Ari Thornheart had chased the same rumor for three months, and today it ran out. Grovemouth sold her nothing but wet talk. Old men in the market swore a legendary sword lay buried in the deepest ruin beneath the town. None of them could point to the door. Ari needed one true lead before she could climb down into the dark, and she was out of coin and out of patience. Her mountain lion cub pressed against her boots, hungry. The cub had grown since she found it starving in a snare last winter. She rubbed its spotted ears and made a promise she wasn't sure she could keep. "One more day," she said. "Then we eat like queens." She worked the edges of the marsh because the ruin was said to sit under standing water. Reeds cut her hands. Mud pulled at her knees. By midday she had found nothing but her own tired reflection in the shallows. Then the cub stiffened and bolted. Ari ran after it, cursing. She broke through a wall of reeds and stopped. A sleek fox stood at the water's edge, ears sharp, coat dark and damp. It did not flee. It watched her, then trotted three steps and looked back, plainly waiting. The cub crouched to pounce. Ari caught its scruff. "No," she whispered. Something about the fox's patience felt deliberate, like a guide sizing up a fool. She followed. The fox led her along a game trail she never would have found alone. It stopped at a mound of thorned jungle vine, a knotted mass thick with barbs and broad leaves. The vine covered something square and hard. The fox sat and licked a paw, its work done. Ari drew her knife and cut. Thorns raked her forearms and drew blood. She swore and kept cutting until the leaves fell away. Beneath the tangle sat a slab of carved stone. A stair sank into the earth below it, black and cold, breathing damp air up into her face. She had found the door. Ari knelt and pressed her palm to the top step. Real stone. Real depth. The rumor was true, and it went straight down into the dark she had wanted for three months. The fox rose and slipped back into the reeds. When she turned to thank it, it was already gone. The cub crept to the edge of the stair and growled at the black below. Its fur stood up along its spine. Ari looked at the raw cuts on her arms, then at the cub. She had no rope, no torch, and no food. She had a wound, a frightened animal, and a hole in the ground that ate her lantern light three steps in. She had wanted the way down. Now the way down wanted her back. "All right," she said. "We go prepared, or we don't go at all."