The Wind Singer (Wind on Fire, #1)
by William Nicholson, Peter Sís
I haven't read this series in a long, long time; it would be interesting to see how it holds up. (The first few reviews suggest: not well.) I remember the world-building more than anything; it had a very distict texture. It falls in my memory somewhere in the neighborhood of [b:Wolf Tower|293395|Wolf Tower (Claidi Journals, #1)|Tanith Lee|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391128560s/293395.jpg|1279335] and [b:The City of Ember|307791|The City of Ember (Book of Ember, #1)|Jeanne DuPrau|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397931596s/307791.jpg|2285229] and some other book that's on the tip of my tongue.