Mary had catalogued a lot of weird stuff in her career as an anthropologist. She'd found thousand-year-old scrolls preserved in desert caves, skeletons arranged in patterns that defied explanation, and that one memorable time in Peru when her team discovered an entire temple that somehow wasn't on any map ever made. But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared her for finding a human standing in the center of an ancient temple, wearing what appeared to be silk so fine it was nearly luminescent.

"Jesus Christ," she managed eloquently, already shrugging off her heavy pack. The temperature in here had to be freezing; they were well below ground in a tunnel system that hadn't seen sunlight in years. "What the hell are you doing here? This temple is off limits to tourists. The floor's crumbling, you could have gotten killed."

She yanked out the emergency blanket, but when she held it out, the person just stared at it with an otherworldly detachment that made the back of her neck prickle.

Her mind raced through possibilities as he watched the scene unfold. Foreign intelligence seemed unlikely - the lack of footprints in the dust ruled that out. Local villager having some kind of crisis? They were hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, and she'd never seen traditional dress that looked anything like that gauzy material.

Her boots slipped slightly on the loose rubble as she approached with the blanket, trying to project the same confidence she used when facing down academic review boards. The temple suddenly felt much older and much more dangerous than it had five minutes ago, and she was achingly aware of how far they were from civilization.

"Seriously," she said, her voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through her system, "we're gonna need you to start talking. What are you doing here?"