Wintercraft Read Online Free Page A

looking towards the fireplace, where a trickle of soot was falling into the room. Artemis was hiding in the chimney. The wardens had found him.
     
    ‘Come out of there!’ demanded the dogman, mashing his fist against the chimneybreast. ‘Now!’
     
    The dog’s ears pressed back against its skull as Artemis’s feet thumped down into the hearth. ‘Wait!’ he said, holding his hands out. He stepped into the room, dropping his useless dagger on the floor. ‘Please.’
     
    The bowman raised his weapon to Artemis’s chest. Kate wanted to shout out, to distract them, stop them, but fear was gripping her throat so tightly it was a struggle even to breathe.
     
    ‘Name.’
     
    ‘Winters. Artemis Winters. I - I own the shop upstairs.’
     
    ‘Who else is in here?’
     
    ‘No one.’
     
    The glinting point of the arrow moved up to Artemis’s throat. ‘Who else? ’
     
    ‘I already told you … ooof! ’
     
    Artemis’s lip dripped with blood. The dogman had struck him with a meaty fist, knocking him to the floor.
     
    ‘There’s no one here!’ said Artemis, trying to stand up again. ‘I told you … ahh! ’
     
    The dogman’s boot kicked hard into Artemis’s ankle and he dragged him up by the shoulders.
     
    Tears stung in Kate’s eyes. She couldn’t bear to watch.
     
    Edgar squeezed her hand gently as a shadow spread from the cellar door. The dog crouched low, head down, turning its eyes away from a man who was standing at the top of the stairs. All Kate saw was his shadow and she heard the flutter of feathers as a large bird shuffled upon his shoulder.
     
    ‘What do you have down there?’
     
    The dog whimpered at the sound of the man’s voice and pressed its body against its master’s legs.
     
    ‘A bookseller,’ grinned the dogman. ‘Only one here. It must have been him.’
     
    ‘Are you certain of that?’ The man stepped down the stairs into the lantern’s glow and Kate saw him clearly for the first time. He didn’t dress like a warden, he didn’t even speak like a warden. Instead of robes he wore a long coat that hissed across the floor as he walked and his voice was dark and well-spoken, demanding the attention of anyone who could hear it. His black hair was long enough to touch his shoulders. He was younger than Artemis and walked with the strides of a man used to being in control, but the strangest thing about him was his eyes. Dead eyes, Kate thought. Eyes without a soul. She watched him closely, waiting for those eyes to look in her direction, and when they did, pausing for only the smallest moment before moving on, her body felt cold with fear.
     
    ‘His name?’
     
    ‘Winters,’ said the bowman.
     
    The man towered over Artemis, at least a head and shoulders taller than him. ‘He is not the one we have come for,’ he said, taking one last look around. ‘There is someone else here.’
     
    ‘No,’ insisted Artemis, his voice unusually strong. ‘There’s no one. Only me.’
     
    ‘The girl. Where is she?’
     
    ‘W-what girl?’
     
    Kate shrank back in the darkness. He knew about the blackbird. He knew that it was her.
     
    ‘Lies will not keep me from her for long.’ The man turned to his wardens. ‘You, take him outside and put him with the others. And you, check the upper floor. If the girl is not found here, I will burn this place down.’
     
    ‘Yes, sir.’
     
    ‘No!’ cried Artemis, looking back at the hiding place, his face pale with desperation. ‘My shop! M-my work!’
     
    ‘None of that matters to you now,’ said the man. ‘If you are one of the Skilled, as these men think you are, then your life as you know it is over. If not … the same applies, only in a much more final way. Take him.’
     
    Artemis struggled all the way up the cellar steps, limping whenever his bruised ankle was put to use. He barely made it halfway before his leg gave way altogether and the dogman had to leave his lantern on the floor and drag him up into the shop,