Wintercraft (26 page)
‘Thank you,’ said Kate. She took the candle and climbed the ladder, taking extra care to test each rung as she went.
The knot latch was an old trick. Not many people knew about them, but they were simple enough to spot when you knew what you were looking for. Kate found it exactly where Artemis said it would be - a secret spring-button disguised as a knot in the wood - and she pressed it.
Something clicked. Kate balanced the candle on the shelf, pulled a handful of books out and found a thin flap of wood beneath them. She lifted the flap carefully and put her hand inside, adjusting her hold on the ladder to keep her balance as she wriggled a small leather pouch out of the hidden space. Kate tugged the cords from its drawstring neck and a small book slid out of it on to the shelf. She could smell its age, and wondered how many other hands had touched it; how many people had died to keep its words a secret. Its cover was exactly as she had seen it within the veil, stretched in old purple leather with ancient silver lettering that still sparkled in the candlelight.
Wintercraft
The spine creaked and snapped gently as she opened it, sending brown fibres drifting into the air. The old paper was crinkled and cracked, the pages clinging to the spine by the thinnest of threads, but the ink was still dark enough to be readable.
Kate read the only words written on the first page.
Those Who Wish To See The Dark, Be Ready To Pay Your Price.
A shout of surprise echoed up from below, and it was only then that Kate sensed how high she was above the ground. She clung to the ladder for safety and looked down. ‘Artemis?’
It was too dark to see anything. She stuffed the book back into its pouch, grabbed it and the candle in the same hand and clambered back down the ladder as fast as she could.
‘Artemis?’
‘Kate, no! Stay up there!’ Artemis cried out in pain.
Kate stopped twenty rungs from the bottom, close enough to see Silas’s grey eyes looking up at her.
‘Your warnings are unnecessary, Mr Winters,’ he said. ‘I have no interest in taking your life. All I want is the book.’
Kate climbed down the last few steps and saw Artemis curled up on the floor with Silas standing over him, one boot pressing down on his injured ankle. ‘Stop! Don’t hurt him!’ she said.
Silas’s sword shone deep blue as he stabbed it into the library floor beside Artemis’s neck, splintering the ancient wood and sending shards of it across Artemis’ face. ‘Give me the book,’ he said, lifting his foot from Artemis’s leg and pressing it against his neck instead, forcing his quivering throat closer to the blade.
‘It’s yours,’ said Kate. ‘Take it!’
Silas held out his hand. Kate passed the pouch to him and he checked inside it before tightening the strings again and tucking the precious book into his coat.
‘Now we leave.’ He wrenched his sword out of the ruined floor and grabbed Kate’s hand.
‘Leave her alone!’ cried Artemis, struggling to his knees, trying to heave himself to his feet as Silas dragged Kate away. ‘You’ve got what you wanted! Leave her. Please!’
Silas kept moving, pulling Kate along past the bookshelves and moving quickly through pools of light cast by people working on a platform overhead. Kate looked back at Artemis’s face until it was swallowed by the darkness. Her candle blew out and she let it fall to the floor, listening to the blood pounding in her ears as they raced between the shelves. Silas may have got what he had come for, but she was leaving something far more precious behind.
Silas stopped suddenly as they came up against a solid wall. Kate could feel the coldness of the stone and Silas’s hand upon hers as he forced her palm against it.
‘Ask it to show us the secret way,’ he ordered, his voice vicious and cold. ‘Ask it how to get out.’
A sharp point stabbed into Kate’s skin and the sound of a moving spirit wheel rumbled through the wall. The tiles rattled into place around her hand and the floor shifted beneath her feet.
Silas pulled Kate back as part of the floor slid to one side and the faint glow of firelight brightened a shaft thick with cobwebs, with rusted metal hooks marking where a ladder had once been. Kate could smell water. Deep water.
‘There’s no way down,’ she said.
Silas peered out over the edge of the hole. ‘Only my way.’
Then, without warning, Silas pulled her to his chest, engulfed her in his arms, and jumped.
16
The Thieves’ Way
Kate and Silas plummeted down through the hole and plunged feet first into deep black water. Kate’s blood pulsed deafeningly in her ears as she fought hard to swim up to the surface. Her heavy clothes pulled her down, but she kicked hard and burst, gasping, out into the air.
‘Artemis!’ she sputtered, as the secret door ground back into place above her head.
Kate struggled against Silas’s grip as he dragged her up on to a wide point of stone that jutted out into the calm river, and then the shock of the cold water hit her, making her shiver as she cried for her uncle, her only chance to help him lost. ‘We left him behind,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe we left him behind.’
‘Do not waste your time crying for a fool.’
Kate glared at Silas, angrily wiping her tears away.
‘You are out of Da’ru’s reach,’ he said, looking out across the water. ‘We have the book. That is all that matters.’
The stone they were sitting on was all that was left of an old jetty. Most of the wooden landing stage had rotted away, leaving behind only the mooring posts where boats had once been tied. The skeletal remains of a forgotten boat lay mouldering beneath the water, a large oil lantern spluttering light from the ceiling was dangerously dim and two more lanterns further along had already gone out. No one had been to fill them in a long time.
‘I know this place,’ said Silas. ‘It is the Thieves’ Way. A smugglers’ tunnel.’
The light splash of oars echoed through from the walls and a puddle of light turned around a distant bend.
Someone was heading their way.
‘Stay here.’ Silas slipped silently back into the water, as lithe as a fish, and disappeared beneath the surface. Kate clambered to her feet, soaked to the skin, and looked up. Artemis was so close, but the shaft she had fallen down hung over the water and the ladder that had once led up to it was long gone. There was no way to reach it, and even if she could the walls were far too steep for her to climb.
She looked out over the river, trying not to think about how far underground she was and how far she was from home. There was no sign of Silas. He had not even come up for air and there was only a faint ripple in the water to mark where he had been.
The sound of oars splashed closer and the dark shape of a rowing boat paddled into sight. Kate could see two men on board. One holding a lantern out over the front, the other rowing steadily behind him. The boat travelled low in the water, weighed down by sacks overflowing with bones and old pottery that were slumped around the two men.
Kate did not like not knowing where Silas was and she definitely did not like the look on the lantern carrier’s face when he spotted her standing there alone, soaked and shivering in the dark.
‘Hey! What do you make o’ this?’ he said, patting the shoulder of the man behind him. ‘Where do you think this ’un came from?’
Kate stepped back until her spine was pressed against the wall.
‘Looks like a runner,’ said the rower, twisting his neck to look around. ‘Serving girl maybe. Reckon there’s a reward going? Rich folk’ll pay good money to get their servants back.’
‘The whisperers haven’t said anything about a missing girl.’
‘Maybe she’s fresh out. The whisperers mightn’t even know about her yet.’
The lantern carrier grinned. ‘Turn the boat,’ he said. ‘They’ll name her soon and we’ll be ready when they do.’
The side of the little boat scraped against the stones as the rower steered it in to the bank, and the lantern carrier stepped off on to land before it came to a full stop.
‘Nice an’ easy,’ he said, approaching her warily, as if she were a wild animal. ‘Don’t want no trouble now, do we?’
Kate spotted a short knife tucked into his ragged belt.
‘That’s right. Nice and—’ The man’s sharp eyes locked with hers and he stared at her, fear claiming his face as his hand reached quickly for his knife.
‘She’s one o’ them!’ he cried. ‘Get out of here, Reg! Row! Row!’
The man turned on his heel, skidding on the wet ground in his hurry to get back to the boat. But his friend was already gone. The oar blades lay abandoned on the water and Silas stood in the centre of the little vessel, dripping wet, looking wilder and more dangerous than Kate had ever seen him before. The lantern carrier gave a small cry of fear. Silas leaped for the bank and with one sharp snap the man’s neck was broken. His body slumped on to the jetty and one lifeless arm stretched out and floated upon the water, bobbing gently beside the boat.
‘Get in,’ Silas said to Kate. ‘And throw some of these sacks out. They’ll only slow us down.’
Kate stared at the dead man. It had been so quick, so sudden.
‘Now!’
Kate climbed into the boat and pushed the bags out one by one while Silas balanced the lantern on the bow. He had killed the two boatmen just for being in his way and seemed to have forgotten about them the moment they had breathed their last breaths, but Kate could not take her eyes off the dead lantern carrier. If she leaned out far enough, she could reach his hand: the same hand that had held his useless knife, which was now sinking to the bottom of the river.
Silas dipped the tip of his sword in the water, letting the ripples reveal the current’s direction, and when he looked away, Kate pushed out one last sack and reached out to touch the dead man’s hand, hoping it would be enough.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, feeling the energy of the veil rushing to her fingers and leaping out like lightning through her skin. The man had not been dead for very long and she did not feel the same pull into the veil as she had felt with Kalen. She was not even completely certain that anything would happen, and so she jumped when the man’s neck cracked suddenly back into place and his hand moved slightly in the water. The lantern carrier’s eyes snapped open, his pale face caught in sheer surprise as life flooded back into his body.
‘Sit down,’ ordered Silas, taking his place at the oars.
Kate looked back as the little boat headed out into the middle of the river and there, in the very edges of the lantern light, she saw the man’s chest heave in a sudden, living breath. He sat up, one hand going immediately to his neck, watching the stolen boat float away.
With a few powerful strokes the boat soon left the lantern carrier behind and Kate sat on her narrow seat, hugging her knees and resting her head upon them, wondering if he was going to be all right.
‘That piece of filth would have sold you to the wardens for a pitiful price,’ said Silas, looking up at her from beneath his eyebrows, letting her know he knew exactly what she had done. ‘Your compassion was undeserved. Do not waste your time on his kind again.’
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