I stared at the ashes of my failed name, still glittering faintly like a joke the universe forgot to finish.
Rin didn't press me. She just tapped her brush against her palm, watching the sparks cool.
"You're not the first to fizzle," she finally said. "But if your name won't burn, you'll need another way to survive."
"Great," I muttered. "Do I just get stamped 'Defective' and recycled?"
"No," Rin said, turning away. "You get taken to The Margins."
"That sounds… not ideal."
"It's where forgotten names go to rot. And sometimes, get rewritten."
She started walking.
"Wait—why now?"
"Because Caelo's already reported you," Rin called over her shoulder. "And the Smudged Man knows your scent."
"The what now?"
"Walk faster."
I froze. "Smudged what?"
"The Smudged Man," Rin said, not slowing down. "Don't say it too many times. He hears through repetition."
"That's not how hearing works."
"It is here."
She took a sharp left past a shredded map kiosk and ducked into an alley stitched together with correction tape. The walls trembled slightly, like paper trying not to remember what it once was.
"He was a writer's regret," she continued. "A character drawn in, then scribbled out. Half-formed. Half-discarded. And too bitter to vanish properly."
"So… he's a mistake?"
"No. He's what happens after the mistake," Rin said. "Ink that won't dry. Lines that won't obey the page. A soul that stains anything it touches."
"And he's looking for me?"
"You're a Blank," she said. "Untitled. Unwritten. To him, you're prime material. He eats what's unfinished. You're basically a buffet."
My throat felt like crushed vellum. "You could've led with that."
"You didn't ask."