together like dark fish, shifting in one writhing mass.
“The circle is ready,” said Silas. “It is time to finish this.”
Kate realized that she could not just stand there. She had to take control. So, with the book in one hand she ignored her own warning and stepped forward, reaching out to touch the misty surface of the veil. It felt like pressing her palm into a bank of snow, cold and soft. There was no resistance and, as she stepped across the protective line, the shades gathered close to her hand.
“Kate, don’t!” Edgar tried to grab her, but Silas held him back.
The half-life claimed Kate’s senses and nothing could have prepared her for what she felt in that place. It was not cold or warm, dark or bright. There was no feeling of any kind. No smell of bone dust that usually hung in the hall. No sound beyond her own nervous breathing. The shades moved around her, existing in a silence so complete that Kate found it disorientating. She had no real sense of there being a floor beneath her feet, the air was still and dead, and the mist that had seemed so dense before had now lightened enough that she could see Silas and Edgar clearly inside the circle. Her heart felt hollow, her mind detached and slow. This was not the same place she had entered when Da’ru had forced her to return Kalen’s spirit to life. Using the circle had opened her to a far deeper level of the veil. It was not peaceful, it was not frightening. It just was.
The shades swarmed gently, pushing past each other and brushing softly against her skin. Each touch carried with it a burst of half-forgotten memories, tiny glimpses into the lives of each shade that came close enough, along with something else. Fear.
Every one of those souls was afraid of her.
“. . . help us . . .” they whispered.
“. . . release us . . .”
Kate tried not to listen. This was not what she had come to do. She couldn’t help them. She didn’t know how. She looked back at the central circle, and beyond it—just a few feet behind Silas—she sensed what she was looking for. She could not see it yet, but its energy was unmistakable. The invisible current that threaded through the half-life. The path leading directly into death.
The shades drew back from her and parted as she walked between them. Silas stayed perfectly still, his eyes following her. Standing where they were, Silas could do anything to Edgar if Kate let him down. She had to give him something and she still had no idea what.
The shades’ whispers became louder the closer Kate got to the surging current. She held out her hand to feel for the shift in energy, not wanting to wander into it herself, then a rush of movement ran across her fingertips and she stopped walking, knowing she was close.
Kate kept her fingers inside the current and with one perfect wave of clarity she sensed the presence of every shade still bound in Fume. There were spirits everywhere, wandering the streets of the Cities Above and Below, many of them clinging so strongly to their old lives that they could not leave the houses they had once known, or the graves of loved ones they had mourned but never truly let go. Some of them did not know they were dead, others were confused, not knowing what was meant to happen to them next, and some were sealed away, their names lost forever, never to be spoken of again. Those were the souls trapped in the spirit wheels, the souls time had truly forgotten, and she heard their voices distantly upon the veil, sad voices, speaking words she could not understand.
The shades were prisoners, trapped between life and death by the powerful energies of the ancient city. Some were there because of Da’ru and her experiments, but many more had become bound there through neglect. Without the bonemen to see their souls safely through the veil, most of them had simply lost their way.
Somewhere in Albion’s history something had gone very wrong.
Kate stepped back from death’s current and felt the shades’ tug of desperation as she reluctantly closed her mind to them. She looked back at Silas, seeing the expectation in his eyes. He wanted death even more powerfully than the shades. He needed it and she still did not know why. She walked back to the