The spice grinder hummed a low, resonant note—G-sharp, if Alaric's old ears still served him. Cinnamon and clove dust swirled in the glass chamber, catching the midday light that sliced through the workshop window. But the powder falling from the spout wasn't brown. It glowed violet. He stopped cranking. The hum continued. Through the warped glass of the window, a presence pressed close. Not a shadow—shadows moved with the sun. This was something that chose to be there. A tendril, dark as oiled iron, touched the pane. Where it made contact, a faint shimmer spread outward, like heat on asphalt but colder, more deliberate. Alaric set down the grinder. The violet powder settled, still pulsing faintly. "You've been watching for three days," he said, not raising his voice. The workshop walls were thin. Everything carried. The tendril didn't withdraw. Instead, another joined it, then another—three points of contact, each leaving its luminous signature. Through the glass, two green eyes opened, not hostile, not curious either. Hungry, perhaps. For what, Alaric couldn't yet name. He stepped closer, until his breath fogged the pane opposite the shimmer. "I know what you are. Do you?" The Shoggoth's form pressed nearer. The glass bowed inward, a hair's breadth from breaking. Alaric held his ground. Then, impossibly, a sound emerged from the entity—not a voice, but the grinder's note, returned to him. G-sharp. Perfect pitch. Alaric exhaled. "So. You can learn." He reached up and unlatched the window. The Shoggoth did not retreat. It waited, its shimmering handprint still glowing, as Alaric swung the pane open and let the desert air flood in. The violet light spilled across his workbench, and for a moment, the spice dust on his hands seemed to answer it—glowing in kind. "Come in, then," Alaric said. "But mind the threshold. It's warded." The Shoggoth's eyes blinked once. Slowly. Deliberately. Then it began to pour itself through the open window, a river of dark matter and green light, filling the workshop with the smell of ozone and old stone. Alaric watched it gather in the corner, coiling like smoke in a jar. It had obeyed. It had stopped at the threshold. "Good," he murmured. "We have a beginning." The grinder sat silent now. But the violet powder still glowed, and somewhere in the heart of that cosmic guest, something was listening.