She left the market with a paper lantern clutched under her arm, as if light could be carried in her hands and used later like a map. The locket pulsed faintly against her palm, as if recognizing its path.

"Saira?" Riya tried the name aloud. It felt foreign on her tongue, like an artifact from another era.

Would you like Part 2?

He spoke of a vanished engineer who designed untraceable payment ledgers, of a woman who could dissolve into a crowd and resurface with someone else's life. He hinted that the locket belonged to a woman named Saira — "a haseena," he said, with an odd softness. "Not the kind that just enchants. The kind that changes everything."

She had once believed in straightforward things: a steady job, a loyal friend, a predictably arranged future. Those plans blurred the night she found the silver locket tucked inside a library book, its clasp worn smooth by hands that had held it for decades. Inside lay a scrap of paper with a single line in a handwriting that trembled with urgency: "Find him at the lantern market if the moon is whole."

Saira's eyes were patient, holding a history Riya couldn't claim. "There are debts," Saira said quietly, "that don't accept apologies. Only balances."

"Part 1 ends when choices are irrevocable," Saira said, and the group laughed, not unkindly. "Welcome, Riya. You have light. Use it wisely."

Riya stepped forward, the lantern's glow outlining a face that had been ordinary until this moment. Somewhere, a compass needle settled. Somewhere, a chain had begun to pull.