Chapter 5 · The Market of Borrowed Dreams

The mountain pass ended at a market that could not have existed between two cliffs. Its stalls climbed the slopes in bright terraces, sheltered by striped awnings that fluttered without wind. Merchants sold bottled memories, clockwork birds, maps to places that had been erased, and small velvet boxes containing other people's dreams.

Mira kept one hand on the key and the other near Rowan's sleeve. The wolf, now little larger than a fox, vanished beneath the crowd whenever strangers came too close. Every person in the market wore a mask. Some were carved from wood, some from porcelain, and one merchant wore the face of a sleeping child.

“Do not accept food,” Rowan warned.

“You should have said that before the woman with the sugar plums offered me one.”

“Did you eat it?”

“No.”

“Then we can still leave with your memories intact.”

They needed a guide to the Starfall Archive, and the only guide willing to speak was a girl named Nessa who had a silver key sewn into her coat. She claimed to know every pass through the mountain, but demanded a memory as payment. Rowan refused. Mira remembered the red apple and asked what kind of memory.

“One you can survive without,” Nessa said. “Not one you wish to lose.”

Mira chose the memory of her first day at the bakery. She had been six, standing on a stool while Aunt Sella guided her hands through a bowl of dough. The memory held warmth, flour, and a song whose final note had always escaped her. When Nessa touched Mira's forehead, the moment lifted out like a thread of sunlight.

Mira swayed. She still knew the day had happened, but its colors were gone. Aunt Sella's face became a fact instead of a feeling.

Rowan's anger filled the narrow space between them. “You said it would be painless.”

“It was painless,” Nessa replied. “That does not make it kind.”

They followed her through the market. At a stall filled with black mirrors, Rowan stopped. One mirror reflected him as a boy with a crown of ash on his head. The boy stood beside a woman who looked like Mira's mother. Their hands were joined over a burning city.

Mira touched Rowan's shoulder. The reflection changed. The woman reached toward the glass.

“Who is she?”

“My sister.”

“You said you wanted my mother alive.”

“I want many people alive.”

He pulled away, and the mirror went dark. Nessa watched them with an expression that was too knowing for her young face.

At the upper terrace, the market ended at a gate made of braided silver. Green light shone through its bars. A masked guard demanded their names. Rowan gave the name he used now. Mira gave hers. The gate remained closed.

Nessa whispered that the market recognized debts, not names. Mira held up the iron key. The guard bowed, but it asked for a second price: the secret she kept from herself.

Mira's breath caught. She had one secret, buried beneath years of ordinary explanations. Sometimes, when she dreamed of her mother's death, she did not see a broken carriage. She saw her mother choosing to walk away.

Mira spoke the secret aloud.

The silver gate opened. Behind it waited a stairway cut into the mountain, descending toward a blue glow. Rowan started down, but Mira held him back.

“Your turn,” she said. “What is your true name?”

His silence was answer enough. Then he leaned close, so close she felt the cold of his breath.

“If I tell you, the Court will hear it.”

Mira looked toward the descending stairs. “Then I will make sure it hears me first.”

For the first time, Rowan smiled. It was brief and unwilling, but it warmed the mountain more than any lantern.