The staging area looked nothing like the sleek corridors we'd passed through before. Instead, we stood at the edge of a forest, salt air thick and damp clinging to my skin, where hot sand met cool pine needles under a half-moon. The transition was seamless—one moment we were walking through a grey tunnel, the next we were here, and the city of Hinaro felt like a dream I'd once had.

"This is new," Lira breathed beside me, her voice tight. She was already scanning the treeline, cataloging escape routes that didn't exist yet.

Titus stood with his arms crossed, measuring the space with his eyes. "Feels different. The previous arenas were constructed. This is—"

"Real." Kiran adjusted his glasses, a nervous habit I'd come to recognize. "The humidity, the temperature gradient, the biological markers in the air. This is a genuine coastal ecosystem, transported or simulated at a fidelity I can't distinguish."

Al's hand tightened around mine. I felt the bond pulse between us—not words, not images, just a current of alertness. Something's wrong, it said. Something's different.

I squeezed back. "At least we're together."

"Team Seven," a voice announced, and we all turned. A screen had materialized between two pine trees, its surface shimmering like water caught in moonlight. Nogitsune's face appeared, that amber-eyed smile that never reached anywhere real. "Congratulations on your victory in the Fractured Atrium. You've earned a brief respite, but the tournament waits for no one."

"Where's the rest of the team?" I asked. "Our other members?"

"The match is designed for your bonded pair as per your Exception Clause. The others will observe." Nogitsune's smile widened. "Unless, of course, you fail. Then they will be reassigned."

I felt the words land like stones in my chest. Beside me, Al went still.

"The next match," Nogitsune continued, "is called the Memory Market. It is not a trial of strength, speed, or combat. It is a trial of choice."

The screen shifted, displaying an image: a marketplace, cobblestone streets lined with stalls, each stall tended by a shadowy figure. Strings of lanterns hung overhead, casting everything in warm amber light. It looked almost inviting. Almost.

"Each of you will receive ten tokens at the start. To advance, you must purchase necessities: food, weapons, information, shelter. The market will open new stalls as the match progresses. The last pair standing—or the pair with the most tokens at the end of three days—wins."

"That sounds straightforward," Lira said, but her voice had an edge. "What's the catch?"

Nogitsune's eyes gleamed. "The currency is memories."

The words hung in the salted air. I felt the world tilt, just slightly, like standing on a boat that had suddenly listed.

"Not fake ones," Nogitsune said, his voice dropping to something almost gentle, almost kind. "Real ones. The Game removes them permanently. Once a memory is spent, it is gone. You will not recall it. You will not feel its absence until you reach for it and find nothing but air."

I thought of the aquamarine pendant cool against my collarbone. Of Shiro's hands as he'd clasped it around my neck. Of his grin, his cocky confidence, the way he'd said Aquamarine brings serenity and courage.

"Examples," Nogitsune said, and the screen showed numbers. "One token: your first birthday. The cake, the candles, the warmth of your mother's hands. Ten tokens: the memory of a parent. Their face, their voice, the way they used to call your name. Fifty tokens: the memory of a loved one. Every moment you ever shared, erased as if it never happened."

I felt Al's hand go cold in mine. Or maybe that was my own hand going cold. I couldn't tell anymore.

"You will want to buy things," Nogitsune said. "The market is designed to make you want. Food when you are starving. Weapons when you are afraid. Information when you are lost. Shelter when you are exposed. And the more you buy, the more you forget. By the end, contestants are winning while forgetting why they entered."

The screen flickered, and I saw a face—a woman, her eyes empty, clutching a bundle of tokens. She was smiling. She didn't know why.

My stomach turned.

"What happens if we don't spend any?" Al asked. His voice was flat, controlled, but I felt the tremor through the bond. "If we just survive on what we have?"

"You starve," Nogitsune said simply. "Or you freeze. Or you are killed by other contestants who have purchased weapons and decided that your tokens are easier to take than trade for." He tilted his head. "The market does not force you to spend. The arena itself does. Hunger is patient. Cold is patient. Fear is patient."

"This is monstrous," I whispered. The words escaped before I could stop them.

Nogitsune's smile didn't flicker. "This is the tournament, Nyx. It has always been monstrous. You simply haven't had to look at it clearly until now."

The screen vanished. The forest around us felt darker, the half-moon colder.

Two wooden chests appeared at our feet, each the size of a shoebox. I knelt and opened mine. Inside, ten small coins gleamed—silver, each stamped with an open eye. Ten tokens. Ten memories.

Ten pieces of myself I could choose to lose.

I looked at Al. His face was unreadable, but the bond was not. It surged with something raw—fear, yes, but also a fierce, quiet determination. We will not lose each other, it said. We will find another way.

"There's always a loophole," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "There's always something they don't tell you."

Al's jaw tightened. "There is. But we have to find it before the market finds our weaknesses."

"The market doesn't have to find them," I said, standing. The tokens were heavy in my palm. "It just has to give us enough reasons to sell them."

Behind us, the forest path widened, cobblestones appearing under the sand. Lanterns flickered to life, warm and golden, leading toward a distant glow. The Memory Market was opening.

And my brother's face was already starting to blur at the edges, just from thinking about it.

I forced my legs to move before the Market's golden glow could pull me deeper. The sand shifted under my shoes, soft and unstable, and I felt Al fall into step behind me without a word. His presence was a quiet weight at my back, the box in his hands held like it might detonate if he gripped too hard or too soft. I didn't look back at the lanterns. I didn't let myself wonder what my childhood laugh would fetch, or the smell of my mother's kitchen, or the exact shade of red in Shiro's hair when the sun caught it just right.

"Where are you going?" Lira called out, her voice tight with something between panic and practicality. I heard her footsteps pause, then hesitate, then follow. "We can't just wander into the woods and hope—"

"We need to find shelter. Food. Water." I kept walking, the tree line getting closer, the shadows underneath deepening as the beach gave way to pine needles and exposed roots. "I won't give any notice to the Market unless we absolutely have to. Not one token. Not until we know what we're doing." My voice came out firmer than I felt, but Al didn't correct me, and that was endorsement enough.

Behind me, I heard the others exchange glances—a low murmur from Kiran, a breath from Titus, then the soft thud of feet catching up. They fell into a loose formation around us, heads swiveling, eyes scanning the tree trunks and the spaces between them. The forest was quiet in a way that felt deliberate, like it was holding its breath. The incline began subtly, almost imperceptibly, but I felt it in my calves and the way my hips adjusted. Still I pushed forward, Al's footfalls synchronized with mine, the memory of my brother's face flickering at the edges of my mind like a candle guttering in a draft.

The boulders appeared first as a dark patch against the darker tree line, then resolved into shapes—massive, moss-dusted, the size of wagons. I angled toward them, my pulse picking up, and as we drew closer, I saw the gap between them, narrow at first, then wider, revealing a shallow hollow just big enough for all five of us to sit without touching shoulders. The ground was dry, sheltered by an overhang of stone, and the air inside was still and warm. "Here," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "This is where we start."