Tobias doesn't move. The fairy doesn't move either — it simply stands on his knee, violet eyes shifting between his face and the pulsing oak roots, as if it reads him the way a person reads weather. The greenish glow pulses once, twice, then brightens very slightly, as though it noticed his stillness and approved. A sound reaches him now that he hadn't heard before: a low, soft hum, barely above the threshold of feeling — more vibration in the chest than noise in the ear. The fairy turns fully toward the oak and lifts both arms, not dramatically but with quiet intention, palms upward. The glow brightens again. Then, between the two great roots, the earth shifts. A thin crack opens, wider than before, leaking brighter light into the dark — and through it comes a sound: like the slow, deliberate turning of a very large page.