"Give it a second," he says, feeling the rope tap the back of his leg, lift, tap again. She's closer behind now, and a skitter of stone speaks to the lack of grace. He's deciding: light the candle now while he can almost see what he's doing, or see how long he can navigate by shapes. What we wants is some kind of change on the walls, some sign of this supposed door.

If they'd just said what side it was on, they could go by touch--but he doesn't know what the other side holds, or which is which, and he'd hate to separate.

"Far enough that I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, but close enough they stumbled onto it without any supplies. They might have just gotten lucky that day." But they're not stumbling; they're here to do this. "I'm going to crouch down, I need you to hold something for me." At the edge of where he can reasonably see, he slings is pack down into his lap and feels around for a few items. "Here," he adds, slowly pushing his journal at her. "I've got a candle, but we're not going to see very far if it's in our faces, we'll use that to direct the light."

He just has to light it with a flint in the dark of a cave, and not lose any of the pieces.