Not sun-warm. The heat came in pulses, faint but regular, as if something deep below breathed on a schedule. He stayed there long enough to feel the rhythm through the thin roots and damp soil. Then he shifted sideways along the berm, studying it with the same focus he would have given a damaged machine housing. Decorative stones had been placed to break the line. Moss thickened over one section where condensation must have risen at night. Near the base, hidden by hanging vine strands, a narrow slit opened black into the earth.

When he pulled the vines apart, stale heat touched his face. A thin draft climbed from below carrying oil, damp metal, and the flat smell of old air run through filters too many times. A maintenance opening, no wider than his shoulders. Inside, a ladder dropped straight down through concrete and rust-dark steel. Red strips glowed at intervals along the shaft wall, dim and low—emergency lighting, or old warning paint wired back to life.

He let out one breath through his nose and looked around the grounds. The paths beyond were empty. In the bright commons farther off, pale figures moved between low tables and hanging fruit, soft and unhurried, the day beginning on the surface as if nothing under it could matter.

Lina stood a few steps behind him, her wrap caught close around her arms, and said, “Elias.”