Aniela, an apprentice cartographer, was learning to measure the world without the usual scale and ruler. Rivers flowed in the Bay City, turning abruptly back to their sources at midnight. As the fog sat on the rooftops, the clocks in the market went backwards, as if exercising memory. She was learning to understand nights that no one had entered in any almanac yet. The strangest thing, however, was the map that moved when no one was looking at night. That evening, she found a letter on the windowsill, covered in salt that dampened nothing. The piston had the crest of an eyeless fish and the silent signature of the City Harbour Council. Bring the name that was stolen from your family before the second moon rises that night. The brass raven on the shelf raised its head and fluttered as if it recognised the seal instantly. - 'Don't delay, Aniela,' rang a thin mechanical bell in the raven's chest. She slid a compass with a wing-shaped needle and a scroll of moving map off the nail. The needle twitched, indicating the quarter of Silence, a district crossed off every navigation book long ago. She left at dusk, when anchors knocked against the quay and vendors gathered shadows. In the Low Market, merchants traded memories for beads, and lanterns chewed clouds. - Looking for Silence? - hissed the whispering vendor, moving her hand over the air bowl. Before she could answer, Iwo, a luthier's apprentice known for his patience, slipped out between the stalls. - 'This road is not led by sound, but by silence,' he said, without looking her in the eye. Aniela nodded; she knew that Iwo was collecting shards of notes that had been singing without lips for a long time. - 'I'm going for a name,' she said, 'and I won't come back empty-handed. - 'The same thing came for me,' he replied, slipping a string, thin as a ray, out of its case. They followed the compass deeper into the alley, where the walls changed bricks like disguised coats. A dry well opened the staircase, and the air smelled of moss and fresh ink today. The map in her lap moved, arranging the missing letters of her name in a row. Icicles of silence dangled from the ceiling and cracked when Iwo touched them with a string. Around the bend, a wall flared, devouring the light of the lantern, and the compass began to circle wildly. At the heart of the corridor, a hingeless door waited, smooth as a stone from the bottom of the bay. She pressed her hand against it; the material zipped high, like a shell listening for breath from behind a thin wall. - 'Something has overtaken you,' warned the raven, and the echo repeated the phrase three times. Then there was a quiet thud from the other side, reminiscent of a signature made with a nail. The door breathed a chill, and the compass jerked out of his hand as if something was attracting it. Light drifted down a crack and deposited a shadow on the ground with its own profile. The shadow raised a finger to its lips and the door began to slide open slowly without a sound.