10
Memories
Kate was sure she had
misheard him. ‘You want me to … what?’
Silas’s frown
deepened. ‘It is not as simple as it sounds,’ he said. ‘This body
can no longer die by any ordinary means. What I need is something
extraordinary. Someone capable of reaching beyond this world to the
place where the real damage was done. What I need is
you.’
‘But if you can live
like that, why would you want to die?’ asked Kate. ‘Surely for you
… for anyone … not being able to get
hurt would be a good thing.’
‘My body may heal
quickly from the cut of a blade, but I still feel it,’ said Silas.
‘The tearing of metal against flesh, the hot smell of blood … Life
is pain, Miss Winters. I am simply forced to endure it longer than
ordinary men, and that is not acceptable to me. There is no cure
for being human. Why I am looking for
death is not the question you should be asking. For now all you
should be concerned with is how.’
‘But … I can’t.
That’s not—’
‘Your ability is not
in question,’ said Silas. ‘Once we have Wintercraft, everything will fall into
place.’
‘I’ve already told
you. I don’t know anything about that book!’
‘Just because you do
not remember it, does not mean you have not seen it. I think you
know more about it than you realise. The answer is already there
inside your mind. And together, we are going to find
it.’
Silas moved before
Kate knew what was happening, pressing his fingers to the sides of
her head and bringing his face up close to hers. His grey eyes
locked on to her own bright blues and then all of her energy was
sapped away, drained so completely that it was an effort even to
blink.
It felt as though a
hood of ice had been pulled over her head. Her forehead prickled
with cold and a deep chill spread through her bones, moving down
through her spine and trickling into every muscle until she could
not move. Her fingertips burned as frost spread across her skin,
icing her eyelashes and making her lips turn blue. Her heartbeat
slowed, unable to fight against the cold. Her lungs fought hard for
every breath … tightening … slowing …
Silas slid Kalen’s
silver dagger from his belt, pushed up Kate’s left sleeve and
traced a shallow cut across the inside of her arm. Kate felt
nothing except the cold as Silas captured drops of her blood in a
thin vial and held it up to the light.
‘All blood holds
power,’ he said. ‘Da’ru will use this to prove your identity to the
High Council. Be glad that I have taken it from you. She would have
taken a lot more.’
Kate tried to fight
against what was happening, but the veil overtook her even more
strongly than before.
‘Tell me,’ said
Silas, corking the vial and pushing it into an inner pocket against
his chest. ‘What do you see?’
Kate’s whole body
stopped. Time stretched endlessly around her and then, in the midst
of that wide unbroken stillness, her mind burst spectacularly into
life.
First there were colours, lights and sounds. Kate felt
like she was moving, but Silas was still right there in front of
her. Then the colours merged into fractured images of places she
knew and people she remembered: Edgar dropping down through the
Night Train’s roof … Morvane’s market in full swing … the view from
her bedroom window … and her father in the bookshop when she was
young, teaching her how to spot a rare book from the
ordinary.
‘There. Go back to
that memory,’ said Silas. ‘Let me see it again.’
Kate was so lost in
what was happening that Silas’s voice took her by
surprise.
‘Concentrate!’
Her thoughts obeyed
him, even though she did not want them to, and she was wrenched
back into her memory of the bookshop, where her father was
inspecting a book with a magnifying glass.
‘Your parents let you
see many rare books that passed through that shop,’ said Silas.
‘Your mind can remember them all. Show me more. Show me this
one.’
The view shifted to a place Kate had never seen before.
She was standing in the middle of a room high up in a circular
tower with windows all around her, looking out over the vast
cityscape of Fume. A book lay open on a desk in front of her: an
old book with curled pages and words written in faded ink, and
Da’ru sat behind it - looking younger than Kate remembered. She
wrote something on a piece of parchment, rolled it up and pressed
it into Kate’s hand. But the hand that took it was not hers. It was
a man’s hand, worn and strong.
‘Let the council know that I am ready to present my
findings,’ she said. ‘Silas has been kept in isolation for two
years and the results of every test continue to exceed all of my
expectations. The council may not approve of my methods, but they
cannot deny the results. It is time for them to see Silas for
themselves. I am trusting you, Kalen. Convince them to speak with
me again. Tell them what you have seen. Take the book with you as a
token of trust, but do not let it out of your sight. Perhaps now
they will finally recognise the value of my
work.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ Kalen’s gravelly voice spoke from the
place Kate’s throat should have been. His hand reached for the book
and closed it, revealing a dark purple cover with silver studs
around the edges and the shimmer of polished oyster shell running
in bands across the leather. A title glistened in the sunlight. One
word written in faded silver leaf:
Wintercraft
‘Inform me the moment they send for me,’ said Da’ru. ‘And
if any of them try to harm the book in any way … kill
them.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ Kate’s mind swiftly left Kalen and Da’ru
behind, already searching out the book within her memory. She
returned to the bookshop - to Artemis this time - and found herself
looking through the eyes of her younger self into one of her
earliest memories, one she did not even know that she
had.
‘I told you, it is too dangerous!’ said Artemis, arguing
with her father over the bookshop counter.
‘This is not your decision, Artemis! Anna and I have
already decided. It is the right thing to do.’
‘They can’t ask you to do this!’
‘They can. You, me and Kate are the only ones left that
carry the Winters blood. The book belongs with our family. Why
don’t you understand that?’
‘Because it’s not right. What about Kate? Are you going to
risk putting her in danger for the sake of a stolen
book?’
‘Nothing is going to happen to Kate. And this is far more
than just a book, Artemis. It is history, and who knows what else
it might be one day. We are going to do this. It doesn’t matter if
you agree with us or not. That book will be safe here with us,
where it is meant to be.’
Artemis thumped his fist upon the counter, the only time
Kate had ever seen him lose his temper in that way. ‘This is wrong,
Jonathan. How do you know they are telling the truth? How do you
know they’re not just trying to protect themselves by getting this
thing out of Fume?’
‘Because they stole it from a warden - from Da’ru Marr’s
best man himself! They have already taken enough risks to
get Wintercraft back. The rest is up to
us now.’
‘So,’ said Silas, his
voice breaking into Kate’s thoughts. ‘The book was stolen from
Kalen and handed to your family. Da’ru always believed he had sold
it to the Skilled to line his own pockets. She thought he was a
traitor. It appears she was wrong.’
Kate was not listening to him. The veil was already taking
her to the next memory she had of Wintercraft and, before she could stop it, her mind replayed the first
night she ever spent in the bookshop cellar’s hiding place. A night
that happened just a few days after that argument: the night the
wardens took her parents away.
She remembered looking out through the eyeholes in the
cellar wall, watching her parents taking Wintercraft
out of a secret space beside the chimney
breast. They were talking too quietly for her to understand them,
but they were both afraid. Her mother hid the book in her dress
pocket, wrapping it in a torn strip of cloth. Then a loud noise
cracked up above them and the cellar door smashed from its hinges,
clattering down the steps as four robed men broke their way
in.
Kate remembered watching her father fighting them off and
her mother drawing them as far away from Kate’s hiding place as she
could, so her daughter would not be found. She saw the flash of
silver as a blade was thrown through the air, stabbing deep into
her father’s shoulder. She saw the warden who came to retrieve it
and heard her father’s scream as he wrenched the dagger
out.
That warden gave the order for her parents to be taken up
to the cages and, as he carried the dagger held ready at his side,
Kate saw the letter ‘K’ shining upon the blade, stained red with
her father’s blood. Kate knew that man at once. Kalen. Only he was
younger and healthier, before the madness had taken over his mind.
Kalen had come to Morvane to find the book and clear his name. He
was the enemy she had seen in the cellar that night. He was the one
who had taken her family away.
The image faded.
Silas was back in front of her and Kate could feel the prickle of
cold on her skin once again. Her lungs burst into life, her heart
raced up to speed and she was back in the museum, back in the
firelight.
‘What … was that?’
she asked, her throat stiff and sore as Silas lowered his hands
from her face.
‘That was a glimpse
of the half-life,’ he said. ‘The first level of the veil that a
Skilled mind learns to enter, where memory becomes reality. You
cannot stop now. You must return.’
‘But I saw the book …
and Da’ru inside a tower. I’ve never been there.’
‘That was one of
Kalen’s memories,’ said Silas. ‘I took it from him in the moments
before he died. I shared it with you here because it was important
for you to see. Now go back. The veil must become familiar to you.
You must travel even further along the path into death if you are
going to be of use to me.’
‘No,’ said Kate,
flinching away from him. ‘Leave me alone!’ She knocked her chair
over and stumbled to the door, throwing back the bolts with
shivering hands as Silas sat back and watched.
‘It took Kalen just a
few weeks to find your parents, but he did not find the book,’ he
said. ‘The Skilled were not there to help your family when it
mattered most, just as none of them are here to help you now. It
seems Artemis kept you away from them for good reason. Clearly he
did not want to put you in any more danger. Your parents had
already done enough of that.’
‘You don’t know what
you’re talking about!’ snapped Kate, fighting with the door as
tears sprang into her eyes.
‘The Skilled
convinced your parents to risk their lives and yours to protect
Wintercraft and Kalen took the wardens
to Morvane that day because of them. From what I have heard, your
uncle fled from the bookshop the moment the wardens arrived. That
cowardice saved his life. If he had stayed, he would be
dead.’
‘Artemis is not a
coward!’ said Kate.
‘He ran like a
rabbit, leaving you and your parents to your fate. I have seen him
lie for you. He protects you and treats you like his own child, but
he does it out of guilt. He gave in to his fears that night, saving
himself and leaving your parents to face their enemies alone. Then
again, perhaps he was happy to see them being taken away. Your
uncle was powerless within your household before the wardens came.
Perhaps he wanted your parents to die.’
‘That’s not
true!’
‘Your family was the
reason Kalen harvested your town ten years ago,’ said Silas, ‘and
you are the reason I chose to harvest it this time. The Winters
family has a talent for attracting danger and that danger has
always been connected to the same thing. Tell me where Wintercraft is. Tell me what happened to it and you
will have no reason to hide any more. It will all be
over.’
Kate rattled the
door. The bolts would not open. They were stuck tight.
Silas stood up and
began walking towards her. ‘Since the night Da’ru unearthed the
book she has been plagued by visions of the dead,’ he said. ‘They
disturb her dreams and torment her days. She believes that ancient
spirits of your family cursed her for taking Wintercraft from them, yet she still wants it back.
She will do anything to find it and, if she does, you can be sure
that you and your uncle will be the first to suffer. You saw what
was left of Kalen. He was Da’ru’s closest ally, yet she poisoned
him into madness just for losing Wintercraft. The man I killed in the barrow alley
was barely a shadow of the warden he had once been. His mind was
lost. If you insist upon making things difficult, I could easily do
the same to you.’
Kate’s head swam with
dizziness. The effects of the veil were still upon her and an old
memory blossomed in the confusion. Silas’s link to her thoughts was
already broken. This memory was for her alone. A memory Silas could
not see.
She remembered being very young again, hiding between the
shelves in the bookshop and pulling books out of place, leaving
rough piles of them behind her on the floor. Artemis was there, but
he had not seen her. He was too busy talking to a woman standing in
the shop doorway. A small woman in a black hooded
coat.
‘It is unfortunate that it has come to this,’ she said.
‘There was nothing anyone could do.’
The woman would have easily passed unnoticed in any crowd,
but Kate remembered her eyes clearly enough. They were dark and
strange, like black puddles of oil with rims of bright blue tracing
around their edges.
‘Then … it’s true?’ Artemis looked at the woman, willing
her not to give him the news he was dreading.
‘I am sorry, Artemis. They are dead.’
‘No.’
‘You have my word. We did everything we
could.’
‘No! How? How could this happen?’
‘Anna was carrying the book of
Wintercraft. She passed it to one of our
people when the wardens moved her from the train, but she was seen.
Da’ru Marr heard about what she had done and had her executed as a
traitor. Jonathan tried to stop them. He stole a key and freed
himself from his cell, but it was too late. Anna was already dead.
He attacked the first two wardens that he saw, unarmed, and was
killed that same night.’
Artemis walked blindly over to a chair by the bookshop
fire and dropped down into it with his head in his
hands.
‘What do I tell Kate?’ he said quietly. ‘How do I tell a
five-year-old girl that her parents are gone?’
‘Tell her that they did what they set out to do,’ said the
woman. ‘The book is safe. We will make a place for it in the
ancient library, somewhere it will never be found.’ She walked to
Artemis and placed a broken silver chain with a gemstone pendant
gently in his hand. ‘We found this afterwards,’ she said. ‘It
belongs to Kate now.’
Artemis’s fingers closed around the chain, but he did not
raise his head.
‘It is not too late. You can still join us. We can protect
you. Both of you.’
Artemis looked up, his eyes damp with tears. ‘Just like
you protected Jonathan and Anna?’ he said bitterly. ‘We do not need
your kind of protection.’
‘Artemis …’
‘Get out,’ he whispered.
‘Perhaps, one day, you will change your mind,’ said the
woman. ‘You will see that it is for the best.’
Artemis laughed coldly, and the woman turned to
leave.
‘Tell Kate her parents carried the name of Winters well,’
she said. ‘Da’ru only learned who they were after their deaths. If
she had known whom she had captured, I believe their lives would
have been a lot worse. Death may well be a blessing for both of
them.’
‘Get out!’
The woman nodded once, then swept out of the door as
smoothly as the breeze, leaving Artemis hunched in front of the
fire, weeping in the dark.
Kate opened her
eyes.
‘What is it?’
demanded Silas. ‘What did you see?’
Kate was sure now of
one thing. Her parents had died trying to protect Wintercraft. Artemis had warned them the book was
dangerous, but they had protected it just the same.
‘Well?’
‘It’s gone,’ said
Kate. ‘The book is gone.’
‘You are
lying.’
‘We kept a box …
inside the cellar fireplace. Artemis hid the book in there when he
heard the wardens coming. You destroyed the book. When you burned
the bookshop, it burned too.’
The lie came easily
to Kate, but Silas was not fooled. ‘There are two vital facts you
should know before you lie to me again,’ he said calmly. ‘Firstly,
I am a man of my word. I keep my promises and do not make them
without fully intending to carry them out. And secondly, there is
no secret you can keep from me, now that I know how to enter your
mind.’
Kate felt the veil
creeping around the very edges of her consciousness and she stepped
back from Silas, trying to blink the feeling away.
‘If the book could be
destroyed so easily, do you not think someone would have rid the
world of it long before now? And do you really believe I would have
burned your shop if I had not been absolutely certain Wintercraft was not inside? If it was there, I
would have known. I would have seized it, found you and we would
not be having this pleasant conversation. Your work would already
be done.’
Silas’s growing anger
smothered the room. Kate’s back reached the wall. There was nowhere
else to go.
‘We have no more
time,’ said Silas. He grabbed her arm, pulled her along the wall
and snatched something down from a high shelf. ‘Remember, it is
your fault that we have come to this.’
The point of a needle
shone in the firelight and a vial attached to it glowed a deep
dangerous blue as Silas stabbed it down into Kate’s arm, releasing
a trickle of poison into her blood. She tried to pull away, but the
liquid spread like fire through her veins. Sounds became distant,
her limbs felt heavy and her knees weakened under her, sending her
crumpling to the floor.
Silas’s crow
fluttered up on to his shoulder and Silas stood over her as
unconsciousness carried her senses away.
‘This could have all
been much easier,’ he said.