Wintercraft by Jenna Burtenshaw Page B

like they would buy animals at a market. Offers were made, bids were argued and increased, and all the while cages were wheeled out of the carriages and the people of Morvane were fed into the belly of Fume one by one.
     
    No daylight poured in to brighten the station. More braziers spat and hissed along the ceiling, arranged in line like a fiery spine, and there were two torch-lit exits to the left of the platform: one for the crowd and one with a fenced path leading to it from the prisoners’ side.
     
    Kate pressed her back against her bars, trying to stay out of the crowd’s sight, but not before she had spotted something else waiting on the opposite side of the platform. A second train, sitting on a parallel track. Kate had never heard of a second train existing in Albion. Its engine was barely half the size of the Night Train. It looked newer and more carefully pieced together, with carriages built like huge metal crates, its doors barred and its livery shining a deep dark red.
     
    Most of the male prisoners were not for sale, and they were pulled straight on to the red train to the groans and disappointed shouts of the onlooking crowd. Kate watched as a small group of pickpockets were allowed to squeeze in through a gate and snatch whatever they wanted from the prisoners being taken on board. Cloaks, shoes, coins, anything that could be grabbed through the cage bars was taken, but the thieves paid a price for what they took. Not one of them skulked back into the crowd without a bruise, a broken finger or at least a dazed look in their eyes once Morvane’s men were through with them.
     
    Kate looked for Artemis among the steady stream of people being wheeled across the platform, but there was no sign of him.
     
    ‘Wait here,’ said Silas, walking to the doorway and kicking the three steps down on to the platform. ‘I will come back for you.’
     
    Silas stepped off the train into full view of the crowd, and the effect his presence had upon the people was incredible. All shouting stopped at once. The station fell silent as he swept his eyes around it, scrutinising every face, every movement and every breath taken around him.
     
    Kate could almost feel his concentration. She could sense dominance emanating from him without him even saying a word. He was completely in control of every person in that station. Not one of them would dare to defy him. Fume was his city. His territory. In that place he was not just another face among many enemies. He was known and feared for reasons far beyond the reach of any ordinary warden. No one looked at him directly, careful not to attract his attention, and the air hung with the anticipation of his words. When at last he did speak, it was to give one simple instruction. ‘Carry on.’
     
    With Silas’s blessing, the crowd burst into life again. The frenzied bidding continued, the station was a mass of ordered chaos and then one bidder’s shout stood out above the rest.
     
    ‘Scholars. Historians. Booksellers! Paying a high price!’
     
    ‘If you’re not interested in this batch then keep your mouth shut,’ growled a warden, glaring at a small man who was waving a hat in the middle of the crowd. ‘Wait your turn.’
     
    Three more cages rolled by before the man called out again. ‘I represent a member of the High Council! I must be heard. Scholars! Historians! Booksellers! Name your price.’
     
    That got the wardens’ attention.
     
    Orders were passed along the platform. There was a burst of activity further down the train, and a cage was lifted out before its turn.
     
    ‘All right then. One bookseller. The only one we have. He’ll do.’
     
    Kate moved around her cage, trying to get a better look. There was only one bookshop in Morvane and, as far as she knew, Edgar had not been captured by the wardens. The only bookseller on that train had to be Artemis.
     
    ‘Does he know his trade?’ asked the buyer. ‘My mistress demands someone skilled in history