Mira snatches the key from the air — her fingers close around it before instinct finishes the thought. The brass is warm, almost feverish, and the blue ribbon wraps once around her wrist as if catching hold. She yanks back. The sand resists — not like quicksand, more like fingers loosening reluctantly, each grain releasing her skin with a faint hiss. She rocks backward, wrenches her knees free, and scrambles up the dune-face, breathing hard. Below her, the hollow exhales. The sand levels itself in a slow unhurried wave, smoothing over exactly where her hands and knees had been — as though erasing a wound. The warmth drains from her arms all at once. She is cold in a way that has nothing to do with the desert heat. She opens her fist. The key is still there. The ribbon pulses once against her wrist, then lies still. The hollow offers no sound, no movement. Behind her, the camel's bell rings, a single clear note in the silence.