There are rules to collecting. Unspoken, sacred things.
Rule one: If it sings to your soul, it must be yours.
Rule two: Once seen, it cannot be unseen.
Rule three: A true collector never walks away from something worth remembering.
Lavender had never been one for rules-except her own.
And Vashir, trailing behind her with furrowed brows and quiet dread, was learning that the hard way.
They had barely returned to their rented rooms in the upper quarter of Kael'Tun before Lavender marched straight to her tools - fingers dancing across silver, glass, and glittering coils of wire and arcane things that blinked like mischievous fireflies.
"Lavender," Vashir said, low and rumbling, "I know that look."
She didn't look up. "Then you know not to interrupt."
He crossed his arms, tail flicking behind him. "This is not the same as hunting cursed trinkets or buying bottled laughter from a wandering merchant. This is a slave market. These people are dangerous."
She turned sharply.
"And so am I."
There was no softness in her then. Only fire wrapped in silk. The Collector unmasked.
"You asked me once why collectors are called mad," she said, voice low as thunder beneath satin. "It's because we don't see the world in borders or rules. We see it in want. In need. In the pull of something meant to be ours."
"And what is it you need from that market?" Vashir challenged.
She smiled. Not kindly.
"Everything they've stolen."
---
Later that night, Lavender slipped through Kael'Tun's shadows like moonlight on velvet. Her hair was tied up, her dress replaced with soft boots and a storm-gray cloak stitched with protective runes of her own design. One hand held the Mad Collector's Ring - now shaped into a curved dagger that shimmered violet like a serpent's fang.
Vashir, of course, was beside her.
"You shouldn't help me," she whispered.
"I know," he sighed. "But here I am."
The gates of the Slave Market loomed ahead, closed tight for the night. But Lavender had never been fond of closed things. Boxes, hearts, kingdoms - all were meant to be opened.
She pressed a finger to a sigil drawn on the gate's hinge. It flared, sputtered, and then-clicked.
Inside, the cages waited. So did the golden-eyed beastman, standing as though he hadn't moved in hours. When he saw her, his ears twitched in disbelief.
"You returned," he murmured.
"I told you," she said, stepping closer, "I don't collect things to leave them behind."
She reached into her coat, pulled out a handful of shimmering dust - her own concoction, a blend of sleep blossom and sparkling silver from a collapsed star - and blew it through the air. It swirled like fog, curling around each cage, each guard.
Moments later, the market slept.
And Lavender got to work.
She moved from lock to lock, her fingers nimble, her tools quick. The golden-eyed prince watched her with growing wonder, and perhaps... reverence.
By the time the last cage swung open, the sky had begun to shift - bruised purple and orange with dawn. The freed beastmen stood silent, dazed, unsure if they were dreaming.
Lavender turned to them.
"You're not mine," she said softly. "You're your own. But if you ever wish to stand beside me, not as a prize, but as a choice - I will remember you."
The golden-eyed prince stepped forward. His voice was gravel and poetry.
"I would like to know your name."
She smiled. "Lavender. The Mad Collector."
Behind her, Vashir said nothing. But he watched her with new eyes - not as a stranger in his world, but a force of it. A wild wind wearing lavender silk.
And he knew then what she had known all along:
When a Collector finds something worth wanting...
Nothing - not laws, not kings, not the chains of empire - could keep her from it.