times, but they never really had a chance. After that, I started passing them information: who the High Council had captured, which towns they were going to harvest next, and whenever I could help one of the Skilled, I did. Me and Tom managed to help some of them escape. Most were captured again, but a few got away. When Da’ru finally got suspicious about my part in it, I knew it was time for me and Tom to get out, but as you can see that didn’t really go to plan. The Skilled sent me up north so I wouldn’t be found. They told me about a bookseller they thought had potential and so I went to Morvane, where I met you. After that . . . I just did my best. I was trying to help. I never wanted to lie to you, Kate.”
Kate took the letter back, rolled it up neatly, and tucked it away. “I don’t think anything ever goes to plan,” she said, picking up the lantern and pushing the handle into Edgar’s hands. “What happened wasn’t your fault, I suppose. And none of it really makes a difference now, does it?”
“So . . . we’re okay?” Edgar asked hopefully.
“Being in this city gives people a strange view of things. All the hiding and the secrecy . . . and I’ve only been here a few days,” said Kate. “I suppose I can understand why you did what you did. I’m just sorry you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about it sooner.”
“Then we’re still friends?”
Kate held out her hand. “Friends,” she said.
They shook hands awkwardly and Edgar grinned. “Silas was right, though,” he said. “I do have more of a knack of getting people into trouble than getting them out of it. Just look at where we’re standing!”
Kate realized they were still holding hands and gently pulled hers away. “Silas hasn’t done anything to either of us yet,” she said. “Right now, we just have to do what he says.”
“Wait!” Edgar stopped her on her way to the door. “You’re not really going after him, are you?”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s nowhere else to go. Do you really think he would just let us leave?”
“I think if we run fast enough he might not have any choice.”
“And we’d be on the wrong end of that sword of his before we took ten steps. Look, I don’t like this either, but I have to go and find him. You can stay here if you like.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with him again,” said Edgar. “From now on, where you go, I go. Even if you are insane.”
The two of them headed out into the corridor together, took the stairs up to the ground floor, and found Silas in the main hall, kicking away piles of bones, wood, and fallen wire. He had already cleared a wide space and was beginning to tear up floorboards in the very center of the hall.
“You’re no use to me standing there,” he said without looking up. “Get working.”
Kate and Edgar tugged at the floorboards, using broken boards to lever others up and push them aside. It was easier than it looked. The museum hall was ancient, but the floor was false and had been recently laid. Beneath those boards was the real museum floor and on it—being uncovered piece by piece—was a circle of symbols carved deeply into the stone. Kate stopped work, not daring to go any further, and Edgar did the same soon after.
“Whoa! Is this what I think it is?” he said.
Kate touched one of the symbols. There were dozens of them, each one intricately carved and as wide as her palm. The floor reminded her a little of the spirit wheel, only these symbols were very different. They looked more like letters than pictures, and if that was true, she was looking at a language she had never seen before.
Even though she had only read about places like this, there was no mistaking what it was. “It’s a listening circle,” she said.
For generations people had told stories about the listening circles, about the Skilled who had first created them, and of the madness said to claim people who dared to use them more than once. Most people did not know if they really existed or not, but as with any good story, the more gruesome the details, the more quickly it spread, and when it came to the listening circles there were plenty of gruesome