he darted forward again, clipping one end of a short chain to Kate’s ankle and the other to the grate in the floor.
“Bring in the body,” Da’ru commanded the moment he was done. “And be quick!”
The boy scrambled to obey and disappeared into the next room, emerging moments later pulling a low table behind him. A dark red cloth covered whatever was on top of it, and Kate stared at the body-shaped bulge, expecting the worst. What if it was Artemis under there? What if he was dead? She tried to prepare herself for the worst, determined not to react too strongly if it was true. Then Da’ru nodded, the boy pulled back the cloth, and the dead person’s identity was revealed.
Kalen’s body looked almost exactly the same as the last time Kate had seen it, gray and cold and still, except that his sunken chest was bare and the wound Silas’s sword had made had been stitched together with crosses of thick black thread. The sight of him laid there made bile rise up in Kate’s throat, but a deeper part of her was glad to see him again. There was the man who had stolen her parents, laid out, dead and cold. The manner of his death no longer mattered to her. Silas was right, Kalen had earned his death. All that mattered was that he was gone.
“This body is all I want you to concentrate upon now,” Da’ru said, as the boy wheeled the table right up in front of Kate. “One of your townspeople stole this man’s life and now you will return it to him.”
“The townspeople?” Kate’s eyes flashed toward Silas.
“Quiet!” Silas said firmly. “The councilwoman did not order you to speak.” He glared at Kate with such fury that she did not dare say any more.
“You are here to work, girl. Not to talk,” said Da’ru. “You will show the High Council exactly what a Skilled mind can do. Now, return this man’s soul.”
“I can’t,” said Kate. “I don’t know how to do that. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
Da’ru’s back straightened, her eyes bristling at Kate’s brazen challenge to her authority. “You will.”
“Not for you.”
Da’ru moved toward her like a snake ready to strike. Kate thought she was going to hit her, but instead Da’ru smiled calmly, snatched hold of Kate’s hand, and pressed it hard onto Kalen’s chest. Kate immediately felt dizzy, as if she had been spun around too fast, her head pounding as the coldness of the veil closed in around her again. But this time was different. She felt like she was falling forward, falling into the dead man himself. The veil descended quickly, swamping her senses before she had a chance to fight against it, and the twelve councilmen all watched with anticipation.
Whatever Da’ru had done, it felt as if something had broken within Kate. She tried to fight back, but she didn’t know how. Then her mind lifted and, instead of a flood of memories, she saw something she had never seen before.
She was standing within a vast hanging mist of silvery light, as if time had stopped in the middle of a moonlit rainstorm. The air shimmered with tiny lights, but when she held out her hand, she could feel nothing except the cold. At first, she was sure she was alone, but if she concentrated she could hear faint voices all around her, gentle sounds that whispered and moved.
“Who’s there?” Her voice was swallowed by the mist, carrying much farther than she would have thought possible, until it reflected off something in the distance and returned to her as a tiny echo. Then something answered, whispering her name as the mist closed in.
“She has passed into the second level of the veil!” said Da’ru. “Silas. Do you see her?”
Kate did not hear Silas answer, but Da’ru’s voice reassured her that—wherever she was—she was not completely lost. She started walking through the mist, concentrating on Da’ru’s voice as the only connection she had back to her life. But the farther she walked, the less anything seemed to matter. She felt so peaceful in that place, so content and relaxed, that she was tempted to give in: to let go of the testing room, the High Council, and Silas, and to let the veil claim her completely. But then she thought of Artemis and Edgar, of Morvane and home, and she knew that somehow, she had to get back.
Kate stopped walking and focused on picturing Kalen’s