The Market of Might-Have-Beens smelled of burnt sugar and ink, a place where the air itself seemed to hum with the weight of unlived lives. Nyx flicked a copper coin between their fingers, grinning as it vanished into their sleeve.

  "Rule one, little ghost," they said, leaning down to Lyria’s height. "The best pockets aren’t in coats—they’re in distractions."

  Lyria tilted her head, her too-knowing eyes reflecting the market’s flickering lanterns. "But what if the distraction hasn’t happened yet?"

  Nyx snorted. "Then you’re cheating."

  They wove through the crowd, past stalls selling bottled laughter and folded regrets. The vendors here were half-shadowed, their faces shifting like reflections in disturbed water. Nyx nudged Lyria toward a merchant hawking "fortunes in a vial"—tiny glass bottles filled with swirling mist that whispered in languages no one remembered.

  "Watch," Nyx murmured. With a flick of their wrist, they palmed a vial, tucking it into their belt before the merchant could blink. "Your turn."

  Lyria chewed her lip, then reached into the air behind the stall—and pulled out a silver key that hadn’t been there a second before.

  Nyx’s grin faltered. "Okay, what—?"

  The key was cold, its teeth uneven, like it had been broken and reforged. Lyria turned it over, her small fingers tracing an engraving: "For the Door That Isn’t."

  The merchant hissed, his form flickering into something jagged and sharp. "That’s not for you."

  Nyx grabbed Lyria’s hand. "Time to go."

  They ducked into an alley where the walls whispered in overlapping echoes. Lyria held up the key, her voice distant. "It’s for the Wandering Saint’s tower. But the tower isn’t built yet."

  Nyx exhaled, half-amused, half-uneasy. "Kid, you’re stealing from the future now?"

  Lyria’s gaze slid past them, toward a stall that hadn’t been there before—a skeletal vendor with a tray of coins. One gleamed among the rest, its surface stamped with a face Nyx knew too well: Sorin, older, his scars deeper, his eyes hollow.

  Nyx’s chest tightened. "Don’t—"

  But Lyria was already reaching.

  Nyx snatched the coin from Lyria’s fingers before she could close her fist around it. The metal burned cold against their palm, as if resisting touch.

  "Give it back," Lyria said, not pleading—just stating a fact.

  "Not a chance." Nyx turned the coin over. The face was undeniably Sorin’s, but aged decades beyond the boy they knew. His scars had spread like gilded cracks across his skin, his mouth set in a grim line. The reverse side showed a crown, but it was broken, one half melted into indistinct shapes.

  Nyx’s stomach twisted. "This isn’t real."

  Lyria blinked at them. "Not yet."

  A gust of wind rattled the market’s lanterns, and for a heartbeat, the crowd around them flickered—ghosts of people who might one day walk here, their voices layered in a chorus of could-bes. The skeletal vendor’s empty eye sockets fixed on Nyx.

  "That one costs more than coin," it rasped.

  Nyx bared their teeth. "Everything does." They tossed a different coin—stolen from a drunkard in Lumin Hollow last week—onto the vendor’s tray. The vendor hissed as it landed, the metal blackening instantly.

  Lyria tugged Nyx’s sleeve. "We should go. The Hounds are coming."

  Nyx stiffened. "Here? Now?"

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Not now now." Lyria’s gaze drifted to the alley’s far end, where shadows pooled too thickly. "But soon. And then. And after."

  Nyx pocketed the cursed coin and grabbed Lyria’s hand. "You’re impossible."

  Lyria smiled faintly. "No. Just ahead."

  They slipped through the market’s shifting aisles, past a woman selling "last words" tied to ribbons and a child peddling jars of "almost-love." Nyx’s usual confidence frayed at the edges—how did you steal from a place that wasn’t fully there?

  Lyria, meanwhile, moved like she’d been here before. Or would be. Or was.

  Nyx ducked behind a stall selling hourglass pendulums, their sand flowing upward. Lyria crouched beside them, her small fingers pressed against the cobblestones as if listening to something beneath.

  "You know," Nyx muttered, "most kids just steal sweets."

  Lyria didn’t smile. "The Hounds are closer now."

  A ripple passed through the market—stalls flickering like candle flames, vendors turning their heads in unison toward the main thoroughfare. The air tasted metallic, like storm winds before lightning strikes.

  Nyx peered around the stall’s edge. At the market’s heart, where no stall had stood moments before, a new booth materialized. Its awning was stitched from shadows, and its shelves held a single item: a music box, its surface carved with a crown wrapped in thorns.

  Lyria went very still. "That’s Kael’s."

  "Future Kael’s or past Kael’s?" Nyx asked, already knowing the answer.

  "Broken Kael’s."

  Nyx exhaled through their teeth. "We’re leaving."

  They grabbed Lyria’s wrist, but she resisted, her eyes fixed on the music box. "It’s playing."

  A sound threaded through the market’s murmur—a lullaby, warped and slow, the notes fraying at the edges. Nyx’s scars itched (when had they gotten scars?). The crowd’s voices hushed, replaced by a whispering chorus:

  "You were never meant to endure."

  The music box’s lid creaked open. Inside, no gears or pins—just a small silver bell, engraved with a name:

  Sorin, Age 12.

  Nyx’s vision swam. The cobblestones beneath them softened like wet clay, and for a dizzying moment, they remembered something impossible:

  A version of themselves standing over Sorin’s sleeping form, slipping a dagger from his belt. A voice (theirs? Someone else’s?) whispering, "Forgive me."

  Then Lyria yanked them backward, and the memory shattered.

  "Now we go," she said, and this time, Nyx didn’t argue.

  They ran, the market unraveling in their wake—stalls folding like paper, voices calling after them in languages that hadn’t been spoken yet. Nyx clutched the aged-Sorin coin like a talisman, its edges biting into their palm.

  Behind them, the music box’s song twisted into laughter.

  The market’s edges were fraying.

  Nyx and Lyria sprinted past stalls that dissolved into smoke, their cries swallowed by the growing dissonance of the music box’s song. The air itself seemed to resist them—thick as syrup, tasting of burnt copper and regret.

  Lyria suddenly skidded to a stop, her small hand slipping from Nyx’s grip. Before them, the alleyway twisted in on itself, the cobblestones rearranging like pieces of a puzzle refusing to be solved.

  "Wrong turn," Lyria murmured.

  Nyx whipped around, but the path behind them was gone, replaced by a wall of shifting mirrors. Their own reflection stared back—not as they were, but as they might be: hollow-eyed, lips stitched shut with golden thread.

  "Charming," Nyx muttered, pressing a hand to their chest where their heartbeat thundered. "Any other exits, ghost-girl?"

  Lyria tilted her head, listening to something beyond hearing. Then, with unsettling certainty, she reached into the pocket of Nyx’s coat—their hidden pocket, the one even pickpockets missed—and pulled out the aged-Sorin coin.

  "Hey!" Nyx grabbed for it, but Lyria was already flipping the coin into the air.

  It never came down.

  Instead, it hung, spinning lazily mid-fall, and the world around them stilled. The music box’s song cut off. The mirrors froze. Even the wind held its breath.

  Lyria’s voice was barely a whisper. "Every choice is a door."

  The coin’s face changed—Sorin’s aged features melting like wax, reforming into Nyx’s own face, but older, wearier. The reverse side no longer showed a broken crown, but a keyhole.

  A door appeared where the wall of mirrors had been. Not grand or imposing, but ordinary—weathered wood, a tarnished knob. The kind of door you might pass every day without noticing.

  Lyria reached for the handle.

  Nyx caught her wrist. "We don’t know what’s on the other side."

  Lyria looked at them, her eyes ancient in her child’s face. "We never do."

  The door creaked open.

  Beyond it lay Blackspire, but not as Nyx remembered. The ruins were whole, the streets alive with revelers in gilded masks. At the city’s heart, a tower of black stone pulsed with golden light—a crown-shaped beacon at its peak.

  And standing at the base of the tower, staring directly at them, was Sorin.

  Not the boy they knew. Not the aged king from the coin.

  This version was something in between—his scars glowing faintly, his expression caught between recognition and horror.

  "You’re early," he said.

  Then the vision shattered.

  Nyx and Lyria stumbled back into the present-day market, now eerily quiet. The music box was gone. The door was gone.

  Only the coin remained, lying innocently on the cobblestones. Nyx picked it up. The face was blank now, the metal unnaturally warm.

  Lyria exhaled shakily. "The market’s done with us."

  Nyx pocketed the coin, their fingers trembling. "What the hell was that?"

  Lyria didn’t answer. She was staring at Nyx’s chest—where, for the briefest moment, the reflection in the puddle at their feet showed a key hanging from Nyx’s neck, one they didn’t yet possess.