight down on top of his own head instead. Edgar scrambled blindly across the floor, dragging the curtain along, with Silas right behind him. Kate grabbed the weighing scales from the floor and threw them at Silas’s knees, cracking the metal hard into his kneecap. The collector did not stop. He did not even limp; he just strode on, calmly chasing Edgar down until the boy finally managed to squirm from the curtain and bolt straight out of the shop door.

  Silas stopped at the threshold, and Kate watched Edgar skid upon the bloodstained cobbles as he ran past Kalen’s dead body. Her heart sank, and fear gathered like a lump in her throat as she realized he was not coming back.

  The door at the back of the shop was blocked by a rack of fallen shelves, and a killer now stood between her and her only chance of escape. She was alone, unarmed, and there was no way out.

  Silas sheathed his sword and turned on her. “The weak always run,” he said. “There is no honor in killing a coward. Do not disappoint me by trying to do the same.”

  “You didn’t give him any choice,” said Kate, trying to convince herself that it was true, that somehow Edgar had to leave her behind. “What do you want?”

  “You are a rare girl, Miss Winters. A diamond in the festering filth that makes up the rest of this worthless town. I have questions for you and you will answer them. Answer them to my satisfaction and your life will be made easy. Defy me and you will find me much less friendly than I have been thus far.”

  “You killed a man,” said Kate. “You burned my home, took my family, and you just tried to kill my friend.”

  “Yet here you stand, untouched. Why do you think that is?” Silas walked toward her, and with every step the air felt colder. Fear trickled up Kate’s spine, but there was nowhere for her to go.

  “You were the one who brought the bird back to life,” he said. “You are the only one I am interested in. You will help me find what I need.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Kate. “I don’t know who you think I am. But you’re wrong.”

  Silas’s hand snapped forward and grabbed Kate’s face, clutching her cheekbones as he stared into her eyes. His grip was river cold and would not let her wriggle away. The dead gray of his eyes moved like fog trapped behind circles of glass, and Kate found herself staring at them, unable to look away.

  “I am not wrong,” he said. “Your uncle has no more Skill in him than a splinter of rock. But you . . . I can see the power inside you. Young power from ancient blood, raw and untrained. Do you know how many people carry the Winters name here in Albion? Worthless people with no true link to the family by blood?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “Hundreds,” said Silas. “One or two of them showed some small promise, but they were nothing like you. You are the one I have been looking for, and you will come with me, or I will start slicing off those delicate fingers of yours. One . . . by . . . one.”

  Kate felt the chill of metal against her hand and she tried to snatch it away. There was a sharp snap of a lock and Silas cuffed one end of a long fine chain to her wrist, wrapping the remaining length of it around his hand. “A precaution,” he said. “I do not intend to lose you again. Now, walk.”

  Silas dragged Kate to her feet and pushed her ahead of him to the shop door. She did not want to go out there, not after what had happened, and she deliberately tried not to look at Kalen’s body lying on the ground. Silas led her toward it and made her stand beside him as he toed the fallen man with his boot. He knelt on one knee, wrenched the dagger from Kalen’s body, and wiped it clean on the dead man’s robes. An engraved letter K glinted along the blade. He pocketed it at once. “Unfortunate,” he said. “But necessary.”

  Silas looked up to the roof of the shop, where his crow was perched patiently upon the gutter, fluffing its feathers against the wind. “Follow the boy,” he said. “Do not leave his side.”

  “Edgar?” Kate tried to pull free of her wrist chain, but the metal gripped tight. “What do you want him for? Leave him alone!”

  The crow clicked its beak and leaped into the air.

  “As long as my crow is with him, I will be able to find him,” said Silas. “The Skilled may be able to do many things, but I possess a few tricks of my own. No one can escape me, Miss Winters. Not him. Not you.” Silas held Kate still, and she watched the bird fly away until its wingbeats were lost across t
he rooftops of the town. “Kalen earned his death many times over,” he said. “Your friend will have his own judgment to face. For now, you are my primary concern.”

  Silas pushed Kate farther down the barrow alley in the opposite direction to the market square, heading out into the maze that was the Southern Quarter’s back streets. Kate looked around, searching for someone who could help her, but the few people she could see were already running from the collector, too terrified to challenge him for the sake of one girl. Her town belonged to him now.

  Groups of robed wardens moved through the streets, herding frightened stragglers in the direction of the square, and Silas forced Kate to a stop as a black horse pulled a closed carriage along the road toward them. The carriage’s sides and roof had been red once, but the paint had long since peeled away, leaving scars of worn red and black. Kate could not see the driver’s face under the hood of his robes.

  The carriage stopped right beside them, and Silas unlatched the door. “Get in,” he said.

  Chapter 5

  Wintercraft

  Edgar ran through the Southern Quarter, keeping to the shadows, trying not to be seen. His hands were sweaty and his heart was racing. He hadn’t run this fast since . . . No. He wasn’t going to think about that. He felt like a coward. A collector had Kate and he was running in the opposite direction. Any ordinary person would have tried facing Silas, tried to fight him and force him to give her back. But this was not the first time Edgar had run from Silas Dane. Fighting him would get Edgar nowhere. He knew what he had to do.

  He kept running, ignoring the shouts of a few townspeople who were standing on doorsteps or leaning out of windows pointing at plumes of smoke rising from nearby fires. They must not have seen the wardens yet, but they were making enough noise to attract every one of them for a mile around.

  Dark clouds brought heavy flurries of snow from the north, darkening the sky and filling the air with falling flakes of white. Edgar dodged between the houses, looking for somewhere to hide, somewhere to plan, while above him, soaring high in the air, Silas’s crow followed silently behind.

  No one noticed the bird’s wide wings outstretched above the rooftops as it kept pace, following Edgar until he was forced to take shelter from the heavy snow in a decrepit old house. It watched him force his way in through a boarded window, then it settled on the cornerstone of a bakery roof like a perfect gargoyle, waiting for him to make his next move. And as it sat there, the town of Morvane changed.

  The snow lay like a blanket across the run-down streets of the Southern Quarter. Ruined roofs became beautiful again, dirty roads were given a fresh new mask of white, and everything sparkled in the rare patches of morning sun. The crow sat patiently, watching the door of the house until a comfortable carriage pulled by two gray horses rolled into sight, drawing the crow’s attention away. It stood, suddenly alert, cocked its head, and shook its feathers dry. The crow knew who was inside that carriage. It could sense the unwelcome presence of an enemy. Someone it had learned to fear.

  Instinct told it to fly, but duty to its master kept it locked to its post until the carriage rolled by, oblivious of both the bird and the boy hiding in the house. Only when it had passed safely out of sight could the crow settle again and return obediently to its silent watch.

  Across town, the carriage Kate was in was traveling fast. The windows were blacked out with thick cloth, so she could catch only tiny glimpses of the streets that raced by, but she saw enough to know that they were heading toward the Western Quarter—Morvane’s oldest and most dangerous district. She tugged secretly at her wrist cuff, trying to force it up over her thumb joint, but it would not budge.

  A broken hatch at the front of the carriage looked out on the driver’s back, and biting wind surged through it, blasting snow into Kate’s face and forcing her to huddle deeper into her coat. Silas did not move. He had not spoken since they had boarded the carriage. The snow churned around him, sending flakes drifting across his face, but while the flakes melted instantly against the warmth of Kate’s skin, they clung to Silas’s face far longer before melting away. When they landed upon his eyeballs they clustered together in tiny drifts along his eyelids. He did not even blink.

  By the time the high archway marking the change of quarter came into sight, Kate’s cheeks were so cold she could not feel them anymore. The carriage’s wheels bounced and jolted so hard along uneven roads that she had to hold her seat to stop herself from falling off, and without even glancing at his window, Silas gave an order to the driver. “Here.”

  The carriage came to a gentle stop in front of a rough-looking boardinghouse. Silas unlatched his door and pulled Kate out into the open, where the chill of the snow made her ears burn. The boardinghouse was easily the tallest building in the quarter, with three floors of square windows reaching up to a cracked circular window tucked beneath the distant eaves. Silas did not bother to knock. He wrenched at the door handle and pushed Kate inside.

  The door led into a long corridor that was dark except for a single candle glowing at the end. A shadow moved in front of the light and a small man hurried up to meet them. He was old and plainly dressed, but Kate could not miss the gleam of a gold and ruby ring on his right hand. A ring like that could only belong to a man with powerful friends, so it did not surprise her when he greeted Silas by name.

  “Mr. Dane,” he said, bowing deeply. “A pleasure, sir, as always.”

  “Has she arrived?” asked Silas.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then I will come down the moment she does. As far as you are concerned, this girl is not here. She does not exist. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The boardinghouse owner smiled creepily at Kate as Silas took her up the worn stairs to the upper floors. They climbed two doglegged flights and then a third that led right up to the attic floor. A door, to which Silas already had the key, stood upon a landing at the very top, and the room beyond was small and neat, with a narrow bed, an unlit fire, and a wooden desk inside. Silas locked the door behind them and went at once to the circular window, swinging it open so he could lean out over the street.

  “What’s going on?” asked Kate. “Who are you meeting here?”

  “Someone who has been looking for your family for a long time,” said Silas, crossing the room and locking one end of Kate’s silver chain to the desk. “As far as she knows, there is only one Winters rumored to live in this town. I will tell her that your uncle is useless, just like the rest. If you stay quiet, there is a chance this day may not end badly for you.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Kate.

  “Your parents never mentioned they had a child when the wardens took them,” said Silas. “They were wise enough to know when to keep quiet and when to speak. A lesson you would do well to learn.”

  “What do you know about them?” demanded Kate, but a look from Silas was enough to silence her.

  “What I know is irrelevant,” he said. “All that matters now is what you know, and what you can do.”

  A long silence followed.

  Silas stood beside the open window, not caring that Kate was left shivering in the dark. She sat down at the desk, trying to prize her wrist cuff open on the corner of the wood, and was just about to ask Silas for the woman’s name, when a sudden pain burst between her eyes, like needles piercing the skin. A bright light flashed in front of her: pure white light, there and gone again in an instant. She blinked it away and had gone back to the wrist cuff when it happened again. The light shone more intensely this time, lasting for a few seconds and never weakening, even when she closed her eyes.

  Silas glared at her with suspicion. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing. I—”

  “The Skilled have far greater senses than ordinary people,” he said. “Those senses can create visions of things the eyes cannot normally see. Tell me what you saw.”

  The pain stabbed again and the light flashed once more, sharp
ening into a vision of something that Kate knew should have been impossible.

  She was looking out of a carriage window toward the arch that divided the Western Quarter from the Southern. It was the same route that Silas’s carriage had taken, but she was not looking at a memory of her own journey. The carriage window was arched, not square, and the curtains were pulled wide open.

  “What do you see?” Silas demanded.

  Kate did not know what was happening. Icy cold surrounded her hands, chilling them until they were so frigid it felt as if her bones might snap. She tried to stand up, but she could not move. She tried to speak, but her throat made no sound. She could only sit staring at the same point on the wall, eyes fixed in silent terror as her body refused to obey her.

  Her first thought was that she had been poisoned, but Silas had not given her anything to eat or drink. She had not felt the prick of a needle or smelled gas in the air. The cold spread along her arms, numbing them completely as a thin layer of frost traced across her fingers. After that, all she saw was darkness. Deep blackness, more complete than any darkness she had ever known. She felt lost within it. Held tightly in one place. Unable to move or speak or scream. All she had was the pulse of her blood racing through her veins to let her know she was alive, but even that was slowing down. Becoming fainter. Weaker.

  Silas’s voice spoke close by. “All Skilled have the ability to see into the veil,” he said. “The boundary between this world and the next is opening around you. Let it happen. It will become as easy as breathing, given time.”