Howling, howling.

It’s only the wind, Linna said. But Linna isn’t here. It’s just me — me and the dark. I’ve heard my fair share of gap-funneled squalls, and this sound — this is something else.

This is a voice.

But maybe my mind’s snipping a story out of nothing.

I whisper for Mimm and Trick, feel around in the empty space, but my fingertips don’t find feathers. They find only grit. I narrow my eyes, trying to see around me, but it’s like peering through ink.

My heart’s a mess of tides. Linna, shimmer, footsteps. Mr. Crowwith. He’s taken her. He’s taken her. He’s going to send her to the cliffs.

The howling voice lifts and lifts. I crouch, crawling tentatively through the blackness toward it. I hold a hand out in front of me until I find the wall that Linna knocked into earlier. Stone stacked on stone. I run my hands along its grooves, pulling myself to standing. No openings — no, there’s one, there. I grasp at it, slip two fingertips through it.

I whisper into it. “Shhh, wind,” I say.

The sound settles.

And rearranges itself into a song.

It’s a looping song, coming back — always and always — to where it started. Like the song I heard when Linna first brought me to Hiddenhall. Like the songs of the cloisterwings. It’s coming from behind the wall.

I know, I know.

I hold my ear to the hole, standing achingly still, letting the song curl up inside me.

“I am not the wind,” the song says.

Mimm and Trick land on my shoulders, pecking at my ears, telling me to listen. Listen, listen.

The song dips into silence.

“Who are you?” I whisper, speaking into the fissure, smelling damp and salt and seaflowers.

But the singer doesn’t answer, only pushes the melody up again, the notes rising like steps.

“Please,” I say. “Tell me.”

The singing stops.

“My name is Sveglia Emm,” says the voice.

“Sveglia Emm.” My lips brush against rock. “How long have you been down here?”

“Years, years, years.” I hear nails scratching at stone.

I stare into the thickening dark. The cloisterwings shuffle their wings beside me, confusing my ears with feathers. A prick of light catches my eye, and I wait, watching. It’s one of my golden birds, pushing its way out through the stone, from Sveglia Emm’s side to mine, as though she has sung it.

I turn from the wall and run.

The howling’s beginning again.

“The keys,” the voice calls, pitching higher. “The keys. The keys. The keys. The keys.” Speaking turns to singing turns to screams. “The keys!”

I run all the way to Hiddenhall’s entrance. The statue of Rullun Harpermall above me lifts and then slides to the side to reveal the dawning sky, night leached away by streaks of early morning sun.

I hurry up the ladder, gripping the gold-shining bars, my feet slipping.

When I climb out of the tunnel, I look back and see that the cloisterwings have not followed me. They swirl and circle below, far below, the golden bird lighting the edges of their wings as it twists and twirls past them, flying up and over my head. I cannot bear to leave them there. Alone. Without Linna.

“The keys!” I can still hear Sveglia Emm screaming. “The keys! The keys! The keys!”

I whistle and chant, but the cloisterwings won’t follow. They must be scared to leave the tunnels, just as I was scared to leave the cloister.

“Please,” I beg. “Mimm, Trick.” I sing a flutter of notes I made up in the hollow tree, and they settle on the ground, tucking their wings against their bodies and snapping their heads at me. “Come with me,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears.

Rullun Harpermall’s statue starts to slide back over the hole. I jump away and fall, my back hitting cobbles. I close my eyes. Tears run down my cheeks.

“Mimm. Trick.” I can’t go back down there now. Not when there’s so little time. Not when Linna is going to the cliffs. My lungs burn. Wings, trapped behind stone.

I open my eyes to the morning’s white blearing. There are two spots in the sky above me. I sit up, laughing, my chest heaving. The cloisterwings. Mimm and Trick — they followed me. They followed my voice.

I didn’t lose them. I haven’t lost everything. I call to them, and they swoop toward me, clattering their beaks at my ears.

The Festival of Secrets is over. Today is the Festival of Queens. The area around the Featherrut is still empty of people. But it’s strewn with little glass bottles with secrets inside them, written on dried tongue-fruit leaves, which the citizens of Blightsend were supposed to send out to sea. Maybe the sea spat them out. Maybe it’s tired of secrets. I am tired of secrets.

“A secret for a secret,” I croak out.

And then I know, I know, I know.

I know what I have to do.