Every seven years, in a city that doesn’t appear on any map, a market opens at midnight in a district called Mirror’s End.
The stalls sell peculiar things:
- Spoons that remember the taste of every meal they’ve stirred.
- Coins that grow heavier with the weight of regrets.
- Fingers of shadow, neatly bottled for those who’ve lost their own.
But the real reason people come is for the whispers.
You see, the vendors don’t speak. They tilt their heads, and from their parted lips drift other people’s voices—words they’ve swallowed over the years. Secrets. Confessions. Last breaths.
Veyra is a voice-thief. She hunts for the whisper that will undo her curse.
Years ago, she made the mistake of buying a jar of laughter from the market. It was warm and bright, and when she pressed it to her ear, she recognized it instantly—her mother’s, lost to illness years before. She drank it without thinking.
Now, her own voice is gone. Every word she speaks is in her mother’s tone.
The Rules of the Market
- No refunds.
- No guarantees that what you buy is what you think it is.
- If you stay past dawn, you become a vendor.
Veyra has attended three markets. She has until this one to find her voice again.
The Boy with No Reflection
She notices him immediately—a boy haggling with the vendor of echoes, offering his own shadow in trade.
He has no reflection. Not in glass, not in water, not in the eyes of those who look at him.
When he turns to her, his mouth moves, but the voice that comes out is hers—her real one.
"I think I have something of yours," he says.
The Truth About the Market
The boy isn’t a customer.
He’s the market’s first vendor.
Centuries ago, he made the same mistake Veyra did—he bought back a lost voice. But the voice he took was that of the market itself, and it hollowed him out in return.
Now, he lingers between stalls, collecting the things people leave behind: shadows, memories, reflections.
And Veyra’s voice?
It’s not in a jar.
It’s in the hush between heartbeats, the pause before a sob.
The Choice
The boy offers her a deal:
"Take it back," he says. "But you’ll have to give me something else in return."
He doesn’t want her shadow.
He wants the sound of her mother’s voice—the one still trapped in her throat.
If she agrees, she’ll be free.
But she’ll forget her mother’s laugh forever.