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 realize. 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 gray 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 colors, lights, and sounds. Kate felt as though she was moving, but Silas was still right in front of her. Then the colors 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 among the ordinary ones.
“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