She read the line again.
The sage did not bury his secrets beneath the earth. He buried them inside the story itself, so that only those who had already found the first door could ever find the second.
The first door.
She looked at the key sitting beside her on the floor. It was small and plain, nothing special to look at, but it had been specifically left for her to find. That wasn't an accident. Nothing about this place was an accident.
She went back to the beginning of the book and read more slowly this time. Not looking for meaning in the words themselves, but looking at the words as if they were something else entirely.
Then she found it.
