The Margins weren't really a place. They were a mistake.
That's how Rin put it, anyway. She didn't look back as we crossed into them—just whispered something under her breath, pressed two fingers to a crease in the air, and stepped through.
The world shimmered.
Then everything got quieter. The sky dulled. The air turned brittle, like the space around us didn't quite want to hold shape.
No shops. No signs. No paths.
Just torn paper, ripped parchment, and shadows that didn't want to be noticed.
"You good?" Rin asked eventually, her voice lower now. Like she didn't want the Margins listening in.
"I think so," I said. "Unless this is what death feels like. Then... maybe not."
She smirked, but it didn't last.
"The Smudged Man doesn't usually chase this far in," she muttered. "He's getting bolder."
"Who is he, really? Why does it feel like he already knows me?"
She didn't answer. Not yet.
Instead, she pulled aside a curtain of newspaper strips and led me into the remains of what might've once been a chapel. No roof. No altar. Just old drafts nailed to warped scaffolding. Words clung to the walls like forgotten prayers.
I followed, stepping over discarded haikus.
A voice rasped from the shadows.
"You're early."
Rin froze.
A figure emerged, barefoot and wrapped in robes made of shredded index pages. Her skin was streaked with ink. Her eyes glinted like wet graphite.
"Quila," Rin said. "We need a name."
Quila of the Inkburned
Quila wasn't like the Nameforgers from the Folded Market. She didn't make pretty signatures or clever aliases.
She rebuilt what had broken. Pulled names from the ashes and gave them bones.
She looked me over once. "Blank, huh? No tags. No title. No permissions."She sniffed. "You smell like regret. The wet kind."
"Kairo needs a name," Rin said. "One that holds."
I shrugged. "Already tried. Didn't take. It exploded. Literally. Into glitter."
Quila almost smiled. "The world laughed when you burned a name. That's not failure. That's potential."
She stepped closer, holding a brush like a scalpel.
"You want a name that sticks?" she asked. "Then bleed a truth. Something real. Not big—just something you've never said out loud."
I hesitated.
But the truth was already rising.
"I didn't want to be promoted," I said quietly. "Back in my world. Everyone thought I was doing great. But I was barely holding it together. I felt trapped. I wanted out."
Quila didn't comment.
She dipped her brush and marked my wrist in one smooth stroke—an unfinished loop, jagged at the edges.
"Kairo," she said softly. "It wants to be real."
She placed a slip of ricepaper between us, laid the mark over it, and lit it with a steady flame.
This time, the paper didn't sputter or glitter.It burned. Low. Clean. Intentional.
Outside, the Margins grew still.
Even the shadows seemed to back off.
And Rin—Rin looked like she'd aged five years in five seconds.
"Alright," I said. "I bled a truth. Now it's your turn."
She blinked. "What?"
"You've dragged me through cities that fold themselves and monsters made of bad handwriting. Why do you care what happens to me?"
For a long second, I thought she'd dodge again.
But then she sat down on a pile of old rejection slips and said:
"Because I've seen someone like you before."
Pause.
"He didn't make it."
Rin didn't meet my eyes.
"He started remembering. Started asking questions that cracked through the seams. About where he'd come from. Why the world bent around certain ideas. Why some pages repeated, and others never turned."
Her hand tightened around her brush.
"And then he stopped living the story. Started watching it instead. Like he wasn't inside it anymore."
I swallowed. "What does that do to you?"
She glanced toward the walls, where scraps fluttered like moths.
"It lets the Smudge in. Not just him—but the wrongness. Bleed-through. When you start listening to a voice that isn't yours—maybe the one that made you—you start unravelling. Bit by bit."
She finally looked at me.
"That's why I care. Because I didn't stop him in time. Maybe I can stop you."