That evening, with the camp pitched and a pot bubbling over the fire, Jones spread a map of the plateau over a flat stone. Firelight danced across the faded contour lines.
"The entrance should be somewhere around here." His ink-stained, finger jabbed at the eastern slope. "According to the records, we start here and work our way down the ridge. Sooner or later we'll find a fissure."
Sophie sat nearby, cradling a mug of tea as she silently studied the map, her lip caught between her teeth. Her attention caught on the marked points further north, where the river made a sharp bend around the plateau.
"Professor," she began, tentative. "Look at this."
Jones peered over his spectacles.
"What is it, Sophie?"
"Here." She traced the river's line. "The Tear stream runs across the plateau and drops off here, at the ridge. But down in the valley there's no bed. The river runs well to the north, and it's full."
Jean, who had been cleaning a machete, looked up.
"A sinkhole?" he asked with interest.
"A ponor," she corrected without thinking, then bit her tongue. "Well... a hole in the ground where the water drains. So somewhere in this area there should be warm, damp air coming up from the caves."
She traced a line on the map.
"And if we find, say, a stand of Silver Ferns there..."
Jones looked at her over his spectacles.
"And what would ferns tell us, child?" he asked, though something had already lit behind his expression.
"Monsieur Jones, I have been of age for nearly a week now," Sophie corrected him with mock indignation.
"Ha! As you like, as you like. Until you've bound a demon of your own, you're still a child to me," Jones laughed.
"But how do you know about the ferns?" Jean wondered.
"There was a book in Father's library... on landscape design," Sophie said quickly, though her cheeks turned pink. "It said they only grow on 'dragon's breath.' Warm, humid air rising from underground."
Jones took off his spectacles and polished them on his shirttail, studying the map with a different look now, the sharp eye of the scientist.
"A vanishing stream and air vents..." he murmured. "Damn it all. That makes sense. That's far better than poking blindly at cliff faces."
Sophie blushed and hid behind her tea. Jean allowed himself the corner of a smile.
"Looks like archaeology is more than a whim to escape your mother."
"Then we start there tomorrow," Jones decided, rolling up the map.
The mood around the fire softened. The day's tension drained away with food and warmth.
"Sophie, did I ever tell you about the time Jean sat his demonology examination?" Jones said, chuckling as he packed his pipe. Smoke curled toward the stars. "The affair of the 'theoretical succubus'?"
Jean groaned and covered his face with his hands. The tips of his ears burned red.
"Oh no, Henry. Not this. I'm begging you."
"Tell me!" Sophie demanded at once, swivelling to face the professor.
"Picture it," Jones said, blowing a smoke ring, wicked as a schoolboy. "Your uncle, young and innocent in those days, forgot the paragraph on the physiology of energy exchange. And spent half an hour, straight-faced, arguing before the panel that succubi could sustain themselves on platonic love and poetry."
Sophie snorted into her fist.
"Poetry?"
"He even cited specific rhyme schemes that should produce satiation!" Jones laughed, hoarse and infectious.
"I was young and romantic!" Jean protested, though he couldn't keep the grin off his face. "And I still maintain my theory had potential."
"Potential to stay a virgin, certainly." Jones snorted. "The old rector nearly choked on his tea when Jean started quoting sonnets."
Sophie's laughter carried across the clearing, startling the night birds. Jean shook his head, smiling in spite of himself, while Jones puffed at his pipe, sending rings of smoke up toward the stars. Even Berit, half-hidden in the shadows, allowed himself the faintest smirk at his "theoretical" colleague's embarrassment.