They found the stall exactly where it shouldn't have been.
Past a tent selling hats that could translate regret into various languages, tucked behind a shifting curtain of monsoon umbrellas, the Inkwell Prophet's booth squatted like a forgotten thought. The tent was stitched from ink-stained vellum, and dripped with runes that wept illegible tears.
"I already hate this," muttered Rue, shaking out her sleeves as if invisible rain clung to her.
Ashwen stood stiff, gaze pinned forward, jaw locked tight. Ilyan... he was quieter than usual. Something about the place gnawed at him. The Bazaar of Forgetting tugged at loose threads in people. His were already frayed.
A single lamp swung above the booth, casting the Prophet in an endless twilight. He was a creature stitched together from spilled words, puddles of phrases pooling at his feet. His face changed constantly: now an old man, now a laughing boy, now a weeping woman.
"State your business," gurgled a mouthful of letters.
"We're here for a memory-lantern," said Ashwen.
"The one sold by Pilgrim Jax," added Rue, pulling herself together.
"Lanterns burn," sighed the Prophet. "They burn, they whisper, they tell you what you already regret."
"We're not here to remember," said Ilyan. "Just to take it."
"Everything taken demands a toll," the Prophet croaked, swirling into the shape of a librarian who had lost every book but one. "Are you prepared to pay?"
Monsieur Loup elbowed Ilyan with a theatrical cough. "I vote we send le pick-me girl."
"She's not mine," Ilyan hissed under his breath.
Rue ignored them, stepping forward. "Name your price."
The Prophet smiled, or tried to. His mouth became a cracked inkwell. "For memory, you must give... a moment you have not yet lived."
Silence shivered between them. Even Groat, tucked inside Rue's pocket, clamped his tiny mouth shut.
"How does that even work?" Ashwen finally asked.
The Prophet's shifting form leaned close. "You will lose a future hour. One hour where something wonderful could have happened... or something terrible could have been avoided."
Rue bit her lip. "We don't have a choice."
Ilyan stepped forward. "I'll pay."
Ashwen grabbed his arm instinctively, but Ilyan shook his head with a soft smile. "I already owe too much to the future. What's one more debt?"
The Prophet's body unraveled into a cloud of ink as he accepted. A lantern was birthed from the mist, bobbing into Ilyan's hands. It was a simple thing: brass, battered, with a single guttering flame inside.
The flame twisted. It whispered a name. Ilyan's.
He held it carefully, as if it could slip into the cracks of reality.
"What now?" Rue asked.
"Now," said Groat from her pocket, "we find a witness who can actually talk without vomiting metaphors."
They turned to leave—
"WAIT!"
The Prophet's voice had changed: no longer a drizzle, but a thunderclap. He pointed a dripping finger at Ilyan.
"Beware," he said, and for a moment, the bazaar's colors dimmed. "Your memory will not go quietly."
Ilyan looked down at the lantern.
He didn't notice how faint his reflection had become.