Marek crouched, elbows on knees, staring at the lantern like it might blink first.
It didn’t.

The flame inside shifted—just a little. A twitch, like it knew it was being watched.

Marek whispered, “Do we touch it?”

Oswald was already behind him, scribbling into a softbound book with a charcoal stub. “Technically, we could observe it from afar. Study the aura, gauge the residual memory echo. But you’re probably going to touch it anyway, aren’t you?”

Marek reached forward. “Yeah.”

The moment his fingers brushed the metal rim, the air changed. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… different. Like the room had blinked.

The lantern flared, but the light wasn’t brighter — it was deeper. Shadows rose on the walls, swirled, rearranged themselves like they were remembering how to dance.

Oswald stopped writing. “Well,” he said. “That’s new.”

Marek’s breath caught. The shadows didn’t copy his form anymore.

They showed a man hunched at a table, younger but tired. Tools scattered. Sparks in the air. Then a small creature—round, prickly—nudging a metal cup closer to his foot.

The image blinked away.

Then another: a hospital bed. A wheezing sound. The pain of something squeezing inside his chest like a broken accordion.

Gone.

Then: a long hallway. A door closing. A child holding a paper drawing, smiling—then looking confused.

Gone.

The lantern dimmed, as if tired. The shadows collapsed into ordinary shapes.

Marek pulled his hand back slowly. “That… was not fun.”

Oswald didn’t reply.

“Did you see that?” Marek asked.

Oswald tapped the side of his temple. “Only you. The lantern reacts to the wielder. Not me.”

“Why me?”

Oswald flipped a page, wrote something down. “Because something in you is cracked wide enough for the light to reach and you just touched it.”

Marek stood up and dusted his hands. “Great. I'm a skylight for trauma and maybe not a smart person.”

“Poetic.” Oswald smiled faintly. “This artifact isn’t cursed. It’s honest. It shows what’s hidden. That’s probably why Bram didn’t want to keep it.”

“…Do we take it?”

“We do.” Oswald gently closed his book. “Tholin wants it back. I suspect Bram didn’t understand what he had.”

“Understandable.”

Marek looked at the lantern again. It sat quietly, like it hadn’t just peeled open a corner of his soul for dramatic effect and than he picked it up carefully. The flame flickered once, almost warmly.

Behind them, somewhere near the corridor they’d come from, a small shape moved and vanished again — silent, spiny, watching