The singing stopped. It did not fade. It shut, like a door closing in a room where no door should be. All those mouths, all those pale faces in the wall of bodies, closed at once, and the silence that followed pressed against my ears until I could hear my own blood moving. Ellora's hand tightened around mine. "It's awake," she whispered. I did not ask what it was. I could see it. The far wall was not a wall. It was a slope of grey flesh, chests and arms and open mouths braided into one another, and it had begun to shift. The movement was small, a slow flexing, as if the whole mass had taken a breath for the first time in years. One of the mouths near the floor opened. A child's mouth, I thought. Small and wet. It shaped a single word, but the voice came from everywhere at once, from the floor and the ceiling and the water behind us. "Mine." The sound went through me. Not through my ears. Through my ribs, my sternum, the hinge of my jaw. My knees locked. For a second I understood why men froze in front of wolves. It was not fear. It was recognition. The thing had spoken in a voice too close to being human. "Don't answer it," Ellora said. I looked down at her. She was not shaking. Her face was pale, but her eyes were clear. She had already survived this. I had not. "We're leaving," I said. "Slow," she said. "Don't run yet." "Why?" "Because it waits for the first one to run." I did not ask how she knew. I only tightened my grip on the candle and stepped back. The floor was wet, broken coffin wood under my boots. The mass did not follow, but I felt it listen. The flexing stopped. The mouths hung open, waiting. Ellora moved with me, one step, then another. Her bare feet made no sound. The candle flame bent away from the mass, leaning toward the passage behind us, as if it wanted to run before we did. Behind us, a low sound began. Not singing. Breathing. Many lungs, not together. It swelled, then stopped. Ellora's hand turned in mine. "Now," she said. We ran. The passage took us into its throat. Stone scraped my shoulders, my back. The candle struck the wall and went out. I didn't stop. I couldn't. The dark was total, and I ran blind, one hand trailing the wet rock, the other locked around Ellora's arm. Behind us, the choir screamed. It was not a word anymore. It was a hundred voices tearing through the rock, children and old men and women and things that had never been any of them. The same word, over and over, layered until it sounded like the sea itself had learned to speak. "MINE—MINE—MINE—" The passage bent. I hit a wall with my shoulder, bit down on the pain, and dragged myself through. Ellora was faster. She knew the turns. Her hand never left mine. We came out into a wider space and she pulled me left, down a slope. Water splashed around my boots, then my knees. The floor dropped. The current, if it was a current, pushed against my legs. "The high path is gone!" she called over the roar behind us. I didn't answer. I could only follow. The water climbed. It was black and cold, and under it, things moved. Not the choir. Smaller. Faster. I felt one of them glance off my boot, and I kicked out, found nothing. Ahead, a ledge. A shelf of stone rising out of the water, hip-high. I lifted Ellora first. She scrambled up, wet nightdress clinging to her thin body, and turned to pull me after her. And then something grabbed my leg. Not a hand. Too many fingers. They closed around my ankle like a collar of cold bone, and I felt the skin break before I felt the pull. I went down. Water filled my mouth. The world turned black and salt. Ellora screamed my name. I heard it from far away, through water, through blood. I kicked. My free foot found something hard, maybe a face, and the grip loosened. I clawed at the ledge, found a fistful of stone, and dragged myself up. The fingers came with me for a second, hooked into the skin of my calf, and then they let go. I rolled onto the shelf, gasping. The water below thrashed once, then smoothed. Ellora grabbed my coat. "Up. We have to keep moving." I looked at my leg. The flesh was torn in four thin lines, black in the dim light. Blood ran into my boot. I couldn't feel the pain yet. That would come later. I stood. The air was colder here, and there was a grey light ahead, very faint, like the sky trying to remember it existed. "This way," Ellora said. The passage climbed. The roar of the choir had changed. It was still behind us, but lower now, as if the mass had squeezed into a space too small for it. I could hear the scrape of its many limbs against the stone, a sound like a wave dragging itself over broken shells. We reached the stairs. They were cut into the rock, narrow and old, and at the top stood a door. Wood, heavy, swollen with damp. Grey light bled through the gaps. My chest swelled with something I did not want to name. I pushed. It didn't move. Ellora was already beside me. She pressed her palm flat against the wood, then shook her head. "He never leaves it unlocked." I looked at her. "Who?" She didn't answer. She only turned and looked back down the stairs, into the dark, where the choir was coming. I saw it then. A pale tide at the bottom of the steps. Hands. Faces. Mouths, opening and closing in the black. It had not stopped. It would never stop. Not for me. I grabbed the Vowkeeper on my left arm. The bracer was empty, the harpoon spent, but the metal was still strong. I wedged the edge of it against the lowest hinge, where the wood met stone, and I pushed. The hinge screamed. Old iron, rusted by salt, bent. I kicked once, twice, and the third time the hinge broke. The door sagged. Dust and cold air poured through. I forced my shoulder into the gap. Ellora slipped through first. I followed, cutting my arm on the splintered wood, and came out into the grey. The beach was stone and fog. The sea lay flat, almost black, and the sky above it was the colour of old ash. Dawn, or what passed for dawn in Crawmoor, pressed down over the water without warmth. I turned. The door hung broken behind us, half-open. Through the gap, the darkness moved. A hand, long and white, reached out, then stopped. The choir's voice came through the stone, not a scream now, but a low, wet murmur. "Mine..." The hand drew back. It did not follow. I stepped away, one hand on Ellora's shoulder. She was looking out at the sea, not at the door. Her lips moved once, but no sound came. We stood there on the stones, breathing. The fog curled around us, and the water slid back and forth over the rocks, patient as a tongue. There was no Edmund. I looked along the beach, then up at the cliffs. Black stone, wet with mist. No rope. No path. No sign of anyone coming down. The Vowkeeper hung from my arm, empty and cold. My leg was on fire now, the cuts opened. I could feel the blood running into my boot, but I didn't look. Ellora turned and looked up at me. "He won't find us down here," she said. "Not until the tide pulls back." I knew she meant the tide, but I also knew she meant more. I put my hand on her shoulder again, not to reassure her, but to keep myself standing. "Then we wait," I said. She didn't answer. She only looked at the broken door, the long black mouth of the cave, and listened. Far below, under the stones and the water, the choir was still singing. Soft now. Patient. Waiting.

Chapter 28: Mine