"I've already drunk my fill of blood, so live a little longer. Breathe fora while and watch what's about to unfold." Thomas Ward has spent two years as the Spook's apprentice. He's faced unimaginable peril, and survived. But a new danger has emerged: an ancient water witch, Bloodeye, is roaming the County intent on destroying everything in her path. To strengthen his skills, Tom is sent to the far north to train with the demanding Bill Arkwright. Arkwright lives in a haunted mill on the edge of a treacherous marsh, and his training methods prove to be harsh and sometimes cruel. Will Tom's new bag of tricks be enough to overcome a critical mistake that leaves him confronting Bloodeye on his own? "I've already drunk my fill of blood, so live a little longer. Breathe fora while and watch what's about to unfold." Thomas Ward has spent two years as the Spook's apprentice. He's faced unimaginable peril, and survived. But a new danger has emerged: an ancient water witch, Bloodeye, is roaming the County intent on destroying everything in her path. To strengthen his skills, Tom is sent to the far north to train with the demanding Bill Arkwright. Arkwright lives in a haunted mill on the edge of a treacherous marsh, and his training methods prove to be harsh and sometimes cruel. Will Tom's new bag of tricks be enough to overcome a critical mistake that leaves him confronting Bloodeye on his own? Joseph DELANEY is the author of the internationally best-selling The Last Apprentice series, which is now a major motion picture, Seventh Son . He is a former English teacher who lives in the heart of boggart territory in Lancashire, England. His village has a boggart called the Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church. The Last Apprentice: Wrath of the Bloodeye By Joseph Delaney HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2009 Joseph Delaney All right reserved. ISBN: 9780061344619 Chapter One The King's Shilling Carrying my staff, I went into the kitchen and picked up the empty sack. It would be dark in less than an hour but I'd just enough time to walk down to the village and collect the week's provisions. All we had left were a few eggs and a small wedge of County cheese. Two days earlier the Spook had gone south to deal with a boggart. Annoyingly, this was the second time in a month that my master had gone off on a job without me. Each time he'd said it was routine, nothing that I hadn't seen before in my apprenticeship; it would be more useful for me to stay at home practicing my Latin and catching up with my studies. I didn't argue but I wasn't best pleased. You see, I thought he'd another reason for leaving me behind: He was trying to protect me. Toward the end of the summer, the Pendle witches had summoned the Fiend into our world. He was the dark made flesh, the Devil himself. For two days he'd been under their control, and commanded to destroy me. I'd taken refuge in a special room Mam had prepared for me, and that had saved me. The Fiend was now doing his own dark will but there was no certainty that he wouldn't come hunting for me again. It was something I tried not to think about. One thing was certain: With the Fiend in the world, the County was becoming a much more dangerous place—especially for those who fought the dark. But that didn't mean I could hide away from danger forever. I was just an apprentice now but one day I would be a spook and have to take the same risks as my master, John Gregory. I just wished he could see it that way, too. I walked into the next room, where Alice was working hard, copying a book from the Spook's library. She came from a Pendle family and had received two years' training in dark magic from her aunt, Bony Lizzie, a malevolent witch who was now safely confined in a pit in the Spook's garden. Alice had got me into lots of trouble but eventually became my friend and was now staying with my master and me, making copies of his books to earn her keep. Concerned that she might read something she shouldn't, the Spook never allowed her to go into his library, and only one book at a time was ever given into her keeping. Mind you, he appreciated her work as a scribe. The books were precious to him, a store of information accumulated by generations of spooks—so each carefully duplicated volume made him feel a little more secure about the survival of that knowledge. Alice was sitting at the table, pen in hand, two books open before her. She was writing carefully into one, copying accurately from the other. She looked up at me and smiled. I'd never seen her look prettier, the candlelight illuminating her thick dark hair and high cheekbones. But when she saw I had my cloak on, her smile instantly faded and she put down the pen. "I'm off down to the village to collect the provisions," I told her. "Ain't no need for you to do that, Tom," she protested, concern evident in her face and voice. "I'll go while you stay and carry on studying."