Shadowcry - By Jenna Burtenshaw Page 0,40

yours.”

Kate struggled against him as he dragged her back up the staircase to the first landing, where a door now stood open.

“After you,” he said, forcing her inside.

Kate blinked in the bright light of a lantern that was already lit upon a low table, and Silas picked it up, leading her through a maze of rooms linked by archways. The museum may have been huge above ground, but those main floors were only the uppermost levels of a much deeper space. Most of the lower rooms held storage crates filled with forgotten pieces of bone, metal, coins, books, and everything else Kate could imagine, but the farther they went, the neater the rooms became, until they reached some that Silas had obviously claimed for himself. There were chairs to sit in and old paintings and weapons displayed on some of the walls, suggesting that this wasn’t just an ordinary collector’s hiding place. It was Silas’s home.

Soon they reached a large room that looked much older than the rest. A fire crackled under an ancient stone mantelpiece set into the main wall and the air hung with the warm smell of old leather. Silas’s crow was there, perched upon a bookshelf in the corner, watching Kate keenly as she stepped inside.

She tried her best to look calm when Silas pointed to a chair by the fire.

“Sit.”

There was no hope of escaping this time. The museum’s lower floors were like a maze. She would only get lost if she tried to run, so she did as she was told.

Silas took a plate of food from a table and passed it to her. “Eat,” he said. “I have no interest in food anymore, but I find prisoners usually require it.”

Kate’s stomach growled at the sight of fresh bread, biscuits, and cheese, and the crow skittered closer, watching every mouthful that she ate.

Silas pulled over a second chair and sat down. “It is time for you to understand. Your life as it was is now over,” he said. “Your home is gone, your uncle has been taken, and you are only just beginning to recognize the lies that have been told to you all these years.”

“What lies?” asked Kate. “I don’t understand.”

“That is because you have been encouraged to be ignorant. There are those who have tried to protect you by hiding the truth about what you are, but I will not lie to you. Being one of the Skilled brings nothing but persecution, fear, and death. You can accept it or try to hide from it, but you cannot escape it.”

Kate put down her plate, unable to stomach the food anymore, and the crow fluttered over to it, stole what was left of the cheese, and scuttled under the table to finish it off.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

Silas sat back in his chair, studying her face. “Do you know what began the war that has made Albion what it is today?” he asked.

Kate did not answer.

“For generations the leaders on the Continent have tried to cross our borders,” said Silas. “And every battle that has been fought—every death, every kill—was caused by one single secret. That secret was the Skilled. The High Council are not the only ones who recognize the value of your kind. As a people, the Skilled are unique to Albion. There are no reports of anyone on the Continent having access to the veil. No one knows why, but while the Skilled have thrived here, other countries have long lived in the peaceful ignorance that this world is the only world there is.”

“That’s because it is the only one,” said Kate.

“Really?” said Silas, looking genuinely surprised. “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then you have far more to learn than I realized.”

Silas stared at Kate, letting the silence grow between them until she was forced to look away. “Believing in a lie can be a comfort,” he said. “But continuing to believe it when you have already seen the truth can be dangerous, if people decide to use that lie against you. You cannot deny what you have already seen. The High Council has always known about the Skilled, but it has been many centuries since they have shared the same goals. Almost four centuries ago, at the beginning of the last era, the High Council were tempted by science and turned against the old ways of the Skilled. They wanted to study them. Understand them. Pick apart their minds to find out exactly how