wants me, doesn’t she? What if we went to see her together, with me as your prisoner? How close would the guards let you get to her then?”
That got Silas’s attention. He stopped walking so suddenly that Kate almost bumped into him. “You would not suggest that if you knew the consequences,” he said.
“I don’t care about that.”
“You should care. Da’ru is not the only one in the High Council who is interested in the workings of the veil. They know what you are now. They will never let you go once they have you. They will imprison you and experiment upon you, regardless of anything that happens to her.”
“And what will they do to you for killing a councilwoman?”
Silas’s eyes grew darker. “Whatever happens, it will be worth it to see the look on Da’ru’s face when I send her into death.”
“And your best chance of doing that is with my help.”
“Our help,” said Edgar, panting as he reappeared beside them. “Da’ru still has my brother. If there’s a chance I can help him, I have to do it. I don’t want to leave him behind again.”
“I will not protect you. Either of you,” said Silas. “It is of no interest to me if you live or die.”
“We know that,” said Kate.
“Then you are both fools. But you are right. Presenting you as my prisoner would certainly get Da’ru’s attention.”
A dog’s fierce bark echoed above the music.
“The wardens must not find us,” Silas said. “Follow me.”
The barrow alley led into another part of the crowd and the flow of people carried them along so strongly that Kate lost sight of Silas as he raced ahead again, disappearing between a moving carriage and a masked juggler on horseback. She kept going, trying to spot him in the heaving crowd, and Edgar pushed his way along beside her.
“Can you see him?” he shouted.
Kate spotted him at last, walking through a wide stone archway that linked two towers together. Beneath it, tucked just inside an alleyway, was a two-horse carriage decorated with black ribbons and paper skulls. The carriage still had a driver, but he was more interested in watching the crowd than in anything else going on around him. Silas crept up beside him, grabbed the whip, and held it firmly to the man’s throat. Kate was too far away to hear what was said, but Silas talked while the driver just nodded nervously. She was expecting the worst, until Silas lowered the whip and the driver leaped down from his seat, fleeing into the night.
Kate and Edgar ran to the carriage and climbed into the back while Silas snapped on the reins, guiding the horses swiftly into the busy streets. Kate looked out of the window at the leaning towers gathered around them, which looked much older and more decrepit than any she had seen before. “Is this the way to the council chambers?” she asked.
“We’re not going to the chambers,” said Edgar. “Da’ru won’t be there tonight.”
“Then where are we going?”
“The city square. The High Council go there every year. That’s where Da’ru will be.”
Silas took the carriage down through the narrowest streets of the city, dodging the busiest areas and driving the horses along at a steady pace. He could have gone faster, but he did not want to draw attention to himself. No amount of prisoners would do him any good if he was captured by a warden patrol. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, concentrating on the task before him, until the four round towers marking the corners of the city square rose slowly into sight.
Fume’s main square was very different from the one in Morvane. It was edged by tall white-stoned buildings with arched roofs and high stained-glass windows, and instead of barrow alleys, the crowd entered through ornate stone tunnels that sloped gently upward, decorated with carvings that looked centuries old. Silas took the carriage into one of the tunnels and stopped it a short way inside. “We’ll get out here,” he said, speaking through the hatch behind his seat.
They abandoned the carriage behind another that had stopped in the same place and then they were part of the crowd again, squeezing along by candlelight into the bright fiery glow of the square.
Inside the straight edges of the outer buildings, Kate was surprised to see that the city square was not a square at all. It was a circle. The tunnel came out at the top of a long staircase, which led down