Mira rises from her desk, receipt folded into her coat pocket. She carries the cobalt candle with her — its flame bends slightly as she moves, as though drawn forward. The crow watches her cross the room, then lifts from the sill and vanishes into the dark beyond the open door before she reaches it. The doorway breathes cold. Pine and old paper thicken here, and beneath them something else: a faint mineral tang, like deep earth or old stone. Mira steps through. The hallway is narrow and longer than the house should allow. The cobalt flame stretches ahead of her as it did toward the word, casting pale-blue shadows against walls she doesn't recognize — shelves of books, she thinks, though they're too deep in shadow to be certain. Behind her, the door doesn't close. Ahead, in the dark, she hears the soft tap of claws on wood.