Bly and I cross the sea together.

We cross worlds.

He doesn’t let go of my arm once. I hold my chin against the sea’s wild breathing. Slowly, slowly, I’m getting used to being out in the open. To having the sky see me. To seeing it all at once.

When we reach the city’s edge, we untangle our elbows. My shoes of music are wet and caked with grit. There are little cuts on my ankles from slipping on stone, but my belly is warm, as though someone’s made it a keeping place for freshly kneaded gold.

“Blightsend,” I say, standing on the road that curves around the outskirts of the city.

I turn to Bly because I want to see Blightsend through his eyes. Want to see him seeing it. But he looks at the sky as though it’s a dirty window. He peers at stone houses as though he’d rather they were rubble.

Something has caused him anguish. Something as vast as the sea and as deep as a sky full of falling stars. Because you’d have to be heart-torn to hate such a place. A city, grown of stone, on the most lonely island in the world, smooth-shining walls and slanting roofs and empty streets all strung with the chimes of bells. Shimmer dusting the windows. Tongue-fruit trees stretching their branches toward the moon. It makes me want to sing.

Don’t tell.

Don’t tell.

I keep my voice tucked under my tongue, smothering it with spit. My throat stays silent, but it pushes me along, into the open-flung arms of the streets. One foot and then the next. My heart gallops into quicker rhythms, and before I’m able to think of it, I’m streaking down a narrow road.

I’ve forgotten about the cloister, about Mother Nine. I am made only of lightness. I have no fears, no wants, nothing to dread. Not even the sky can get to me. Not even the foreverness of the sea. All my wounds quiet their aching — even my blood-dried thumb.

I sprint, smelling the city — clean cups and spun flickermoth silk. Steamed tongue-fruit and boiled seaflowers. Bowls of hushingstone bloom with fire along the pavements, lighting the way for walkers. I spread my arms, ready for flying, tearing through the gloom and the glow until I get to the center of it — to the heart of the city that beats and beats and beats.

I’m at the edge of a sunken oval, a giant shape dug into stone, a shin lower than the ground around it. It’s a feather, its quill a line of three narrow steps leading down. There’s a gold statue of a man, his palms raised, at the end of the quill. And there are hundreds of Masters dancing inside the feather, their clothes swarmed with golden bells. They make music just by moving. They part — two halves of a leaning forest — and a girl a little older than I am appears from within their midst. They dance around her, clapping out her name, while she stands still.

“The Childer-Queen,” they chant softly. “The Childer-Queen, the Childer-Queen.”

The Childer-Queen is wearing gold from head to toe — a crown like a garden about her head and a skirt like loosed stars. Her pale silks stand out against her golden-brown skin. Her mouth is cinched like a pincushion.

Right away, I decide that she’s more First Mother than Sea-Singer. Not that it matters. I’m not going anywhere near her.

There’s so much beauty here, it’s distracting. My eyes have never seen so many shards of hushingstone shaped like fingers, so many trays of steaming gold and glass. One of the faces halts my gazing, though. Gray eyes and ashed skin. Silence around him like a storm of flickermoths. It’s Mr. Crowwith. He’s standing at the tip of the giant feather. Watching.

“To live behind stone is to make a life of watching,” I whisper to myself.

But Mr. Crowwith doesn’t live behind walls. He has no excuse.

I step back. Back and back and back. I drift, unseen, into an unlit lane, lost in the throbbing crowd. I want to watch, but I want to hide, too.

I can’t help but find the othergirls in the swell — the ones who were chosen by the best Masters. Mother Nine taught us that this dance is supposed to celebrate them, but the othergirls don’t react. They stand in a row, their eyes unmoving. They are as empty as ever.

I’m still staring at the othergirls when Bly grabs my arm and yanks me toward him, splitting a seam at my shoulder. I push away, but he wraps his fingers around my wrist. My torn thumb is awake again, and I’m remembering clamps, kicks, slaps. I bare my teeth and scratch at his neck. He lets go, looking at the rip in my sleeve with regret. His mouth opens, wordless. We’re surrounded by people and music, but there’s a line of silence between us.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I say.

Bly swallows. “I have looked for gold in shadowed places and I have found only you,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s the Ninth King. A poem he wrote for the Sea-Singer. His statue’s there, at the entrance to the Featherrut.” He points through the crowd to the dancing Masters.

I fold my arms, narrow my eyes.

“I didn’t mean —” he says. “I was worried. Scared. I didn’t know where you’d gone. I’m sorry, Delphernia.”

He takes my hand, folds my fingers into his, and even though I’m still simmering inside, I get that feeling again: that I’m as rooted as my old hollow tree.

Before I can tell him it’s all right, he taps my shoulder and says “Follow me!” And then we’re twisting along glit-flitter streets speeding through the night-blue, the shimmer and shift. I’ve never felt so feverish, as if every vein in my body is a thin line of fire, but doubt presses at my back like a howling wind. The stone houses on either side of us dip their heads. The sky churns. All the colors forget their names.

I slow to a stop. “Aren’t you going to dance?” I say. “The Festival of Bells?”

“No,” he says. “No.” But he doesn’t explain.

He turns down a crooked street. I follow, but he’s not making any sense. Masters are obliged to dance in the Festival of Bells. That’s what I’ve been taught. I don’t know what I’ll do if Bly isn’t really a Master. Mother Nine has not prepared me for that. Mother Nine has not prepared me for anything.

By the time we stop at a garden, the hum of Blightsend’s festival like distant birds, my slippers have loosened around my skinless toes. I wince as I walk.

You’d think I’d feel at home with trees all around me. But there’s something different about this garden. Something that tugs at my sleeve but won’t show its face. Moonlight reflects off the leaves, and I have to narrow my eyes because it’s giving me a headache, and then I realize —

It’s silent. No sounds of growing. No insect-whirrings. No birds.

Through black branches I can see a long, low building with hundreds of small windows, a central arch separating one side from the other. I pull back, but Bly urges me on through the garden’s clinging.

I stop short and founder. My cheek smacks against smooth stone, a thin sheen of lungmoss. My face stings. But I stand, determined to know what it is about this garden — what it is that I can’t quite grasp. Bly waits for me, watching. The sky tilts. I touch one of the leaves at my side. Its edges are sharp, its surface smooth. Smooth as metal.

And then I know where I am.

I know that every leaf, every branch, every flower, is made of gold. And I know why it’s silent. This is the First King’s gold-fashioned garden. The Garden of All Silences. Bly has brought me to Sorrowhall. To where the Sea-Singer sang.

The crash of the ocean fills me. A mourning song travels on the wind. I can hear Mother Nine’s voice in my head.

Girls with singing throats are swallowed by the sea.

I close my eyes.

When I open them again, Bly is still looking at me. “Weary are those who shed the skin of their old life,” he says.

The garden crowds me, and I want to be calm and quiet; I want to turn Mother Nine’s words to mulch, but I have to ask —

“Bly,” I say, “please answer me.” My teeth clatter. I wriggle my sore toes in my shoes. “Who are you? Who are you really?”

“You don’t know me?” The night makes a mask of his face. “You are like me, Delphernia Undersea. I do not know myself.”

“But what is your name?” I say. And my heart repeats the question. What is your name? What is your name?

“I am Bly Harpermall,” he says. “The Prince of Blightsend.”