The Bazaar of Forgetting had no true center, but the closer they ventured toward the sounds that shouldn't exist—bells underwater, the hum of regret, arguments between empty shoes—the more certain Rue became they were getting close.
"Are we going in circles?" she asked.
Groat clicked against the edge of her pocket. "No. Just a spiral. Spirals are circles with ambition."
Ashwen, still silent, led the way. She moved like someone keeping herself from remembering something.
They passed a vendor selling bottled first breaths and a stand that specialized in one-hour friends. One of the jars labeled "Companion: Slightly Disappointing but Loyal" wiggled when Rue passed.
Then, tucked between a tea stall serving nostalgia and a butcher who carved only metaphors, they found it.
The umbrella stand.
Rain fell here—not from above, but out of the opened umbrellas themselves, each one offering a different weather. One opened to desert wind. Another to sleet and longing.
Behind the stall sat a man whose robes were soaked in ink, his hands perpetually stained with words that hadn't yet been written.
He didn't look up when they approached. Instead, he dipped a quill into his own sleeve and scribbled into the open air.
"The Inkwell Prophet?" Rue asked.
He nodded absently. "The ink remembers what the mind forgets. You are seeking a lantern, yes? Carried a memory. Burned like a secret."
"You have it?" Ashwen's voice was dry, stretched thin.
The Prophet didn't answer. He continued writing, the script trailing off his hand and curling into the air like smoke.
"You must be new," the Prophet finally said. "You ask as if wanting is enough."
Rue stepped forward. "We'll pay."
Monsieur Loup, who had been unusually quiet, suddenly interjected with theatrical horror. "Pay?! My dear, we are adventurers! We don't pay, we bargain with existential weight and unspeakable promises!"
The Prophet gave a slow smile. "He remembers."
Rue shot Loup a look. "How do you know him?"
"I don't," Loup replied too quickly.
"Enough," Ashwen said. "What do we give?"
"A truth," the Prophet said. "Spoken aloud. One you've never said before."
Ashwen flinched. Loup coughed. Rue looked down.
Groat snickered. "This'll be good."
Rue broke the silence. "I never thought Ilyan would come back. Not really."
There it was.
The Prophet dipped his finger into the shadow cast by his own ink and pulled something out—a small lantern, its flame flickering with the shape of a memory.
"He held death like a borrowed coat," the Prophet said. "Took it off when no one was looking."
Ashwen reached for it. "Is this...?"
"The memory of his absence," the Prophet confirmed. "But memories grow wild in the Bazaar. It's... not whole."
Before anyone could ask what that meant, the Prophet raised a hand.
"You should leave," he said. "The Bazaar is starting to remember you. And it doesn't like that."
Rue pocketed the lantern, and they turned to go. But before they could leave, the Prophet called out.
"One last thing—if he remembers you, truly remembers you... the Bazaar might not let him go again."
Ashwen didn't turn around. "He never really let go either."
As they stepped away, the Prophet dipped his quill again. But this time, he wrote a name into the air.
Not Ilyan. Not Rue. Not Ashwen.
Just: Witness.