A cursed girl and a young inventor join forces to search for an ancient, forgotten song with the power to bring down a wicked Queen in this epic fantasy adventure perfect for fans of The Girl Who Drank the Moon and Furthermore . The snowy kingdom of Erkenwald was once a magical place—until an evil ice witch cursed the land and began stealing the voices of the kingdom’s people to strengthen her powers. Eska is one of the many prisoners of the Ice Queen. With no memories of her past, Eska only knows that she cannot allow the Ice Queen to take her voice, that it might be special in some way... When young inventor Flint sneaks into the Ice Queen’s palace in an attempt to rescue his mother, he ends up rescuing Eska instead. Together, Flint and Eska must journey to the Never Cliffs and beyond in search of an ancient, long-forgotten song with the power to end the Ice Queen’s reign and return voice back to the people of Erkenwald. This is the story of an eagle huntress, a boy inventor, and a wicked queen in a castle made from ice. But it’s also a story about finding a place to belong, even at the farthest reaches of the world. Abi Elphinstone grew up in Scotland where she spent most of her childhood running wild across the moors, hiding in tree houses and building dens in the woods. After being coaxed out of her tree house, she studied English at Bristol University and then worked as an English teacher in Tanzania, Berkshire and London. She is the bestselling author of the  Ember Spark  series , Sky Song, Saving Neverland,   The Unmapped Chronicles , The Dreamsnatcher trilogy and, for younger readers, The Snow Dragon  and The Frost Goblin . When she's not writing, Abi works as a trustee for The Lamp of Lothian, speaks in schools about the transformative power of reading and writing and travels the world looking for her next story. Her latest adventures include living with the Kazakh Eagle Hunters in Mongolia and dog-sledding across the Arctic.  Chapter One: Eska Chapter One Eska Eska sat, knees tucked under her chin and head bowed, on the pedestal inside the music box. Its glass dome curved around her, fixed tight to the silver base, and with her flimsy dress and bare feet, she might easily have passed for a mechanical ballerina. But Eska was no clockwork figure. She was a twelve-year-old girl with darting eyes and a pulse that trembled every time the Ice Queen drew near. Eska closed her eyes and tried to wiggle her toes. They didn’t move. She made to arch her back and then stretch her neck. Again, nothing moved. Even her hair—a tumble of red so full of knots it seemed to grow in circles—lay absolutely still down her back. But it was a ritual she attempted every morning in case, by some miracle, the Ice Queen’s hold over her limbs had weakened. It never did, though. Not for a second. The music box had been Eska’s prison for months and she could only blink wide blue eyes at the horrors that unfolded in Winterfang’s vaulted hall. She looked beyond the dome, through the ice arches in front of her, which faced out over Erkenwald. The first sunrise in six months spilled across the horizon. Frozen rivers shimmered, the snow on the tundra sparkled, and the sea was a dazzling jigsaw of ice and meltwater. It was mid-March then, Eska thought. That was when the light returned to the kingdom—she’d heard the Tusk guards talking. Her chest tightened as she thought back to the day she’d awoken in the music box, her body locked under the Ice Queen’s spell. The midnight sun had been burning and she had watched it for two whole months before the dark stole in. Eska swallowed. With the light returning now, she knew she had to have been the Ice Queen’s prisoner for nine months, but even more frightening was the knowledge that she didn’t have a single memory of her life before Winterfang. There must have been something else once—a home, a family, friends perhaps—since the spell the Ice Queen uttered every morning spoke of her as the stolen child . But stolen from where? From whom? It was all a terrible blank. Because the Ice Queen didn’t only steal people and voices: she stole memories, too, if it suited her. At the sound of footsteps, Eska snapped out of her thoughts, and from the corner of her eye she watched a familiar scene unravel. The Ice Queen sat, very still, before an organ made of icicles in the middle of the hall, then she raised her hands to the keys. Eska waited. She knew what came next because it was the same every morning. Chords drifted through the palace—up and down the snow-strewn staircases, into the towers surrounding the palace domes, across the bridge connecting the iceberg to the mainland, and then out over the miles of frozen tundra beyond. The chords were solemn, like the groaning of a faraway glacier, and as they swelled and throbbed, Eska winced. The Ice Queen was getting ready to feed on her stolen voices. A melody rippled out from the silver trees lining the hall. Their roots sp