at once. That one woman had suffered dozens of deliberate injuries in order to test her theories, from a cut hand to a broken leg, and had to instruct an apprentice to apply her healing techniques when she discovered that she could not channel the veil to heal herself.
Wintercraft was a complicated text, meant to be studied slowly, not skipped through in a single night. Kate found herself leafing through many of the pages, turning past the more intimidating subjects, such as “Compelling the Dead to Speak” and “Wearing the Second Skin,” which—in spite of its gruesome title—was something Kate had already managed to do when she had seen the world briefly through Da’ru’s eyes. She turned instead to the section that looked most useful to her, one named simply “Life & Death.”
The writing there was small and cramped, and extra pages had been pushed in to accommodate the extensive research that had been done into the subject, but the central concept was simple enough. According to that section, the Walkers saw the worlds of the living and the dead as exactly that: two separate worlds overlapping one another, between which a person’s consciousness could eventually move at will. To help Silas pass into death, all someone had to do was open a tear in the veil and let his spirit wander through. That was the theory, but Kate read that section twice and was still none the wiser about how she should go about it. The book might as well have asked her to jump from a tower and trust that she could fly.
Silas was guiding the boat steadily through a junction of seven mazelike passages when Kate reached a section of the book where the ink was mostly green instead of black. She tried to concentrate on the words, but she had been reading for hours and the events of the day were starting to catch up with her. Her eyes became heavy, the oars broke the water like a heartbeat, and she fell asleep clutching Wintercraft tightly in her hand.
Kate woke suddenly, not realizing she had been asleep, and found herself huddled on the floor of the boat, leaning against the stern. Shadows hung around her, thick stifling blackness, and her heart sank. They were still underground.
She pulled herself up into her seat. Silas was working the oars at a steady speed, but the candle in the lantern had burned most of the way down. He must have been rowing for hours, though he did not look tired. He did, however, have a rag wrapped over his nose and mouth that hadn’t been there before. Kate’s nose twitched, instantly becoming aware of a foul smell in the air. “What is that?” she asked, trying not to breathe.
She glanced over the side of the boat. Somewhere along their journey the underground river had fed into the city’s system of sewer tunnels. The water was filthy and thick. Kate choked on the stench and dragged her blanket up to her face, struggling to block it out. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought Silas’s eyes were smiling. Beneath his mask he was laughing at her.
Silas steered the boat down the central tunnel, where the river split into three. Ladders led upward at regular points along the walls, but he was in no hurry to use just any of them. Instead, he counted them carefully and turned the boat in toward the wall at the fourteenth. “This shaft leads into a quiet part of the city,” he said, tying the boat to the lowest rung. “Climb up and do not draw attention to yourself.”
Kate scrambled onto the bank, dropped her blanket, and pushed the book into her coat pocket, needing both hands to climb the ladder. By the time she reached the top her eyes were watering with the smell. She forced a circular door open through sheer strength of will, then heaved herself out between a cluster of short black towers, and slithered on to the cobbles. Silas stepped up smoothly behind her, threw off his rag mask and looked around. It was early morning, and his eyes reflected the light of the winter sun as he pulled Kate to her feet.
“It is the day before the Night of Souls,” he said quietly. “This way.”
The snow had melted, and most of the streets were empty except for the most dedicated of carriagemen trundling around looking for an early fare. Silas ignored them, preferring to stay on foot, and he