Tobias glances down at the chalk marks — a tangle of lines he can't quite read, part map, part something older — and when he looks up, the bark fairy is already moving. The lantern bobs ahead, shrinking the light to a single warm point as the passage narrows and curves downward. He should stay. He knows he should stay. His boots move anyway. The cave breathes around him, cool and mineral-smelling, the walls pressing closer until he has to turn sideways. The fairy doesn't slow. Then the passage opens without warning into a wide, low chamber, and Tobias stops breathing altogether: the ceiling is covered in chalk — hundreds of drawings, small and exact, glowing faintly where the lantern light touches them. Animals, paths, moons, and shapes he has no name for. The bark fairy sets the lantern on a flat stone and waits, watching him, those violet eyes patient as starlight.