Tobias takes a breath and slips feet-first through the seam. The drop is shorter than he expects — his boots strike cool stone almost at once. The gold light closes behind him like water, and for one dark moment he cannot see at all. Then the walls begin to glow: a soft amber warmth rising from the stone itself, just enough to see by. He stands in a low passage whose walls are curved smooth, shaped by pressure rather than any tool he knows. The fairy slips down after him, her violet eyes wide and very still. Ahead, the passage opens into a larger dark, and from that dark comes the same slow breathing he heard through the column — closer now, warm on his face. At the far end, two pale points of light hang in the black. They blink, first together, then one after the other. Something immense is awake, and it is looking at him.