Mira opens her palms. The resistance she braced for — panic, the instinct to claw upward — does not come. The sand accepts the gesture and draws her down in one smooth, unhurried motion, like water closing over an open hand. The warmth is total now, surrounding her entirely, and it does not feel like burial. It feels like being held. She sinks through a glow that is not quite light — amber at the edges, warm as a lantern seen through paper. Then her knees find something solid and the descent stops. She is in a space no larger than a modest room, its walls breathing gently in and out. At the centre, on a ledge of pale stone, the brass key waits. Beside it: a figure barely larger than her fist, cross-legged, a column of amber light rising from it steadily. It turns toward her. The air carries a smell she knows — old wood, cardamom, a kitchen that no longer exists.