The night was never really dark in the City of Whispers. The tenements muttered under the breath of the sea, and the cobblestones carried on whatever anyone dared to say. Lena Wierzbicka, a reverberation cartographer from the first year of the guild, preferred to listen rather than ask. She was learning to draw maps of sound, the paths by which words travel when people are already asleep. That evening at the Fragrance Market, vendors pulled pens from drawers that remembered storms. White moths flew above the stalls, carrying a whispered glow instead of light. Lena stopped at an old bookbinder's table. A tiny red light trembled on the velvet. It squinted as she looked at it. Then it leapt to her hand and refused to come down again. - 'A spark,' said the bookbinder, without lifting his gaze. - It chooses for itself who it will ignite. Its embers are fed by memories. Beware, the Silent Ones hunt other people's fires. - Dust rustled in his voice. Lena hid Spark in a copper button box. Despite being closed, she could feel it throbbing, as if counting its breaths. Inside the box, a quiet song spilled out, the melody of a long-forgotten lullaby. The lullaby had once been hummed by her grandmother, who had died before Lena knew the map alphabet. If Spark could evoke that sound, it could lead her further than any map. But the short, muffled footsteps of the Silent Ones were approaching from the direction of Raven Street. Their masks were as smooth as porcelain, so that they reflected other people's words like cold mirrors. - 'To the Observatory,' hissed Spark, warming the metal. - Before the first bell sounds. Lena fled down into the old tram tunnels, where the dampness creaked in the railings. Once blue carriages ran through here; today only echoes ran. At the closed gate she found the engraved sign of the guild: a compass rotation crossed by a lightning bolt. The box suddenly glowed white. The metal burned her skin; she did not cry out. - 'Say my name,' Spark asked. Lena whispered it, like a whisper in a silent anatomy lesson. The gate lock surprised with the sound of a drop not falling. The scent of warm rain blew from inside the tunnel. And then, from the sheer darkness, someone called her a diminutive name she hadn't used in years. - Lenka.