Mira moves to the staircase and places her weight on the first step with her toe before trusting it — it gives a faint sigh but holds. She climbs that way, slow and patient, until she reaches the top. Then she lowers herself to her knees and presses her cheek flat against the cold floorboards, peering through the amber gap beneath the door. She can see heavy boots, turned out at the heel, and above them the hem of a wide leather apron. The hands — thick-knuckled, stained dark at the fingertips — move in a steady rhythm across a large sheet of paper spread on the floor. The symbols filling it are unmistakably the same as those on her scrap. Every few strokes the figure pauses and murmurs something under their breath, too low for her to catch. The lantern's flame dips once, as though something unseen passed through it.