“Hye,” Ryber replied, an embarrassed scrunch on her face. Then, a cough. Then a nod toward the quickly emptying hall. “Shall we leave?”

“You go on.” Stix bobbed her chin. “There’s still one more prisoner I need to free.”

Ryber’s ribs expanded—an argument clearly on its way. But then the edges of her face smoothed away. “All right. I’ll meet you outside. Be careful.”

“I always am,” Stix agreed, a vague phrase and a vague wave to join it. Her focus was already on what waited ahead, at the end of the cells, down a narrow tunnel of its own. She navigated there quickly, footsteps half jogging while puddles splashed beneath her heels and condensation dripped on her head.

A lone lantern hung beside an iron door with no lock. Stix crept toward it. All was silent. She pressed her palm against the iron, expecting heat, but it was cold to the touch. Water dripped off the limestone ceiling, pooling at her feet.

“Anything to say?” Stix asked the voices, sliding her fingers over a single rusted latch. She waited, wondering if the voices would resist. If anything, though, they purred more insistently.

This, Stix knew, was the right thing to do.

She gripped the iron latch and yanked it down. The door swung wide. Shadows spread. She sensed water, dripping as it did everywhere … But also something faster ahead, something thicker, like an underground stream.

Stix unhooked the lantern beside the door and ventured in. She had expected the hawk to be desperate for escape. That, like most caged animals, it would be waiting for an opportunity to spring. But as she swung the lantern around the cavernous space, she found nothing.

The hawk wasn’t there. Nor were there signs it was ever there beyond a nest-like arrangement of stones in one corner. No charred carcasses littered the floor, no droppings from an animal the size of a galleon. It was as if the creature didn’t even live here.

Come this way. Stix flinched at the voices—mere murmurs at the back of her skull. They weren’t displeased, but they were insistent she listen. This way, this way.

“I hear you,” Stix muttered, and with her lantern high, she hurried toward a darkened corner behind the nest. Water swelled inside her, like an orchestra building, and the sense of movement, of clean water swelled too. Until sure enough, she found a wide hole dipped into the ground. Cold air drifted upward, carrying the brackish scent of a tidal river. The waves wanted Stix to play, to explore, to see how far she could ride them. It came from inland and stretched all the way to the sea, splashing against a wide tunnel as it moved.

A tunnel that led to freedom. Which meant the flame hawk was not a prisoner.