Tobias presses his palm flat against the glass and it swings inward on silent hinges. He tips himself over the sill — one graceless scramble — and lands in a room that smells of candle-wax and dark ink. Shelves line every wall, crammed with rolled maps, stoppered bottles, and books whose spines are stamped in languages he doesn't recognise. The bark fairy drifts off his shoulder and hovers near the ceiling, examining everything at once with her violet eyes. At the room's only table sits a tall, lean figure in a long grey coat, ink-stained fingers resting on an open page. The brass lantern beside them sways once, as if the air moved. The Tower-Keeper lifts pale eyes to Tobias without surprise — without alarm — only a long, still patience, like a compass needle that has waited years to be read. "You let the thread go," the figure says quietly. "Good. Sit down."