Grace Behaved gripped the airship's rail and tried to remember her own name. The mushroom sigils inked across her pale skin had begun to burn three nights ago. Someone slept inside those marks. A fungal mind, dormant for years, coiled under her tattoos like a second heartbeat. She wanted to wake it. She had spent her whole life wanting that. But every time she reached for it, the thing sent fever-dreams that scrambled her thoughts. Another wave hit her now. The deck tilted, though the airship held steady. She saw spores drifting through black soil. She saw teeth. Her green eyes lost focus, and her gold rings clicked against the rail as her hands shook. She could not plan while it flooded her like this. She could not even stand straight. A small light darted through the cabin door. It hovered near her face, and warmth pushed back the cold sweat on her skin. The fire fairy was no taller than Grace's hand. Embers trailed from her red hair. Glowing marks covered her body, close cousins to the sigils on Grace's own arms. "You're fighting it wrong," the fairy said. Her voice crackled like green wood. "You keep pulling. It only pulls back harder." Grace clenched her jaw. "Then tell me how." "Don't wake it. Warm it." The fairy landed on the rail. She pressed one tiny burning palm against the largest sigil, below Grace's collarbone. "Fungus grows toward heat. Stop demanding. Offer." The touch stung, then settled. Grace understood. She had been clawing at a locked door for years. She had never thought to knock. She closed her eyes and stopped straining. Instead she breathed slow and imagined heat spreading down her arms, into every inked line. She did not command the sleeper. She invited it toward the warmth, the way you coax a cold animal to the fire. The fever-dreams thinned. The teeth faded. The spores drifted away. For the first time in three nights, Grace's mind cleared. The burning under her skin softened to a low, steady pulse, calm now, and awake enough to listen. She opened her eyes. "It's quiet." "For now." The fairy lifted off the rail. Her light dimmed, worried. "But you calmed it by feeding it your heat. It knows your warmth now. It will want more." Grace felt it then. Under the calm, the sigils tugged, gentle but certain, pulling her toward something below. She looked past the airship's fins. Far down, in an open square, a great fountain poured thick red streams over an ornate stone basin. Not water. Blood. The pulse under her skin quickened at the sight. The sleeper wanted her there. Grace touched the sigil where the fairy's palm had rested. She had wanted this thing awake her whole life. Now it was awake enough to want things back, and it was steering her toward a fountain of blood. "Take us down," she said.