Now . . . you will return to the tunnels. You will look at no one. You will speak to no one. Each time you disobey me, I will take a life, and the blood of those people will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”
Silas bullied her to the front door and Kate looked out at a group of people talking by the fountain, each of them oblivious to what had just happened inside the house.
“Now,” said Silas. “Walk.”
Kate looked back to say something, but Silas was already out of sight.
She knew she looked suspicious as she walked along that street; it was impossible not to, with a madman tracking her from the shadows. She could not see where Silas had gone, but some of the cavern’s buildings were set away from the walls and surrounded by fences, giving him plenty of opportunities to pass unseen. Soon the Skilled would go into the house to look for Mina, and any trust Edgar might have earned for her would be gone. She wanted to tell them what had happened. She wanted to warn them, but all she could do was walk.
“Kate?”
Kate’s eyes flickered up, just for a moment, and the man whose nose she had punched on the surface waved to get her attention from the other side of the street. Kate looked away quickly, concentrating on walking to the green door.
“Kate!”
She heard footsteps close in on her as the man jogged to catch up, but she did not turn around. Her hand went to the door handle, hoping that it was unlocked.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
The man pressed his hand lightly on her shoulder. Then it slid away, his throat squeaked quietly, and she heard his body drop to the ground.
“I saw you look,” Silas whispered in her ear. “Step through.”
The door opened easily against Kate’s shaking hand. The Skilled were right; she was dangerous. She had led a killer right into their sanctuary.
Kate felt Silas’s presence move closer behind her. She was on her own now. No one was going to help her. She walked out into the tunnel, not daring to look back.
Chapter 14
The Spirit Wheel
Silas ducked through the low tunnels and strode across underground bridges. He moved so fast, Kate found it hard to keep up, and when she lagged behind he turned back and dragged her along until they were far enough away from Mina’s red-bricked cavern for her to be impossibly lost.
“You look weak,” he said, leading her through the dark. “Weaker than I expected.”
“You didn’t have to kill that man.”
“I am an honorable man and honorable men do not lie. You were warned of what would happen if you drew attention to yourself. The consequences are yours to bear.”
“What about Mina?”
“Her life was unimportant and her death was convenient. She knew her time had come.”
Silas stopped at a crossroads with nothing but darkness on every side, and he stood there, listening for something, before pulling Kate up a steep staircase to a pair of arched metal doors. “Do you know where you are?” he asked.
Kate could barely see anything, but a thin strip of daylight filtered in through the gap between the doors and Silas let her step forward to take a look.
“We’re on the surface,” she said.
Kate recognized the smoky smell of the streets. The doors looked straight out onto an alleyway with a cluster of tall black towers gathered at its farthest end. They could have been anywhere in the city. She had only seen a small part of it and it had all looked the same to her. There was no way she could know where they were about to come out.
“And this?” said Silas. “What do you make of this?”
Kate turned, and when her eyes became used to the shadows again she saw a carving set into the wall. It was a stone circle, measuring about one foot across, with a row of circular tiles sunk into a channel around its outer edge. Each small tile carried a different symbol, and the large circle in the center was carved with the shape of a crescent moon. She had never seen anything like it before in her life.
“This is a spirit wheel,” said Silas. “Part of an ancient system that the bonemen once used to help people find their way around Fume and the City Below. Place your hand on the moon and ask it where we are.”
“It’s a wall,” said Kate. “It can’t tell us that.”
“This is far