‘Ancestors,’ Tayan breathed when he was done. ‘I knew it. I knew I’d seen something significant in the Singing City. I knew they weren’t just animals.’ Xessa tapped his arm and he repeated himself in sign. ‘I was … We had to observe an offering, the monthly ritual,’ he continued. ‘It was exactly as awful as you’d imagine, but before the actual … the death, one of them … spoke. Not in any language I could understand, though I did understand it – in here.’ He tapped his chest. ‘Enet – the woman we saw, a high official in their society – was in the water with the offering and the holy Setat beckoned and made a noise. A little, inquisitive sound. Give. It was telling her to give it the offering. I heard it. I knew it.’

‘Holy Setat?’ Toxte asked in a low voice and Tayan paused on the trail between Sky City and womb. Had he actually signed that?

‘Too long under the song,’ he signed briskly and then pushed on past, disquieted. Lutek had seen it, too, the unconscious use of an honorific for a ravening monster. And he’d almost used the song blessing when he left the council. Shit.

Toxte stopped well below the womb, out of earshot – he hadn’t taken the spirit-magic and wouldn’t risk getting too close. Tayan knew the ejab on duty by sight, but they weren’t friends; he nodded politely. Now he was here, he was consumed with the need to see it. To hear it.

Since Toxte had told him what he’d seen and felt, he’d known the only way he could interact with it would be without a magical barrier between them. Still, he’d taken their warnings to heart and Xessa would go in with him. She knew him better than anyone save Lilla, and if he started acting strangely, she’d drag him out.

And how it reacts to her presence will be the first experiment: its ability to recognise threat. Can it differentiate between me and her?

‘You’ve been here every day since you captured it, yes? Studying it?’ he signed as an eja looped the rope around his chest and shoulders and pulled it tight, tying the knot between his shoulder blades where he couldn’t reach it. He slid the knife out of the shaman’s belt, too, and Tayan felt a little lurch of panic.

Xessa nodded.

‘And how does it react to you? You captured it, you’re keeping it here, you prevented Toxte from freeing it. What does it do when you go in?’