Atlas didn't hesitate, scooping a massive clawful into his mouth. He chewed, considered, then gave a slow, approving nod. "Not bad."
The old woman behind the food stall—the same one who'd been shaking her rug earlier—cackled at the insult, revealing a gap-toothed smile. "Kitten, he says! Boy, I've got shawls older than you, and they've scratched more backs."
Galit's neck coiled into an elaborate knot that might have been amusement or irritation. "He thinks 'not bad' is a compliment. Last week he told me my tactical diagram was an 'acceptable smiley face.'"
"Because it was." Atlas reached for another handful of the toasted quinoa, ignoring the woman's half-hearted swat at his paw. "I don't inflate praise. It's wasteful."
Bō-Zak watched this exchange with the delighted expression of a man who had just discovered a new species of wildlife and found it exceeded all expectations. He leaned against a stone wall, pipe sending lazy spirals into the mist, and let the chaos unfold around him.
The street before them had transformed over the last few hours while he'd been hiding on the dock. Willka-Marka's main thoroughfare, which usually served as a sleepy market where fishermen's wives traded salt for potatoes and old men argued about the best mending techniques for nets, had erupted into something else entirely.
Streamers of deep red and gold hung from every available surface, strung between buildings and across the street in swooping arcs that caught the weak light filtering through the mist. Paper lanterns in the shapes of condors, pumas, and serpents dangled from doorways, their painted eyes watching the passersby with ancient knowing. The scents of roasting corn, sizzling meat, and something sweet and fermented that made Eliane's nose twitch violently filled the air.
Everywhere, people hurried with purpose. Women carried baskets of flowers—marigolds and something with trumpet-shaped blossoms in deep purple—scattering petals across the stone path. Men hauled wooden beams and bundles of fabric, constructing what looked like stages or viewing platforms at intervals along the street. Children darted between legs, trailing streamers and laughter, their small hands sticky with something that left bright yellow smudges on everything they touched.
Vesta spun in a slow circle, her rainbow hair catching the lantern light and scattering it like a prism. Mikasi hummed against her back, the living instrument picking up on her excitement and vibrating with a low, melodic thrum that harmonized with the distant sound of pan-pipes drifting down from the cliffs above.
"You're having a party?" She bounced on her heels, nearly colliding with a man carrying a stack of wooden masks carved into fierce animal faces. She apologized without looking at him, her violet eyes fixed on Bō-Zak with the intensity of a sunbeam through a magnifying glass. "I love parties! Like, this is amazing! The colors, the decorations, the energy—" She grabbed his arm, and Bō-Zak felt the warmth of her grip through his sleeve, the genuine, unfiltered enthusiasm radiating off her like heat from a cooking fire. "Do you need help with the entertainment?"
She patted Mikasi's case with her free hand. "Because I can be your main attraction! I do originals, covers, ballads, up-tempo—I learned this really cool piece from a Sky Island musician who could play two flutes at once using his nose, and I've been working on an arrangement that—"
Bō-Zak found himself smiling. Not the smirk, not the cynical twist of lips he used to keep the world at arm's length. A real smile, surprised out of him by this whirlwind of color and sound and absolute, unfiltered joy.
"Well now," he said, and his voice dropped into that particular register that had made more than a few barmaids in more than a few ports forget their own names. "That's quite an offer. Main attraction's a big job. Lot of pressure. You think you can handle a crowd that's been drinking chicha since sunrise?"
Vesta beamed. "I was born to handle crowds!"
"I don't doubt it." He let his gaze linger on her face just a moment longer than necessary, watching the way her eyes sparkled with every new sight, every fresh sound. "The festival's called Paqarit-Mist—the Dance of the Three Realms. Happens every thirty-three years, when the mist thins enough to see the stars. Three days of eating, drinking, music, dancing..." He gestured with his pipe toward the cliffs above, where the faint sound of drums had begun to pulse like a giant's heartbeat. "The monks do their rituals up at the temple. The rest of us do our rituals down here."
"You're not part of the monk rituals?" Vesta tilted her head, genuinely curious. "I thought you said you used to be a monk?"
"Used to be is the key phrase there, love." He took a long pull from his gourd. "These days I'm more of a... interested observer. From a distance. With a lot of chicha between me and the altar."
Vesta laughed, and the sound carried—bright and genuine, cutting through the market noise like a bell. "I know how that is! My grandparents are very involved in the Daedalan government, and every time there's a ceremony, they want me to stand in the front row in this awful formal robe that makes me look like a disappointed celery. I always find a way to be 'helping with the music' instead." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Works every time."
Bō-Zak's eyebrows rose. "A disappointed celery?"
"It's the color. This pale greenish-yellow that does nothing for my complexion. And the hat—" She mimed something tall and drooping. "I looked like a vegetable that had given up on life."
He laughed—actually laughed, a genuine bark of amusement that startled a passing chicken and made Jelly look up from the basket he'd been investigating.
"That's—"
"Ahem!"
The sound cut through the moment like a rusty blade through butter.
Charlie materialized at Bō-Zak's elbow, pith helmet gleaming, wire-rimmed glasses fogged from the humidity and his own excitement. His notebook was open, his pencil poised, and his expression held the particular intensity of a man who had just made a discovery and would not be silenced.
"Ahem! I couldn't help but notice the architectural peculiarities of this settlement. The stonework—" He gestured emphatically at the nearest wall, a meticulously fitted structure of polygonal blocks that fit together without mortar. "This style of masonry! The precise fitting, the trapezoidal niches, the slight inward batter of the walls—these are diagnostic features of the height of stone-working tradition! But the chronometric implications—"
Bō-Zak blinked at him.
Charlie took a breath and kept going. "You see, standard archaeological chronology places the height of this style in the ancient century, but your island's isolation—if you'll pardon the presumption—suggests a much earlier development trajectory. Possibly even pre-void! Perhaps—"
"Charlie." Bō-Zak's voice was gentle. Dangerously gentle.
"—and the orientation of this wall relative to the solstice sunrise would imply an astronomical observation function, which would correlate with the ceremonial calendar of—"
"Charlie."
The scholar stopped, pencil hovering. "Yes?"
"That's... fascinating." Bō-Zak's eye twitched almost imperceptibly. "Really. Top-notch observation. But maybe—and I'm just spit-balling here—maybe we save the architectural dissertation for when we're not in the middle of a street full of people trying to set up a festival?"
Charlie looked around as if noticing the chaos for the first time. "Oh. Yes. Of course. Ahem. I simply thought—"
"You thought, and that's admirable." Bō-Zak clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make the man's teeth click together. "Catalog later. Party now."
He turned back to Vesta, ready to pick up the thread of conversation, but she had already been claimed by a new distraction.
A food stall had caught Eliane's attention—a massive clay oven shaped like a puma's head, its mouth open to reveal glowing coals and rows of corn cakes baking on flat stones. The smell was intoxicating: maize and something smoky, a hint of chili and another note she couldn't identify, floral and sweet.
"What is that?" Eliane was already at the front of the stall, standing on tiptoes to see inside the oven. Her chef's jacket was smudged with something that might have been flour or might have been dust from the journey—it was hard to tell with Eliane. "Is that huatia? Like, earth-oven cooking? But the heat distribution would be completely different with that clay composition—"
The woman tending the oven—broad-shouldered, with braids wrapped around her head like a crown and a face that had seen sixty harvests—looked down at the small chef with an expression of profound amusement.
"You know huatia?"
"I've read about it! My grandmother has this book—well, it's more of a collection of recipes passed down through the culinary guild, but there's a whole section on cooking techniques, and the diagrams of earth-oven construction were fascinating, but I've never actually seen one in person, and—" Eliane caught herself, took a breath. "Can I try one? Please? I'll pay, I have—" She patted her pockets, found a few unfamiliar coins, and held them out hopefully.
The woman's laugh was like stones rattling in a wooden bucket. "Put your money away, child. First taste is free for anyone who recognizes the old ways." She reached into the oven with a long wooden paddle and produced a golden-brown corn cake, crisp on the outside and steaming in the cool air. "Here. Careful—hotter than it looks."
Eliane took it with both hands, blew on it twice, and bit in. Her eyes went wide.
"Oh."
Just that. Just oh.
Bianca looked up from where she'd been examining a loom set up outside a weaver's shop. "Like, good oh or bad oh?"
Eliane chewed, swallowed, and made a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a hymn. "The corn is toasted before grinding—see that nutty depth? And there's something in the fat—llama? No, maybe—" She took another bite, eyes closed in concentration. "Añapa. Wild herbs from the high slopes. My grandmother uses something similar in her potato bread, but this is—" She opened her eyes. "I need this recipe."
The woman cackled again. "Everyone needs this recipe. No one gets this recipe. Family secret, four hundred years."
"Four hundred years?" Eliane's voice went high with reverence. "That's four generations of refinement. The adjustments to cooking times alone—the variables in temperature, humidity, fuel —" She looked at the corn cake with new eyes. "This isn't food. This is history."
Jelly had, in the chaos, found an unguarded basket of what appeared to be small, fried dough balls dusted with powdered sugar. He was attempting to "befriend" them by gently patting each one and murmuring, "Hello, little bloop. Hello, little bloop. You look delicious and also friendly. Are you friendly? I think you're friendly."
Jannali looked up from where she'd been examining a stall selling woven textiles—her hand still absently scratching at her forehead, the itch refusing to fade—and froze.
"Jelly." Her voice was low, warning. "Jelly, mate, what are you doin'?"
"Making friends!" Jelly held up a dough ball that was now slightly squished. "They're very round and very patient listeners. Better than the crabs. The crabs just pinched and ran away."
"Those are food, Jelly. Street food. For eating."
Jelly's starry eyes went impossibly wide. "Eating? But they're so happy! Look at their little sugar faces!" He held up another one, which had definitely lost its structural integrity. "You can't eat happiness!"
"The woman who made 'em would beg to differ." Jannali was already moving, her long strides eating up the distance. "Put 'em back, you gelatinous menace."
"But they like me!"
"They don't like you! They're inanimate!"
Jelly gasped, pressing a dough ball to his chest. "You take that back! Bloop and Berry are my friends!"
Jannali reached him, grabbed his wrist—or where his wrist would be if his anatomy followed normal rules—and gently but firmly extracted the squashed dough balls from his grip. "Bloop and Berry, is it? You named 'em?"
"Of course! Bloop is the round one, and Berry is the slightly less round one, and there was going to be a third one named Squidge but I hadn't found them yet."
Jannali looked at the basket, now missing approximately six dough balls. She looked at Jelly's earnest, hopeful face. She looked at the vendor, who had turned around from helping another customer and was staring at the scene with an expression of bewilderment.
"Right." Jannali dug into her pocket, pulled out a handful of coins, and pressed them into the vendor's hand. "For the... missing friends. Sorry about him. He's got a condition."
The vendor looked at the coins, looked at Jelly, and slowly shook his head. "First time I've had to charge for someone adopting the merchandise."
Jelly beamed. "I adopt them! They're mine now! Bloop and Berry and—" He looked at the basket hopefully. "Can I have Squidge too? Pleeeeease?"
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