Tobias presses his ear to the stone. At first there is only silence — then, from somewhere very deep, a slow and rhythmic sound, like breathing, like tides, like the turning of something enormous in its sleep. The warmth spreads from the column into his cheek and jaw and spreads down through his chest until it feels like standing in afternoon sun. The fairy perches on the capital above him, watching. The sound grows clearer: two voices, perhaps, braided together in a language he almost recognises — the way you almost recognise a word in a dream. Then the column trembles. A seam of pale gold light opens between the second and third stones in the floor, just wide enough for a boy to slip through. The fairy drifts down and tilts her head toward it. Somewhere below, something shifts and stirs, and waits to be found.