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At fifteen years old, Kate has spent most of her life living and working in her family's bookshop. Since her parents' deaths at the hands of the wardens ten years ago, Kate has been brought up by her uncle Artemis, a cautious man, who has tried to keep her safe from the dangerous world outside the shop's front door.
Kate is tall for her age with long dark hair and bright blue feline eyes. Fiercely protective of her uncle and her best friend, Edgar, she will do anything to help the people she loves. She is intelligent and adaptable but, until she encounters Wintercraft, Kate has no idea that she is one of the Skilled: a group of rare people born with the ability to see into the veil between life and death.
This ability makes her useful to people in power within Albion, and as she tries to come to terms with what being one of the Skilled could mean, she attracts attention from people desperate to use her for their own ends.
Taken into warden training at a young age, Silas Dane has handed his life over completely to the service and protection of Albion 's High Council. A man who once valued honour above all else, Silas rose to become leader of Albion 's wardens and served in the ongoing war with the Continent until an experiment into the depths of the veil tore his spirit in two.
Now, his soul broken, but possessing the ability to heal swiftly from illness and injury, Silas travels across Albion collecting people and items deemed valuable to the High Council. But living with a torn spirit has taken its toll upon Silas, making him cruel and vicious. He ruins lives without conscience and thinks nothing of murdering those who stand in the way of his work.
His presence instils fear in those he meets. His eyes are as grey as death, and he has barely aged a day since the experiment that changed him twelve years ago. A loyal crow is his constant companion and the only living creature he truly trusts as he searches for a way to rejoin his broken soul.
The only female member of the current High Council of Albion, Da'ru has her sights set firmly upon her place in history. Despite being a member of the Skilled, Da'ru turned away from the secretive lifestyle offered by her kind and decided to follow her own unique path.
Instead of hiding away from society, Da'ru has used her connection to the veil to gain power within the capital city of Fume, openly assisting the High Council and eventually revealing to them the secrets of the realm between life and death. In time, her efforts secured her a place upon the High Council itself, where she has used her influence to further the persecution of the Skilled, certain that the secrets of the veil they protect are the key to Albion 's victory against their enemies.
Da'ru's entire appearance is elegant and poised, and it is clear that she has lived a very privileged life. She was directly responsible for the experiment that changed Silas Dane's life and she knows more about Wintercraft than any other Skilled in Albion. She is focused and merciless, and she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Edgar moved to Kate's town three years ago and has worked with her in the bookshop ever since. The two of them have become close friends, but Edgar's life before he came to Morvane remains a mystery. He lives alone and has never spoken about his past or his family, so Kate has never asked.
Edgar is seventeen years old. He is friendly and outgoing, and can be nervous under pressure, but he is brave when he needs to be. He has dark eyes, wild black hair and a wicked sense of humour.
His friendship with Kate is very important to him and he treats Kate and her uncle Artemis as family. But Edgar will not be able to keep his secrets to himself for much longer, and when Kate discovers the truth about his early life, it could threaten their friendship and change the way she sees him forever.
Kate's uncle and guardian, Artemis is a nervous man who wants to do his best for his niece, hoping to keep her safe in perilous times. As owner of the only bookshop in Morvane, he wants to live a quiet life, but since Kate's parents were taken and killed he has lived in constant fear of the wardens' return.
Artemis behaves much older than his years and everything about him is rumpled and rushed. He is a sceptical and logical man. He does not believe stories he has heard about the abilities of the Skilled, and does not trust anything unless he has seen it with his own eyes.
Artemis knows more about Kate's parents' deaths than he is willing to admit, and while he appears to have Kate's best interests at heart, his refusal to let go of the past could place her in more danger than ever.
Albion is a large island country made up of walled towns and scattered smaller settlements separated by areas of untended land known as the wild counties. Each town is largely self-sufficient but governed by laws set by the High Council and the wardens who enforce them. Albion has been in a state of decline for many years, due partly to an ongoing war with its neighbouring countries upon the Continent. There is little contact or trade of any kind between individual towns, and the people all live in fear of the High Council and its men.
The wild counties is the name given to any land that does not fall within the boundaries of Albion's walled towns. With most of the population concentrated within the towns, the wild counties have been left to nature for generations and are now home to wolves, bears, outlaws and thieves. Overgrown paths spread like veins across the land but they are no longer safe for regular travel and few people dare to use them anymore. The only sign of human life within the wild counties are some scattered camps and villages and the night train's dark tracks.
As a united group of six individual countries, the Continent is Albion's closest geographical neighbour and their greatest enemy. Whilst Albion is ruled by a High Council, each Continental country has its own individual leader and its own army, and all six have united together against Albion in a steady war that has lasted over one hundred and fifty years. A narrow sea is all that separates Albion from its enemies. Since trade was stopped, patrol ships guard the waters from both sides, but some smugglers' ships have still been known to pass through.
Morvane is Kate Winters' home town and one of the largest towns in Albion's northern counties. Over three miles wide and divided into four gated quarters with a central market square, Morvane once acted as the hub of trade and business in the north. Now most of its buildings are abandoned and ties with other towns have gradually fallen away. In recent years, the High Council's wardens have targeted the town, kidnapping people to fight in the war or be forced to work as servants in the south. Those left behind live in secret fear of the wardens' return as they struggle to keep their dying town alive.
Fume is far larger than any other Albion town. It is surrounded by a circle of high walls and black gates and its streets are dominated by tall memorial towers that were built centuries ago. The city was once a place for the dead; a vast graveyard where bodies were burned or laid to rest in tomb caverns cut deep beneath the ground, but when the High Council claimed Fume as its capital everything changed. Death rituals are no longer performed there and the council's presence has attracted the rich and powerful to build homes upon its streets. Fume has become a place of privilege, but ordinary people have never forgotten its true history, and there are rumours that the spirits of the dead still whisper within its walls.
In the ground deep beneath Fume lies a very different city to the one upon the surface. The City Below is a winding labyrinth of tunnels, catacombs, staircases, vast tomb caverns and buried streets, and has become a haven for people who do not wish to be found. This huge underground place is home to thieves, graverobbers and the Skilled, as well as entire communities of people living their lives out of sight of wardens patrolling the streets above. Two underground rivers pass through the City Below and there are secret entrances to its tunnels hidden throughout Fume. The wardens cannot police everyone who lives beneath their feet, so they do not even try. So long as its residents remain out of sight, they are left alone.
Since wardens began stealing people from towns to fight in the war against the Continent, some people have braved the perils of the wild counties and built small camps in places outside the wardens' reach. Many of those camps have grown into villages of wood-built homes, but their populations are too small and scattered to attract the wardens' attention. The people who live there exist upon the very edge of Albion society and such villages have become popular meeting places for smugglers, whisperers and thieves.
The last bookshop still trading in Morvane has been passed down through five generations of the Winters family. It is a small shop, built on three levels, which overlooks Morvane's market square. The main floor is filled with shelves of old and rare books that are carefully restored and sold by Artemis Winters and his niece Kate. The top floor holds the Winters' main living area and the cellar is used for storage. Artemis and Kate are proud of the bookshop's link to their family and would never willingly leave it.
The council chambers are a large collection of ancient buildings linked by small courtyards and grassy squares on the eastern side of Fume. Like most buildings in the graveyard city, the council chambers once served a very different purpose, but the buildings' true history is yet to be uncovered. The thirteen members of Albion's High Council live within the chambers, along with dozens of trusted wardens who act as their personal guards. The buildings are tended by a large team of servants, many of whom were stolen away from their home towns at a young age. Three tall towers form an imposing part of the chambers and at the very top of the northernmost tower is a room where prisoners suspected of being Skilled are tested for any links with the veil.
The Museum of History is one of the largest single buildings in Fume. Built from grey stone with green glass windows, the museum was one of the first buildings to be given a new purpose when Fume became Albion's new capital. Now mostly abandoned and forgotten, the museum still holds many of the old items that were once put on display for the early residents of Fume and, despite its grand size above ground, many more floors lie beneath it. One of these underground levels has been taken over by Silas Dane, who uses it as his home.
One of two underground rivers that run beneath the city of Fume, the Thieves' Way is named for its reputation as a favoured route for smugglers known to trade with the people of the City Below. As well as transporting goods in to the City Below, the river is also used to carry goods out, as graverobbers plunder from the countless tombs that lie deep underground. The river was artificially diverted beneath the city during Albion's 'Age of Science' and whilst its main entrance and exit points lie outside the city walls, the river can be reached from inside Fume via links with the sewers.
Running upon a single set of tracks that links every town in Albion, the night train has become an object of fear throughout the country. The train is an ancient form of transport that was once used to carry the bodies of the dead to Fume for burial. Now the wardens have claimed it, and use it to transport people away from their homes to fight in the war. The train is pulled by an enormous, steam powered engine and its entire body is a patchwork of repairs and twisted metal. Few people choose to live within sight of its tracks.
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