The Whisper’s spirit tugged from her flesh, a whipping flag trailing behind her, touching the raw magic of the song itself and she heard a whimper that she knew to be her own, but didn’t – couldn’t – look away. The Listener’s mind had claws in hers and led her forward, both with and against the current at once, across the sticks, across the jungle, into Pechacan and the Singing City and far beyond, to Pilos. To the fortress. To home.

Ilandeh felt the shock of connection, the confusion as the Listener contacted Pilos and he responded, and then he drew her into her High Feather’s mind, into a small, shuttered place of darkness and water, cut off from the rest of his thoughts and feelings. Protected. Private.

‘Flight Ilandeh?’

Ilandeh tumbled in the song and in their shared consciousness, striving to control her emotions – relief, delight, something akin to love – as his voice echoed all around her. ‘High Feather!’ Her inner voice was golden with relief, sparking within the liminal darkness.

‘You are early.’ His words entered blue with caution, tinging to red alarm. ‘What has happened?’

‘Three thousand Tokob and Yaloh have marched to southern Yalotlan to free slaves and destroy the pyramids before the peace-weaving is made official, in case part of the agreement is that the Empire keeps all land newly beneath the song.’

The space they were in blazed purple, iridescent as a hummingbird’s wing: rage. Ilandeh quailed before it. ‘Forgive me, High Feather,’ she began.

‘Could you have prevented it?’ he demanded, the purple fading, though not by much.

‘No, High Feather.’ She wanted to apologise again, but the truth was there was nothing she could have done to stop them. ‘Dakto has gone with one of the Paws. He will endeavour to contact a pod and spread word as well as he may without alerting the Tokob to his intentions. I had hoped you might have heard from or of him by now?’

‘We have not. I thank you for the advance warning. I will have to let the Singer know they are using the cover of the Wet.’ There was a pause. ‘It’s going to be Quitoban all over again,’ he said, almost to himself.

Ilandeh knew she flashed yellow with anxiety at his prediction, could do nothing about it. She wasn’t as skilled at concealing her emotions when communicating through the song. At least Yalotlan didn’t have sticks and sticks of swamp and tidal marshes to navigate, the way Quitoban had.

‘What else?’