The dark tent waited for me, silent, breathing, as if it had been expecting every step I took. I couldn't stop looking at it, couldn't stop feeling the pull coming from the air itself.
Elijah stayed close, hand gripping mine, but his fingers trembled. His golden eyes flicked to mine, sharp, anxious, warning me, and I wondered if he had ever been this afraid before.
"Olivia," he whispered, low and urgent, "the Market doesn't let people leave the way they came."
I wanted to step back, to run, to find a normal road under the trees, but my feet didn't listen. Something inside me, buried, insistent, pushed me forward.
The closer I got, the colder it felt, not a biting cold, but a pressing cold, heavy in my chest, making my lungs ache. Shapes shifted behind the curtain, half-seen, moving deliberately, like dancers waiting for music only they could hear.
Elijah's grip tightened,
"don't," he said, voice breaking. Fear had found him, and it was terrifying to see. "I have to," I said, voice shaking, "I need to know."
The curtain shivered as I touched it. The shadows inside bent and moved, stretching into forms I almost recognized, flickers of memories I didn't want. Whispers curled around my ears, familiar yet wrong, wrapping tightly around my mind. "You cannot hide from me," the voice said again, low, soft, sharp.
I stepped fully inside, the air pressed around me, heavy, damp. Lanterns floated just above the ground, flickering over shapes that moved, stretcheband whispered. Fragments of memory surfaced, things I didn't know I'd forgotten, things I had tried to bury.
Elijah's hand stayed on mine., "hold on to yourself," he said, "whatever you see, don't let it take you."
I nodded, though I wasn't sure I could, shadows and whispers rose, promises broken, fears I hadn't faced, truths I didn't know I'd buried.
And then, a shape stepped forward, human, yet wrong, familiar, yet impossible. My breath, my stomach knotted. I knew that face, knew that presence, and felt something inside me break and shift at the same time.
"You came back," the voice said, patient and knowing, like it had been waiting for me all along.
I didn't answer, I couldn't.
The Night Market was alive, and it was hungry.