Mira was seventeen years old and her hand as sure as a magnetic needle on a map. She lived in the Valley of the Bells, where the rocks sounded at night and the wind carried ash. The elders spoke of the echoes of the mountains, but she called them dragon's breath. Every new moon she climbed the watchtower and sketched the dark lines of the ridges. From her father she received a compass with a strange needle, shimmering like an opal in the afternoon. When she touched the brass, she heard a soft clatter, as if something was counting the seconds beneath the metal. Her father had disappeared four winters ago, leaving a single sheet of map, cut diagonally. There were scale marks on the edge, not matching any road or river. On the day of the Feast of Bells, the mist hung heavy and the bells tolled lower than usual. From the south came the Bone Brigade, hunting legends and selling them by weight. Mira had once heard that dragons don't die, but sink into stone and pretend to slope. If this is true, the Brigade will have hollowed out the heart of the mountains before anyone hears their call. Mira put the compass to the slit map and noticed that the needle trembled to the rhythm of the bells. The marks formed a path towards the Slit Ridge, the place where the old shafts had been abandoned. - 'I'm coming with you,' said Nela, cramming the lantern into her pocket and tying her scarf tightly. They climbed three crags, and the mist over the valley pulsed like muscle, though there was no wind. A tunnel waited in the cleft, as high as an auditorium, wet with condensation and as quiet as bronze. As she slid her hand down the wall, she felt warm, as if someone were breathing through the stone skin. From the distance came the metallic footsteps of the Brigade, steady, sure, terribly indifferent to the darkness. The compass suddenly froze, and then the needle pointed to an alcove where something glinted under a layer of dust. Mira shook off the dust and touched the husk, which moved as if its touch had awakened it. The wall answered in a low tone, the air thickened, and just behind them something whined metal. Nela lifted the lantern higher, and the light sucked into the crack like embers into a hearth. She could see carved letters on the stone, similar to the marks on her father's map. Mira uttered in a whisper the phrase she had been practising in her notebook, unsure of the meaning but certain of the rhythm. The air cracked with a chill, the scales parted like the closure of a case, and the tunnel trembled springily. A single, knowing glance, golden as amber, flowed from the depths and stopped on Mira. Behind her back, a fuse crackled, someone unlocked a hook gun, and her eye slowly narrowed its pupil.