Shadowcry by Jenna Burtenshaw

flesh, the same brand that had once brought him back to life from the furthest reaches of death. It had never healed. After twelve years it was still as raw as the moment it was made, and sometimes he thought he could still see a few sparks of fire smoldering inside the wound, burrowing down a little deeper year after year.
    He lurked by the window like a wolf in the shadows, waiting for the boardinghouse owner to climb the stairs. The key to the room lay in easy reach upon the sill beside him. The girl had already attempted to escape once; he would not make it easy for her to do so again. When the old man finally made it up to the landing, Silas opened the door before his knuckles had even touched the wood to knock.
    The man smiled nervously on the other side.
    â€œGood work,” said Silas, tossing a small coin pouch into his hands.
    â€œThank you, sir. And . . . will there be anything else today?”
    â€œNo,” said Silas. Outside, the snow was easing and Kate was watching him warily from the desk chair. “It is time for us to leave,” he said. “The girl and I have a train to catch.”

Chapter 6
The Night Train
    B ack inside the black carriage, Kate sat beside Silas as they rolled their way speedily across town. But this time, Silas opened one of the curtains to make sure he wasn’t being followed, giving Kate the chance to see her town for one last time.
    The snow made it all look eerie and unreal. Children wandered without parents, dogs snuffled through the streets, and the black robes of the wardens were never far away, breaking down doors or wrestling people into cages. She thought about Artemis and about all the years they had spent worrying about this day. It had made no difference in the end. Artemis was gone. Edgar was gone. Kate was alone.
    It was almost dark by the time she spotted the Night Train’s thick tracks slicing through the town like a scar, carving a hard iron curve through the Eastern Quarter as it threaded from the trading towns of the north to the capital city of Fume in the distant south. Those rails linked every town in Albion like an ominous metal vein, and the people who lived close enough to see the Night Train pass by always closed their curtains against its eerie light. It was easier to pretend that it didn’t exist, that it didn’t choke the air with foul smoke and leave the heavy rumble of metal on metal thrumming through the ground long after it had gone.
    The road they were traveling upon ran alongside a stone wall that lined the track’s route, but Kate did not recognize this part of town. The houses were larger and grander than any other part of Morvane, yet few people lived there. The station cast too dark a shadow over that part of the Eastern Quarter. It made people uncomfortable. Kate had seen pictures of the station in books at her uncle’s shop, but he had never let her see it for herself. Now that she was so close to it, she found that her curiosity had gone. She didn’t want to see it anymore. All she wanted was to be back at home, getting ready for the Night of Souls, living life just as she had lived it the day before. But all that was impossible now. Silas had made sure of it.
    The driver shouted out to someone up ahead. A gate screeched open and the carriage wheels crunched onto gravel, rolling past row after row of wheeled cages with flaming torches punched into the ground to light the paths between them. There were many more there than Kate had expected. What she and Edgar had seen in the market square must have been only a small part of the wardens’ plans for the town that day. There were at least five times as many cages outside that station as there had been in the square, all filled with so many people that it was hard to believe the wardens had left anyone behind.
    Most of the prisoners were yelling angrily at the wardens, rattling their bars, trying to find a way out. Others were trying to bargain with