Winterveil by Jenna Burtenshaw

inside.
    The museum’s main hall was a cracked, dirty shell of what it had once been. Floorboards were torn up and cast against the walls. Bones from old exhibits, tangled in wires that had once suspended them from the ceiling, were strewn across the floor, and in the very center of it all was a listening circle, a carved ring of stone symbols left by the Skilled long before that abandoned place had ever been used as a museum.
    Edgar had bad memories of that hall. Silas marched straight across it, heading for the winding corridors and the staircase leading to the floors below, while Edgar stayed close to the walls, still wary of the circle that he had once seen open up and reveal its true purpose. It was a dormant gateway into the half-life that, when activated, had allowed him, Kate, and Silas to see deep into the realm of the restless dead.
    Silas’s voice, calling him, echoed around the vast empty building, and Edgar could not shake the feeling that there were eyes watching him from the high galleries above. He hurried after Silas, lit a candle from the wall, and followed the voice down through numerous cellar floors, along into the deep part of the museum that Silas called his home.
    â€œGet yourself cleaned up.” Silas stepped out of a room up ahead and threw a towel into Edgar’s hand. “There is running water in there. Clean clothes through the door opposite. You have ten minutes.”
    Edgar’s clothes were filthy. The coat was not too bad, but the rest almost had to be peeled off his body, they were so engrained with mud, blood, and sand. He washed quickly and was soon clean and dry. He scuffed his hair dry with the towel and sneaked into the second room.
    The candle wavered in the doorway, and Edgar wasted time just staring at a maze of garments hanging from slim wooden rails. He had the pick of anything from leather-strapped soldiers’ uniforms to robes belonging to past councilmen. Tempting as it was to choose one of the uniforms, Edgar settled on a black vest with deep blue edges that hung down long at the back. The trousers he chose fitted well enough, but he bulked out the vest with two shirts layered on top of one another. It took a while to find boots that fitted, and he topped it all with a dark blue jacket that reached to his knees. When he was ready, he stepped back into the corridor, where Silas was already waiting.
    Gone were Silas’s bloodstained and travel-worn clothes. His dark hair was washed and loose. He wore a bloodred shirt, black trousers, and polished boots and had a short black jacket with silver buttons sweeping from his right shoulder to the scabbard holding his black-bladed sword against his left hip. Edgar might have taken the opportunity to wear clothes fit for Fume’s upper classes, but Silas looked as though he were truly one of them.
    â€œThe driver is waiting,” said Silas, walking straight past him.
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œTo help this city.”
    True enough, the carriage driver was still waiting outside. When Silas appeared at the top of the museum steps, the thin man dropped from his seat and held the door open for them both to climb in. “Sirs,” he said with a nervous nod.
    Edgar smiled awkwardly, but the driver dropped his eyes at once.
    Silas did not have to give an order. The driver already knew where they were going, and the moment they were seated the carriage was on the move again. Edgar began to feel trussed up and uncomfortable in his unfamiliar clothes. The route the carriage followed, however, was all too familiar. As the gargoyle-guarded streets passed swiftly by, a knotted feeling of dread twisted in his stomach. He knew this route. He had traveled this way before.
    â€œI know where we’re going!” he said suddenly. “We can’t go there. You have to stop the carriage.” He leaned forward and shouted at the driver, “Stop the carriage!”
    â€œHe will not listen to