Shadowcry - By Jenna Burtenshaw Page 0,13

of a traitor’s ’ard enough, but when they catch ya the dyin’s always slow and cruel. Do ya want to know what hell looks like? Silas’ll show ya things that’ll make my life ’ere look like a rich man’s blessing. You mark my words.”

“Edgar, just leave him,” said Kate. “We have to get out of here.”

Kalen turned toward her. “It’s too late for that,” he said. “Silas won’t let ya. You’ve got something he needs. That spark inside ya. You think he won’t see it? You think he won’t know what you are? Silas is the kind of man ya don’t ever want to meet. He’ll walk around inside yer pretty little mind leavin’ footprints that’ll never go away. He’s a devil, see. Just . . . like . . . me.”

Kalen’s hand whipped down to his belt where the hilt of a third dagger jutted from the cloth. Edgar was ready. He swung the stool as hard as he could, smashing it against the man’s skull.

“Quick!” he said, trying to keep his voice low. “Run!”

“You won’t stop ’im!” said Kalen, grasping a bleeding nose as Kate threw herself out of the inn’s front door. “You’ll jus’ make ’im angry!”

Chapter 4

Murder

Kate fled out into the market square and saw Artemis being pushed roughly into a cage. She forced herself to turn away and kept close to the inn’s outer wall, hoping that no one would see her. There were too many wardens for her to risk helping him there. She had to find another way.

The sun shone straight into her eyes, leaving no shadows in which to hide, so she kept running. She leaped over bird bodies and piles of wood and tools, and squeezed past a row of traders’ horses that were tied to a fence, eating hay from a rack. She considered stealing one of them, but she didn’t know how to ride and, even if she could, a girl traveling on horseback would look far too conspicuous in the town.

She ducked between their warm bodies instead and headed for one of the gaps between the buildings, where a pair of open gates led her into a barrow alley: a road just wide enough for two horses and carts to squeeze past each other on their way to and from the market. There was a high wall on one side and a few tiny shops on the other, but everything looked abandoned now. Kate checked behind her. Edgar was pushing his way past the horses, making one of them stamp and snort, but there was no sign of Kalen. She knocked hard on the first door she could find and the wood swung back limply against the weight of her hand. The lock had been smashed and there was no answer from inside.

“Come on,” she said quietly, stepping forward as the door creaked open and Edgar followed her through into the dark.

The air smelled of sage and rosemary and the floor crunched with scattered dry leaves. Edgar lit a match from a box in his pocket. Tall jars sparkled from shelves lining the walls and a pair of weighing scales had been knocked off the curved wooden counter, and left dented and broken where they fell.

Kate stepped over the scales and crept to the window. The curtains were closed, but she could see the front pane had shattered, covering the floor beneath them in fragments of green glass. She pulled the fabric carefully aside and peered out into the alley.

“What if the wardens are still in here?” whispered Edgar, shivering as the match went out and he began to light another.

“There’s no one here,” said Kate. “It looks like Eva and Parr put up a good fight.”

“Do you think they’re all right?”

“The wardens have them. What do you think?”

“I think this is all crazy,” said Edgar, crunching his way over to her. “First those birds, then Artemis gets taken. There are mad guys underground and wardens everywhere else.” He looked at Kate and then lowered his eyes. “That old guy. Kalen? What he said back there. It was all crazy talk. You do know that, right? On a scale of sanity that guy is completely out of his tree.”

“I know that,” said Kate. She tried to sound confident, but the truth was she did not know what to think. Even if Kalen had been lying about knowing Edgar, Edgar’s behavior toward the old man had made her realize just how little she really knew about her friend. “Does