at a run, not daring to catch her breath as the staircase swayed with the weight of someone following behind her. The towers looked even taller now that she was underneath them: immovable monuments to the dead that not even the High Council had dared to strip away. She ran to the nearest street, past railings that circled the towers like iron skirts, and squeezed through the first gate she could find, ducking down behind a neatly trimmed hedge and trusting it to keep her hidden as she spied on the road.
Carriages trundled past her hiding place, but no wardens came. She was just about to creep out and risk checking the staircase when she heard a familiar voice close by.
“One more sound out of you, and I will slice you ear to ear.”
Kate peered through the hedge. Standing in the street, as ominous as the city around him, was Silas, with Edgar by his side, bound to him by a wrist chain.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” said Silas, raising a hand to the sky and letting his crow flutter down to land proudly upon it. “You always were trouble.”
“She won’t follow us, you know,” said Edgar, his nervous voice a little higher than usual. The crow glared at him, watching his every move. “Kate doesn’t know her way around the city. She won’t know where we are.”
“She’ll know.” Silas stopped for a moment, making Kate retreat farther into her hiding place. “I would have stripped that station bare in search of her if it would not have attracted unwanted questions,” he said. “Perhaps this way is for the best. I have you now, Mr. Rill. The Winters family have always looked after each other, and you are as good as family to that girl from what I have seen. Wherever I take you, your friend will not be far behind.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Edgar. “Kate’s a lot smarter than you think.”
“We shall see.” Silas reached his hand into the street and a horse-drawn carriage with a blue crest on its door pulled up to the pathside. “The Museum of History,” he said to the driver. “And don’t spare the whip.” Silas carried his crow inside and tugged Edgar in behind him like a disobedient dog. The carriage reins snapped hard and the gray horse trotted forward.
Kate didn’t have to think about what to do next. If she lost Edgar now, she could lose him for good. She darted out from her hiding place, ran straight for the carriage, and grabbed hold of the luggage rack hooked on the back. She managed to jump up and push her left foot into a twisted loop of ornamental metal that caged the carriage’s rear axle. The whip cracked, the horse gathered speed, and the carriage wheels spun at a racing pace until it was cutting through the streets faster than a wolf could run.
Kate’s right leg hung down as she clung to the rack’s cold metal, and she forced most of her weight into her left leg, trying to keep her balance. No one paid her any attention. There were dozens of carriages on the streets, many of them with people tucked into the luggage racks or riding on the roof—servants, she guessed from their bedraggled states—but none of them were traveling as fast as the one under Silas’s command.
The carriage raced along streets decorated with stone statues, past low buildings topped with staring gargoyles that spat meltwater down on to the paths below. The driver was definitely taking Silas at his word. The whip cracked hard every few seconds, and the horse sped on, forcing well-dressed men and women to move aside to let it speed through. Most of the streets were built to match perfectly the architecture in the oldest parts of Fume. Kate was starting to think they were going around in circles when one of the wheels hit a stone on a tight turn and the carriage lurched sharply, almost sending her catapulting out on to the road. She clung on as it bounced along into a wide street lined with huge gray buildings, where, with a snort of relief, the horse finally slowed to a stop.
They were at the bottom of a high curve of shallow steps, looking up at the once-grand face of what had to be the Museum of History. Its windows were tall and thin, tinted with green glass, and every one of them was still intact. A