Lanterns didn't light up so much as remember they had once been aflame. Doors didn't open; they sighed.
Ilyan rubbed his eyes. "Is the moon… sideways?"
Ashwen squinted upward. "Either that or I am."
Behind them, Monsieur Loup let out a soft whistle. "Ah, Valeight. Where logic goes to take its own life."
He said this while chewing on a candied starfruit, the kind that whistled back if you bit too loud.
Ilyan still carried the relic wrapped in rune-threaded cloth. Ever since they'd entered Valeight, it had stopped humming and started... vibrating. As if amused.
"Is it laughing?" he whispered to Groat.
The coin glinted. "This city affects relics. They attune to local metaphysical temperatures, which here are approximately... absurd."
A silence, then Groat added: "Also, yes. That relic is probably having the time of its miserable, cursed life."
They followed crooked signs toward the Lattice Bazaar, a place known more for what it refused to sell than what it offered. Its alleys shifted with intention. One didn't walk through the Bazaar — one bargained with its patience.
"Please don't get distracted," Ashwen said, casting a sharp glance at Loup.
He raised his hands. "Moi? Never!"
Two minutes later, he was arm-wrestling a mirror for the right to his own reflection.
That was when she appeared.
A young woman leaned against a stall made of stitched umbrellas. Her outfit was outrageously pink and unnecessarily fluffy, her boots sequined to a degree that made Ashwen's left eye twitch.
"Wow. You guys are, like, so brave," the girl said, twirling a lock of hair. "Ilyan, right? I heard about you. All that dying and questing and brooding. So tragic. So hot."
Ilyan blinked. "Sorry, do I… know you?"
She smiled like a hungry cat. "I'm Rue. I hunt echo-foxes with poetry and collect cursed accessories. We're basically destined."
Ashwen groaned. "Oh gods, she's a walking scrapbook of red flags."
"I'm just saying," Rue pouted, stepping close to Ilyan, "if the universe wanted us to meet, why fight it? Fate, you know?"
Monsieur Loup returned, holding a stolen smile in his pocket.
"Enchantée, Mademoiselle Catastrophe," he said, offering Rue a bow that somehow insulted no one and everyone at once.
Groat's voice hissed from Ilyan's pocket. "She is not on any Ministry registry. Dangerous. Or worse — unlicensed."
"Rude," Rue muttered, sticking her tongue out. "But okay, fine. I can be helpful. I know where the Memory Spindle is."
That caught their attention.
"You know where?" Ashwen asked, wary.
"It's below the old opera house," Rue said sweetly. "But you'll need someone who knows the song to get in."
"And let me guess," Ilyan said. "You sing?"
She fluttered her lashes. "Only when I want something."
Groat made a sound suspiciously like a sigh.
Ashwen crossed her arms. "We don't even know if we can trust you."
Rue tilted her head. "Do you have to trust me? Or do you just want to?"
They had no time to argue. Valeight's air was growing heavier, the kind of heaviness that hinted the city had just remembered something inconvenient. A truth perhaps, or a debt.
"I hate this city," Ilyan muttered.
"Don't worry," Loup said, adjusting his ridiculous jester hat. "It hates you back."
They moved together now, an awkward cluster of trauma, sass, and unresolved tension. Through the shifting market, past floating violinists and walls that blinked.
At the edge of the Bazaar, they found it: the opera house, long abandoned, still echoing with applause that no one had given.
Rue stood before its crumbling steps, took a breath, and sang.
It was... bad.
Off-key, unrepentant, and melodramatic.
But the doors creaked open anyway.
"Wait," Ilyan said. "That was the song?"
"I never said it was good," Rue said brightly. "Just that it worked."
They stepped into velvet-scented darkness. Inside, the opera house pulsed with forgotten sorrow and misplaced drama. Chandeliers floated without purpose. Balconies argued with themselves.
The Memory Spindle was here. They could feel it. A tug at their bones. A whisper in their blood.
Groat's voice returned, solemn this time. "What you ask of the Spindle will cost. It never returns information freely. It demands... vulnerability."
Ilyan sighed. "Of course it does."
Ashwen glanced at Rue. "You better be more than glitter and flattery."
Rue grinned. "Darling, I'm made of secrets. Just watch."
They descended toward the stage — toward the truth wrapped in song, loss, and magic sharp enough to bleed stars
The descent into the under-opera was not linear. The stairs looped, reversed, danced sideways, and on one occasion demanded a toll in the form of a compliment.
Monsieur Loup gave it one, naturally.
"You are the most emotionally stable staircase I've ever met."
The stairs allowed them through.
Ashwen was holding it together through sheer force of will. "If I start screaming, I need you all to pretend it's part of a spell."
"I'll scream with you," Ilyan said.
"Me too," Rue chimed in, already halfway into a pirouette she clearly expected applause for.
The deeper they went, the more real things became. But real in a Valeight sense — which meant occasionally touching the fourth wall and then apologizing for it.
Groat, silent for the last few minutes, finally muttered, "We're near. The Memory Spindle operates on thematic resonance. Try to be emotionally consistent."
Rue threw up both hands. "So no lying? That's literally most of my personality."
Ashwen muttered something unprintable.
The chamber opened like a sigh. Or maybe a yawn from a god that had once cared about theatre. The stage was circular, cracked, and overgrown with starlight-vines. In its center stood the Memory Spindle — not a wheel, as expected, but a tall, twisting monolith of bone-white thread that shimmered like glass in moonwater.
It pulsed once. A tone rang out.
Rue flinched. "It sees us."
"I hate being seen," Loup whispered. "So naked."
"You're wearing twelve scarves," Ashwen snapped.
"Yes. Naked."
The Spindle spoke—not with voice, but presence. A low thrum that pressed into their minds, forming impressions rather than sound. Questions bloomed:
Who are you? What have you forgotten? What do you fear remembering?
Ilyan took a breath and stepped forward. "We seek knowledge. How to wield the relic of Threaded Law. We're on a Ministry quest. And I… I need to know who I was before I died."
The Spindle didn't move, but the room trembled slightly.
Then came a flood.
A cascade of visions, feelings, fragments that slammed into Ilyan's chest like a storm.
A battlefield of paper and ink. A woman's voice, laughing and sobbing at once. A hand reaching out. Fire. Water. A blade made of vows. A face — his own, but younger — shouting something he couldn't hear over the roar of unraveling time.
And then... silence.
He collapsed to his knees.
Ashwen caught him, her face unreadable.
Groat's voice hummed anxiously. "The Spindle's giving you a resonance imprint. It's rewriting part of your latent class permissions... This is what we came for. But your mind might not hold."
Rue clapped. "Yay, trauma!"
Ashwen snapped. "Not now, Barbie."
Rue pouted. "Sorry. Coping mechanism."
Monsieur Loup walked a lazy circle around the spindle, tapping his chin. "Ah, yes. Magnificent. Mysterious. Makes you regret your own name. Very Valeight."
The Spindle pulsed again.
This time, it turned to Rue.
She straightened. "Oh, it's my turn? I don't really do soul-searching unless I have an audience…"
The thrum deepened. Rue twitched slightly, then stilled.
A different look passed over her face — something older, colder. She stepped forward slowly, almost reverently.
Then, as if remembering where she was, she forced a bright smile. "Whew! That was... super educational. Definitely didn't almost sob uncontrollably. We good? Let's bounce?"
Ashwen stared at her. "What did it show you?"
Rue tossed her hair. "Just a few reruns. Ancient history."
They didn't push.
Loup was staring at a floating stage light. "I think it's watching me."
"Everything watches you," Ashwen muttered. "You never shut up."
"Touché."
Ilyan finally stood, bracing himself. His voice was raspy.
"I think I know what we have to do next."
Groat buzzed. "The relic's usage has now been partially unlocked. You'll need to test it to finalize its imprint. Preferably somewhere non-explosive."
Rue perked up. "Oh, I know just the place."
Ashwen eyed her suspiciously. "You would."
"The Moonbridge Gardens," Rue said, smiling in that not-quite-right way. "They're peaceful. Mostly. Also cursed. But you'll love it."
"Define 'mostly,'" Ilyan groaned.
"Define 'love,'" Rue countered.
They left the opera house as it sighed again — not with relief, but expectation. Somewhere behind them, the Spindle continued its quiet weaving, wrapping fate and memory into shapes no one could name.
As they stepped back into Valeight's crooked light, Rue looped her arm around Ilyan's, ignoring Ashwen's glare.
"You're all so broody. It's adorable. I can fix you."
Monsieur Loup chuckled. "Ah, mademoiselle… many have tried."
Ilyan muttered under his breath. "And they all died trying."
Groat made a tsk sound. "At this point, I'd recommend group therapy. Possibly exorcism."
Rue smiled sweetly. "If I die, I want to be dramatic about it. Like, fall off a balcony yelling something iconic."
"I'll push you myself," Ashwen offered.
The group headed east toward the Gardens, their silhouettes long and strange under Valeight's warped moons.
Somewhere behind them, the city rearranged itself. Again.