The walls were bleeding ink again.
Not real ink—just the idea of it. Etched into the grain of the shelves, curling beneath the lanterns, blooming across the stone tiles like vines too stubborn to stay buried.
> He who forgets the question will mistake the answer.
Three truths wait. Only one forgives.
Do not let him ask it.
He hadn't written them.
Nor had the book. Nor the forge. Nor any customer he remembered.
And yet, the warnings were there—growing like mold beneath memory.
The Emporium had not opened today.
It had woken from something. And whatever had carved those words into its bones had not yet left.
---
The forge was cold.
Not dormant—just withdrawn. As if it was watching.
The book, red-bound and ever-knowing, remained shut. No fluttering pages. No welcome. Just stillness.
He ran his fingers along the spine of the counter. Even the wood was tense. As if the Emporium itself was waiting for an answer to a question it hadn't dared to ask.
He exhaled. The air didn't move.
"Something's off," he muttered aloud.
The fox said nothing.
Not from absence—he could see it, perched on the beam above the mirror garden's veil—but from restraint. Its eyes, like stilled starlight, tracked the lines of ink crawling into the flagstones.
And that's when the hourglass appeared.
---
It hadn't been there the moment before.
No flicker, no shimmer. Just presence.
It sat on the counter as though it had always belonged—an object that made the space around it more real. A narrow spindle of crystal bound in dark iron, filled not with sand, but with motes of starlight drifting as if caught in thought.
He didn't dare touch it.
The moment his gaze settled, time shifted around it. Not forwards. Not backwards. Inward.
And the visitor followed.
---
They came clothed in silence.
No sound of arrival. No shift of the rift. Just a ripple in the way the Emporium breathed.
Tall. Cloaked. Barefoot.
Their face was hidden behind a pale mask—expressionless, cracked once along the jaw. From their neck hung a chain, and at the end of it, an empty cage the size of a breath.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
The fox tilted its head. "They've been here before."
He blinked. "I'd remember."
"No," said the fox, "you wouldn't."
The visitor stepped forward. Their presence unraveled something—not violent, but certain. They placed a hand on the hourglass and turned it.
The stars began to fall.
---
The moment the hourglass flipped, the red book opened.
Not a welcome.
A warning.
> Scriptorium unlocked. Proceed with memory.
He hadn't heard the term before.
But the shop had.
With a slow shift, the walls behind the counter peeled open—not torn or broken, just… rewritten. A hallway formed, paved in black paper and soft stone. Candles lined the walls, though none were lit.
The visitor gestured.
Not toward themselves. Toward the hall.
Toward what waited at the end.
---
He followed.
The Emporium didn't breathe here. It listened.
The hallway led into a chamber carved in soft arcs—part scriptorium, part sanctum. Dozens of scrolls hovered in mid-air, their threads untied but pages unwritten. On a pedestal in the center sat a single quill, suspended in ink that shimmered like stormlight.
And beneath it: a slate.
> Truth is traded here. Memory for revelation. Each answer will cost a piece of you.
The visitor stepped beside the pedestal and bowed their head once.
Then waited.
"What are you?" he asked softly.
No response.
The quill drifted toward him.
The slate pulsed.
> Ask.
He hesitated.
But only for a breath.
---
"What did I used to be?"
The ink ignited.
Quill met slate.
Lines carved themselves into the surface, smoke curling from every stroke.
> A name that shattered in sacrifice. A god who gave his divinity to seal the Hunger. You were not cast down. You chose to fall.
The answer hit him like a memory he'd forgotten how to survive.
He staggered back. The ink pulsed gold, then dulled.
Behind him, the visitor nodded once—softly. As if to say: Now you know why I came.
But the slate wasn't done.
Another message bloomed beside the first.
> Price extracted: The color of your father's voice.
He gasped.
His throat tightened, but it wasn't pain. It was emptiness. A silence where a sound used to live.
He couldn't remember what it had ever been like to hear that voice.
Not even in dreams.
---
The visitor turned to go.
But he wasn't done.
"One more question," he said.
The fox appeared beside the pedestal, flicking its tail. "Are you sure? The second cost never comes cheap."
He stared at the hourglass. The stars inside had slowed.
Almost done.
He gritted his teeth. "Yes."
The slate glowed again.
> Ask.
He whispered it.
"What is trying to wake inside the garden?"
The ink froze.
The scrolls flickered once—anxious.
Then the quill moved.
> A name that does not forgive. A thread severed before it was tied. It remembers the hands that failed it.
The chamber darkened. One of the candles lit itself.
The slate burned with finality.
> Price extracted: The last memory of warmth.
---
He collapsed to one knee.
His hands trembled. The air no longer held comfort. The flicker of the forge, the brush of the vines, even the soft breath of the fox—all felt… cold.
Not cruel. Not hostile.
Just empty.
As if the concept of warmth had left him.
The visitor turned back. They reached into their cloak and removed the cage from their chain. Inside it now floated a single spark—a shard of memory shaped like a feather.
They placed it on the pedestal beside the slate.
Then they bowed again.
And vanished.
---
Back in the Emporium, the forge flared violet.
The hourglass shattered itself.
The shop shuttered.
Not with sound—but with finality.
A relic had changed everything.
And the Emporium was no longer only his.
---
The red book opened again.
This time, no words.
Just an outline—a shape that had not yet taken form.
The forge began folding itself. The shelves reshaped. A new door appeared beside the Scriptorium's arch.
A chamber of mirrors.
But this time, none reflected him.
Only versions of him.
A thousand possibilities.
A thousand fates.
The fox stepped beside him, silent.
He whispered, "What did I trade away?"
The fox's voice was almost a hush.
"Enough that the Emporium now remembers what it was before you."
He closed his eyes.
And stepped through the mirror door.