Suzan trudged down the cobbled alley, her boots kicking up dust with every step. The sun had long dipped below the horizon, but her mind buzzed like a market square at noon.
Her house came into view — a modest, two-story home tucked between a closed herbal shop and a pottery stall she'd infamously terrorized more times than anyone could count. The stall's owner had once counted, in fact — twenty-six broken vases and counting. She'd argued it was twenty-four, but who was really keeping score?
She stepped over a cracked tile, the same one that always squeaked, and unlocked her front door. The house greeted her in its usual sleepy silence.
Suzan's house wasn't much — two floors of painted tiles, a patchwork of furniture with no real theme. A chipped round table, an armchair covered in what might've been floral print in its glory days, and a tall shelf that leaned suspiciously left. The house used to belong to Old Marla, the kindest grump in the capital, who had taken Suzan in when she was just a runaway girl with a bruised knee and sharp mouth. Marla had passed five years ago, leaving the house and its memories to Suzan.
Now it was hers. Every dusty corner, every hidden nook.
"Home, sweet chaos," she muttered, tossing her satchel onto a nearby chair and collapsing onto her upstairs bed.
That night, she couldn't sleep; her thoughts kept racing.
She lay on her soft mattress, staring at the ceiling. The thought of the relic refused to leave her alone, curling in her mind like ivy. She could still hear the cloaked men whispering about the royal vault, the way they spoke of the relic and time, the way they looked far too calm — it needled her thoughts.
What kind of relic could turn back time?
Her curiosity throbbed louder than her common sense.
She closed her eyes. "I'm not getting involved," she whispered.
And promptly dreamed of nothing but getting involved.
The morning smacked her awake with sunlight straight to the face.
She rolled off her bed like a log falling down a hill, groaning.
Downstairs, her first order of business wasn't breakfast. It was war.
She approached the vase stall with exaggerated caution. The old potter, hunched and sour-faced, was already glaring at her like a hawk spotting prey.
Suzan grinned. "Morning, Mister Vashir."
He didn't respond.
"I come in peace today," she added, both hands up. "Also, unrelated question, do you know anything about a relic?"
He squinted. "Relic?"
"A magical artifact. Powerful. Glowy, probably."
Vashir straightened slowly. "Is that what you're here for? Not to break another vase?"
She clasped her hands together with her best innocent smile. "I would never."
"Get away from my vases!" he barked, lunging toward her.
Suzan yelped and skipped back like a street performer mid-show
And—CRASH!
"Twenty-seven!" Vashir howled, pointing to the shattered porcelain at her feet.
"I was gonna leave in peace!" she yelled over her shoulder as she sprinted off. "But you ruined my mood!"
What followed was a day-long quest of the truly hopeless variety.
She asked a baker, who handed her a loaf of bread and told her to eat something instead of poking at fairytales. A seamstress told her the relic was probably hidden in her ex-husband's heart — "because clearly, I never found anything valuable there." And a street magician insisted the relic was inside a fish, probably the one that got away.
She wandered around bothering everyone from carrot vendors to beggars to a woman who ran a parrot fortune-telling stand. Responses varied from blank stares to suspicious squints.
"No idea what you're talking about."
"Time? Like bedtime?"
"You're not gonna drag me into another scam, right?"
"Wanna buy a pineapple?"
Kids, however, were more cooperative and even seemed enthusiastic. A group of wide-eyed kids followed her around like ducklings.
"Ooooh! Like a real relic?!" gasped a boy with jam-stained cheeks. "I bet it's under the fountain! Or behind that bakery! Or inside the mayor's shoes!"
"I bet it's buried under the castle!"
"No, in the sewer!"
"Maybe the king swallowed it!"
After five hours and two near-arrests (one of which involved a pie Suzan didn't steal but did finish) and a chicken chase later, she slumped on a crate, dramatically throwing her arms over her face.
"This is hopeless," she muttered, "This city has no imagination."
A cold juice box tapped her arm.
She flinched and looked up.
"Lily!" she beamed.
"Here," Lily said, her expression caught somewhere between exasperated and fond.
Suzan brightened. "My savior! My light! My loyal juice bearer!"
Lily raised a brow. "You told me you weren't interested in the relic. I heard from three different people that you've been running around yelling about relics, breaking property, and stealing someone's cat."
"It ran into my arms," Suzan protested. "It chose me."
"Suzan."
"I'm just curious! I'm not doing anything dangerous." Suzan said, sipping dramatically. "I just wanna know. That's not the same as being interested."
"You've been running around for the whole day."
Suzan shrugged. "Curiosity is healthy."
"Jumping into traps is not," Lily snapped.
Suzan looked at her for a moment and then gave a cheeky smile. "You're just mad cause you're curious too."
Lily hesitated.
Then sighed, flopping beside her. "Fine. I'll help. Let's find your glowing fairytale thing."
Suzan's face lit up like fireworks. "Really?"
"You love trouble."
"I love you. There's a difference."
They high-fived, made their pact, and resumed the search.
Two days passed.
Two. Entire. Days.
Word spread. People groaned. The capital was done.
No one would talk to them anymore. Some merchants ran inside at the sight of Suzan's hair.
They asked merchants, nobles, beggars, even a talking parrot that may have been cursed. The parrot cursed them back.
"Nothing!" Suzan groaned, throwing her arms up. "Nothing but lies, legends, and a bread roll I forgot in my pocket!"
"Don't eat that," Lily warned, as Suzan opened the wrapper.
"You're no fun."
They sat on a bench outside the plaza, both drained and defeated.
Just then, a voice floated past.
"Why not check the library? All sorts of answers live in books. Come on, I'll show you."
It was a young man talking to a child, leading them down the road.
Suzan and Lily snapped to attention.
They looked at each other. "The library!" they shouted in unison, then laughed.
Suzan hopped up. "Why didn't we think of that sooner?"
"Because you kept interrogating fishmongers."
"Valid strategy!"
They raced down the path, fueled by sudden hope.
Back in the alley, the man smiled as the girl ran off with her new book.
He didn't follow.
In fact, he faded. His kind voice replaced by a grin far too calm.
Far away, in the dark of an abandoned wine cellar beneath the Velvet Sphinx, the five cloaked men gathered.
In a dim alley lit only by flickering torchlight, four cloaked men stood in a semicircle. A fifth stepped out of the shadows, his form shimmered for a second, then stabilized. The illusion peeled away like dust in wind — gone was the harmless man from the marketplace, now replaced with a sharper figure cloaked in deep violet, his eyes gleaming under his hood.
"She took the bait," he said coolly. "Hook, line, and all the chaos she carries."
One of the others scoffed, arms crossed. "You sure about this? It's been days and she's found nothing. The whole town's sick of her antics."
"She's not like others," said another, his voice low. "She doesn't give up."
"Which works for us," the leader replied, his tone calm but tight as a bowstring. "Let her poke and prod. Let her make noise. The moment she stumbles into something, we'll know."
He turned, gaze lifting toward the city's skyline — just past it, the domed silhouette of the royal library sat quiet and undisturbed, like a sleeping beast.
"That place…" one of them muttered. "The mana distortion — it's still there."
"Still unreachable," another added. "Disappears every time we try. It's like it… knows."
"But not when she's near," the fifth said thoughtfully. "That's the strange part. With her, the distortion doesn't react."
They all fell into a brief silence.
"Because she's untrained and she is a citizen," one of them offered. "No mana signature. No threat."
"Maybe it reacts to all citizen of the kingdom" suggested one.
"Maybe," the leader said, voice thinning into a whisper. "Or maybe something is keeping it buried."
A silence stretched longer this time — subtle, heavy.
"What if there's nothing there?" someone asked.
The leader smiled faintly beneath his hood. "With that kind of pressure in the air? That kind of mana density? There's something. And if it is what we think it is…" He paused. "We won't even have to open it ourselves."
"Then why not just take her in, force her to open it?"
"Because we don't even know if she can," he said. "And fear breaks tools. Curiosity sharpens them."
The men exchanged glances, unease crawling between them like fog.
He turned away. "Let her dig. Let her chase stories. She's our perfect little key."
Then he stopped — his voice lower now, almost fond.
"And the best part? She doesn't even know she's being used."
They vanished into the dark.