The ember fox turns and pads toward the mill door, glancing back once — a clear invitation. The girl tucks the book tighter against her chest and follows. Inside, the air is thick with flour dust and something older: earth and iron and the suggestion of deep roots. The fox leads her past the silent millstone, past rusted gears that haven't turned in years, deeper into the dark where the floor planks groan underfoot. Then it stops. In the far corner, behind a fallen beam, the wall holds a shape the girl didn't expect: a door, no taller than her shoulder, cut from stone rather than wood, with no handle she can find. Carved above the lintel is a single mark — the same mark that opens the final page of her book. The fox sits before it and waits, amber eyes steady in the thin grey light.