Tatti had been a fairy for so long that she sometimes forgot other creatures didn’t hear the world the way she did.
On Shadow Planet, sound behaved strangely. It didn’t bounce like it did on ordinary worlds. It slid. It pooled. It hid under stones and drifted behind cliffs like lazy fog. Even footsteps could whisper for minutes after you took them, and if you listened carefully you might hear your own laugh from yesterday, caught in a crease of darkness.
Tatti liked that, most days.
She was not the loud, spark-spraying kind of fairy that stories liked to brag about. She was small even by fairy standards, with careful hands and a cautious heart. She planned before she leapt. She reread the same spell twice before daring to speak it aloud. When other fairies practiced glittering loops in the sky, Tatti practiced landing softly without making the mushrooms flinch.
But being careful didn’t mean being weak.
It meant she noticed things.
That evening, she noticed that Shadow Planet’s famous dimness had changed.
The planet was never truly dark. It was a place of soft blacks and gentle silvers, of twilight that lasted for weeks, of shadows that looked like velvet. The rivers ran like ink, and the mountains wore pale halos where starlight collected. The sky was a deep, bruised purple, stitched with faint constellations.
Usually, the shadows felt… alive. Not in a scary way. In a breathing way.
Now, they felt flat. Like a painting left out in the rain.
Tatti hovered above the Whisper Dunes—hills of dark sand that hummed if you pressed your ear to them. She held her lantern seed, a tiny pod that glowed when she sang to it.
It should have glowed brighter here.
Instead, it flickered like it was tired.
“That’s new,” she murmured.
A voice answered from behind her.
“New is suspicious. Suspicious is fun.”
Tatti didn’t jump, but she did tighten her grip on the lantern seed.
The speaker was an Imaginary Animal.
On other worlds, an imaginary animal might have been a simple thing: a child’s daydream with paws. On Shadow Planet, imagination was treated with unusual respect, as if it were a kind of physics. Imaginary Animals appeared when the planet needed them, shaped by hopes, worries, and half-finished ideas.
This one had been following Tatti for three days.
It looked like a fox if a fox had been sketched by someone who couldn’t decide on a single style. Its fur kept changing from smoke-gray to deep blue, and its ears sometimes floated a centimeter above its head as if the universe had forgotten to attach them properly. Its eyes were bright as polished coins.
“I didn’t invite you,” Tatti said.
“You didn’t have to,” the Imaginary Animal replied. “You were thinking loudly.”
“I do not think loudly.”
“You do when you’re worried.” It trotted to the edge of the dune and stared out at the valley below, where a cluster of shadow-lanterns usually glimmered like a field of tiny moons. Tonight, only a few remained.
Tatti followed its gaze. “The lanterns are failing.”
“Or being eaten,” the Imaginary Animal said pleasantly.
Tatti’s wings shivered. “Lanterns can’t be eaten.”
“Everything can be eaten if you have the right mouth.”
“That is not comforting.”
“Comforting is overrated,” it said, then added, “But I can try. I’m probably here because you need help.”
Tatti exhaled slowly, like she was blowing dust off an old book. “If you’re here to help, you should have a name.”
The creature’s tail split briefly into two tails, then remembered itself and returned to one.
“A name?” it echoed. “I’ve had… several. If you pick one, I’ll try to fit into it.”
Tatti considered. She was good at names, because names were like spells: they focused meaning. “I’ll call you Lumen,” she decided, thinking of light that existed even inside shadow.
Lumen tested the word as if tasting it. “Lumen. That sounds like a promise.”
“Then keep it,” Tatti said.
Lumen gave a small bow that was too elegant for a fox-like creature. “As you wish, careful fairy.”
They watched the valley in silence. A breeze moved through the dunes, and the sand hummed a low note that felt like a question.
Tatti’s lantern seed gave another weak flicker.
“Something is pulling the glow away,” she said.
“A thief,” Lumen corrected.
Tatti’s stomach tightened. “A thief on Shadow Planet would be… brave. Or foolish.”
“Or dead,” Lumen said lightly. “Shadows don’t like to be stolen from.”
Tatti’s mind went to old warnings whispered by elder fairies, warnings told in the same tone used for broken glass.
Ghost.
On Shadow Planet, ghosts weren’t just floating bedsheets from jokes. They were memory made hungry. A ghost could be a grief that refused to leave, a secret that learned to walk, an echo that wanted a body.
Tatti had never met one.
She didn’t want to.
Still, the lanterns below were failing. The shadows felt wrong. If the glow disappeared entirely, Shadow Planet would become something else—something harsh and empty.
And a fairy, even a careful one, was responsible for balance.
Tatti straightened. “I’m going to the Lantern Grove.”
“The big place with all the little lights?” Lumen asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. I was getting bored on this dune.”
Tatti shot Lumen a look. “You can stay behind.”
“I could,” Lumen said, then grinned in a way that made it look briefly like it had too many teeth. “But I won’t.”
Tatti hesitated, then nodded once. “Fine. But listen to me. No teasing the shadows. No stealing anything. No—”
“No licking suspicious objects,” Lumen finished. “I’ve already learned that one.”
“You licked something suspicious?”
“It tasted like regret.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It was educational,” Lumen insisted.
They started down the dune toward the valley.
The path toward the Lantern Grove wound through places with names that sounded like warnings: the Hollow Ridge, the Quiet Mire, the Blackglass Fields. None of them were truly dangerous if you knew how to behave.
The rule of Shadow Planet was simple.
Respect the shadow.
Don’t cut it, don’t trap it, don’t laugh at it.
Tatti had grown up with these rules the way other children grew up with bedtime routines.
She flew low, keeping her feet close to the ground, because on Shadow Planet the air could be misleading. Sometimes it seemed calm, but you could fly into a pocket of old sadness and suddenly your wings felt heavy.
Lumen padded beside her, sometimes on paws, sometimes briefly on hooves, as if it couldn’t decide what kind of animal it wanted to be today.
As they crossed the Blackglass Fields, Tatti saw her own reflection in the dark stones underfoot. Not sharp, but smeared. Her face looked too serious for someone so small.
Lumen’s reflection was stranger. Sometimes it showed a different creature entirely: a rabbit, a dragonfly, a wolf made of mist.
“You’re unstable,” Tatti said.
“I’m versatile,” Lumen corrected.
“Versatile things can break.”
“Or adapt,” Lumen replied.
Tatti didn’t answer. She didn’t like how much that sounded like a challenge.
They reached the edge of the Lantern Grove by midnight.
The grove was a forest of thin trees that grew lantern fruits. When the fruits ripened, they glowed like trapped starlight, warm and steady. Fairies harvested them carefully and used them to keep the planet’s twilight gentle.
Tonight, many lantern fruits were dull.
Some were cracked as if something had bitten them.
Tatti landed on a root and reached out, touching a dim fruit with two fingers.
It felt cold.
Her wings drooped. “They’re being drained.”
“Like juice boxes,” Lumen said, sounding impressed.
Tatti frowned. “Don’t compare sacred lantern fruits to juice boxes.”
“But it’s a good comparison.”
Tatti pressed her palm to the tree’s bark. She whispered a listening spell, one she usually used to hear if the trees were thirsty.
The bark responded with a shiver.
Tatti heard a sound like someone dragging a wet cloth across stone.
She pulled back quickly.
“What?” Lumen asked.
“There’s something in the grove,” Tatti whispered. “Moving.”
“Excellent,” Lumen said. “We can introduce ourselves.”
“We can avoid it,” Tatti said.
Lumen tilted its head. “You want the lanterns to stop dying, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then we talk to the thing doing it. Or we chase it. Or we make a clever trap. I vote trap. Traps are fun.”
Tatti swallowed. Her fear was a familiar taste, like biting your lip on accident. She didn’t enjoy it, but she knew how to keep moving through it.
“We need information first,” she said. “If it’s a ghost…”
“If it’s a ghost,” Lumen said, “then it will probably be dramatic.”
Tatti shot it another look.
“Ghosts love drama,” Lumen insisted.
A dim lantern fruit above them flickered, then went out.
Tatti flinched.
From deeper in the grove came a low chuckle.
It wasn’t loud.
It was the kind of sound that made your skin think of cold water.
Lumen’s fur shifted from blue to ash-gray. “There. Dramatic already.”
Tatti forced her wings to lift. “Stay close.”
“I always do,” Lumen said, then added, “Unless there’s cake.”
“There is no cake,” Tatti whispered.
“You can’t prove that.”
They moved between the lantern trees.
The grove was darker than it should have been. The glow that remained seemed frightened, shrinking toward the trunks. Shadows gathered thickly between roots.
Tatti held her lantern seed out. It gave a small, stubborn light.
“Hello?” she called, voice steady even though her heart was not.
The chuckle came again, nearer.
A shape formed between two trees.
At first, it looked like a stain in the air.
Then it stretched into something almost human—tall, thin, with arms that trailed like smoke.
Its face was a blur of pale, shifting expression, like someone trying to remember how to look.
Ghost.
Tatti’s throat went dry.
Lumen, strangely, sat down.
“Good evening,” Lumen said brightly. “We’re here about the lantern theft.”
The ghost’s head tilted.
Its voice came out like wind scraping a window. “The lanterns… belong… to me.”
Tatti found her voice. “They don’t. They belong to the grove and to the planet. You’re draining them.”
The ghost’s arms lengthened, brushing lantern fruits. Several dimmed further.
“I was… forgotten,” the ghost whispered. “In shadow… I learned… hunger.”
Tatti’s fear mixed with something else: curiosity. Late at night she read old scrolls about the planet’s history. Ghosts often began as something unfinished.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The ghost’s face rippled. “Name… lost.”
Lumen leaned closer to Tatti and whispered, “If it doesn’t have a name, we can name it something rude.”
“No,” Tatti whispered back.
The ghost drifted forward. The air around it grew colder. “Light… tastes… like being seen.”
Tatti’s lantern seed trembled.
She held it tighter. “If you keep taking it, the grove will die. Shadow Planet will become brittle. Even you will have nowhere to hide.”
The ghost paused.
For a moment, its face sharpened into something like a frown.
Then it hissed. “Then… I will take everything. No one… will forget me again.”
It lunged.
Tatti didn’t have time to think. She snapped her lantern seed open like a pod and sang a single bright note.
A ring of light flared outward.
The ghost recoiled, arms flailing.
Lumen sprang up and—because it was an Imaginary Animal and therefore unpredictable—turned briefly into a long-legged creature and kicked a root into the ghost’s path.
The ghost’s smoky body tangled around the root, snarling.
“Run,” Lumen said.
Tatti ran.
They darted between trees, the ghost’s hiss chasing them like a loose thread.
Tatti’s mind spun. Light hurt it, but not enough to stop it. They couldn’t fight it directly.
They needed another approach.
A quest.
On Shadow Planet, the best way to handle a ghost wasn’t to defeat it.
It was to finish what had been left unfinished.
Tatti whispered to Lumen as they ran, “It said it was forgotten. Ghosts form around lost memories. If we can find what it lost… maybe it will stop.”
Lumen panted, then grinned. “A scavenger hunt with a spooky prize. I’m in.”
They burst out of the grove and into the open valley.
Behind them, the grove’s remaining lanterns flickered, as if waving goodbye.
Tatti didn’t like that.
She looked around for somewhere safe to think.
Across the valley stood an old structure: the Observatory of Echoes, a tower built from shadowstone that listened to the sky. Elder fairies used to map the constellations there, back when the stars spoke more clearly.
It was abandoned now.
But abandoned places were often quiet.
Tatti pointed. “There.”
They flew and ran toward it.
The observatory door was half open, creaking softly.
Inside, the air smelled like dust and old ink. The walls were lined with metal tubes that captured sounds and replayed them. A faint voice whispered from one tube, repeating the same sentence over and over: “Don’t step there, don’t step there…”
Tatti shivered. “This place is full of trapped echoes.”
Lumen sniffed a tube. “It smells like arguments.”
Tatti ignored that. She climbed the spiral staircase to the main chamber at the top.
A huge lens sat in the ceiling, aimed at the sky. Around it were star charts, many torn.
Tatti spread them on the floor and lit her lantern seed.
Lumen sat with unusual patience, watching.
Tatti closed her eyes and tried to remember every old story she’d read.
Ghosts on Shadow Planet… often began when someone’s name was erased, or when a promise was broken.
The ghost had said: “I was forgotten.”
Not “I died.”
Forgotten.
Tatti opened her eyes and scanned the star charts.
One chart had a constellation marked with a small lantern symbol.
Beneath it, in faded ink, were words: KEEP THE NIGHT GENTLE. KEEP THE NAME.
Tatti’s breath caught.
“The name,” she whispered.
Lumen perked up. “Whose name?”
Tatti lifted the chart. “The lantern keepers. Long ago, before fairies managed the grove, there was a keeper. A single caretaker who tended the lantern trees.”
Lumen’s ears floated up slightly. “Let me guess. Someone forgot to write down their name and now they’re very cranky.”
“Not cranky,” Tatti said softly. “Lonely.”
Lonely could curdle into hunger.
Tatti stood. “We have to find the keeper’s name. The ghost said it lost it.”
Lumen hopped off the chart. “Where do we find names?”
“In records. In memory wells. In places where words stick.”
Lumen blinked. “So… a library?”
Tatti nodded. “The Hidden Library of Umbra Vale.”
Lumen’s eyes widened with delight. “Hidden libraries are always full of snacks.”
“They are full of books,” Tatti corrected.
“Books are snacks for the brain,” Lumen said, as if that solved everything.
Tatti tried not to smile. “We need to move before the ghost finds us.”
As if summoned by her words, a cold draft swept through the chamber.
The metal tubes along the walls began to rattle.
A whisper slid down the staircase, slow and wet.
“I smell… light…”
Tatti’s lantern seed dimmed.
“It followed us,” she breathed.
Lumen sprang to its feet. “Time for the part where we are heroic and fast.”
They raced down the stairs.
At the door, Tatti paused and pressed her palm to the shadowstone. “Help us,” she whispered, not to the ghost, but to the planet itself.
Shadow Planet answered in the only way it could.
The shadows near the doorway thickened, curling like a curtain.
When the ghost drifted into the chamber behind them, the curtain dropped.
For a few precious seconds, the ghost’s form tangled in the shadow curtain, hissing.
Tatti and Lumen shot out into the valley.
They didn’t stop until the observatory was a small silhouette behind them.
The journey to Umbra Vale took the rest of the night.
They crossed a bridge made of black vines that tightened if you lied while standing on it. Tatti kept her mouth firmly closed.
They passed the Mirror Marsh, where pools showed you not your face but the mood you were hiding. Tatti’s reflection was a storm cloud with a tiny bright spark inside.
Lumen’s reflection was a question mark.
Finally, as the sky shifted from purple to a bruised gray dawn, they reached Umbra Vale.
The vale was a bowl-shaped canyon where shadows gathered thick as blankets. Trees grew along the walls, their branches hanging like curtains.
Somewhere inside, the Hidden Library waited.
Tatti had never been there. It was said that the library only appeared to those who truly needed it.
“I need it,” Tatti whispered.
Lumen glanced at her. “Try saying it like you mean it.”
Tatti drew herself up. She was careful, yes, but careful didn’t mean timid forever.
“I need it,” she said again, louder. “Shadow Planet needs it.”
The shadows in the vale stirred.
A narrow path appeared, as if someone had brushed a hand through the darkness.
Lumen’s grin returned. “There we go.”
They followed the path.
It led them to a cliff face that looked solid.
Tatti placed her lantern seed against the stone.
She sang, softly, a tune she’d learned as a child, a tune meant for coaxing shy things out of hiding.
The stone rippled.
A door outlined itself in pale silver.
It opened without a sound.
Inside was not a dusty room, but a vast chamber lit by floating ink droplets. Shelves rose in spirals, packed with books that murmured to each other.
The air smelled like paper and secrets.
Lumen’s eyes went round. “Okay. This is actually impressive.”
Tatti stepped inside, awe and urgency tangled in her chest.
A figure emerged from between shelves.
Not a ghost.
Not a fairy.
Something like a librarian made of folded shadow, wearing spectacles that reflected nothing.
Its voice was calm, crisp. “You seek a name.”
Tatti nodded. “A lantern keeper. Forgotten. Now a ghost is draining the grove.”
The librarian tilted its head. “Names are not lost. They are misplaced.”
Lumen whispered, “That sounds like something you’d put on a sign.”
The librarian’s gaze flicked to Lumen. “Imaginary Animal. You are unusually loud.”
“I get that a lot,” Lumen said.
Tatti stepped forward. “Please. We don’t have much time. The lantern fruits are failing.”
The librarian turned and glided deeper into the shelves. “Then follow.”
They followed.
As they walked, books rustled. Some opened slightly, as if peeking.
One book whispered, “Don’t trust the moon.”
Another sighed, “Someone owes me an apology.”
Tatti tried not to get distracted.
The librarian stopped at a shelf where books were bound in different materials: bark, stone, woven thread.
It pulled out a thin volume wrapped in black ribbon.
“This,” it said, “contains the list of keepers who tended the grove before the fairies took the duty. But it cannot be opened by hands alone.”
Tatti frowned. “How then?”
The librarian’s spectacles glinted. “By memory. By offering a true recollection.”
Lumen groaned quietly. “Oh no. Emotional requirements.”
Tatti shot it a warning glance.
The librarian held the ribboned book out.
Tatti took it carefully. The ribbon felt cold.
“Offer a recollection,” the librarian repeated.
Tatti thought.
A true recollection. Something honest. Something that mattered.
Her mind went to the first lantern fruit she’d ever harvested.
She’d been young, wings still awkward. She’d climbed a lantern tree too quickly, eager to prove herself, and she’d snapped a branch.
The lantern fruit had fallen.
She’d caught it, but the fruit had cracked, leaking light like a slow tear.
Tatti remembered how she’d sat under the tree, ashamed, holding the damaged fruit and whispering apologies to it.
An elder fairy had found her.
Instead of scolding, the elder had said, “Care isn’t about never breaking things. It’s about what you do after.”
Tatti had spent the night repairing the crack with a healing spell, patient and trembling.
The lantern fruit had healed.
And it had glowed brighter afterward, as if grateful.
Tatti held that memory in her chest and spoke it aloud.
As she spoke, the ribbon on the book loosened.
The cover opened.
Inside, names shimmered like silver threads.
Tatti scanned them, lips moving silently.
There were dozens.
Then she saw a name that made her lantern seed pulse warmly, as if recognizing it.
“Eris Noctvale,” Tatti whispered.
The librarian nodded. “The last keeper before the duty changed hands.”
Lumen repeated the name. “Eris Noctvale. Dramatic, but classy.”
Tatti closed the book carefully. “If we bring this name to the ghost… will it help?”
The librarian’s voice softened slightly. “Names anchor. A ghost without a name is a storm without a sky. Give it its name, and you give it shape. With shape comes choice.”
Tatti’s stomach fluttered. “Choice doesn’t guarantee kindness.”
“No,” the librarian agreed. “But it makes peace possible.”
Lumen’s tail flicked. “And if it chooses violence?”
The librarian’s spectacles tilted. “Then you will need more than a name. You will need an offering.”
Tatti’s brow furrowed. “An offering of what?”
The librarian reached into its robe of folded shadow and pulled out a small object.
A crystal vial, empty.
“This vial can hold a single breath of starlight,” it said. “A treasure, on your planet. A powerful thing. It can restore what has been drained.”
Tatti’s eyes widened. “Starlight breath?”
Lumen leaned in, nearly nose-to-vial. “That sounds delicious.”
“It is not for eating,” Tatti said sharply.
Lumen pulled back, offended. “I was only smelling it.”
“You can’t smell an empty vial,” Tatti said.
Lumen blinked. “Not with that attitude.”
The librarian handed the vial to Tatti. “You may need it. But know this: starlight is not taken. It is asked for. The sky must agree.”
Tatti tucked the vial into her satchel. “Thank you.”
The librarian’s voice returned to crisp neutrality. “Return the name. Restore the grove. Keep the night gentle.”
Tatti bowed. Lumen attempted to bow and nearly toppled.
They hurried back out of the library.
The door in the cliff face vanished behind them, leaving only rock.
As they stepped into the vale, the air turned colder.
Tatti’s lantern seed dimmed again.
Lumen’s fur went pale.
“It’s here,” Lumen whispered.
A ripple moved through the shadows.
The ghost emerged, larger than before. It had fed.
Its arms were longer, its face more defined, but the definition made it uglier—like a memory sharpened into a weapon.
“You ran,” it rasped.
Tatti forced herself not to retreat. She pulled the book from her satchel, but she didn’t open it.
She didn’t need to.
She lifted her chin. “Eris Noctvale.”
The ghost froze.
The shadows around it trembled.
Its face flickered—anger, confusion, something like grief.
“Say it again,” it whispered.
Tatti’s voice shook, but she held it steady. “Eris Noctvale. Lantern Keeper.”
The ghost’s form wavered.
For an instant, it looked less like smoke and more like a person made of twilight, with hair like spilled ink and eyes like faint lanterns.
“I… remember,” it breathed.
Lumen exhaled loudly. “Good. Remembering is healthy.”
The ghost snapped its head toward Lumen. “You… are not real.”
Lumen lifted its chin. “I’m real enough to be annoying.”
Tatti spoke quickly before the ghost could get distracted. “Eris. You tended the grove. You kept Shadow Planet’s night gentle. But something happened. You were forgotten.”
Eris’s face twisted. “They… replaced me. They took the grove. They took my duty. My name faded. I waited in the roots. I waited until the light returned. Then I drank it. Because I wanted… to be seen.”
Tatti’s heart ached, because she understood that feeling more than she wanted to admit.
“I see you now,” Tatti said. “But draining the lanterns will destroy everything you protected. That isn’t what a keeper does.”
Eris hissed softly. “Then what do I do? Without the grove, I am nothing.”
Tatti thought fast.
Names anchored. Offerings soothed.
But more than that, ghosts needed purpose.
“I can’t give you your old life back,” Tatti said. “But I can give you a new duty. A new way to be seen.”
Eris stared.
Lumen whispered, “Careful, you’re negotiating with fog.”
Tatti ignored that. “The lanterns are fading. The grove needs a guardian again. Fairies manage the harvesting, but the grove itself…” She gestured to the vale’s thick shadows. “It responds to those who understand shadow. You do.”
Eris’s eyes flickered. “You would trust me?”
Tatti swallowed. She was afraid.
But courage wasn’t lack of fear.
It was choosing anyway.
“Yes,” she said. “On one condition. You stop feeding. You help us restore what you’ve drained.”
Eris’s face rippled. “Restore…”
Tatti pulled out the crystal vial. “I have this. A vial for a breath of starlight. The librarian said the sky must agree. If you help me ask, we can refill the grove’s glow.”
Lumen’s ears lifted. “We’re going to ask the sky for a breath. That’s so weird. I love it.”
Eris drifted closer to the vial, not touching it. “Starlight… remembers me. I used to map it.”
Tatti’s eyes widened. “You worked with the Observatory of Echoes.”
Eris nodded slowly. “I listened to the stars. I spoke their names, so they would speak mine back.”
Tatti felt a click in her mind, like a puzzle piece settling.
“The observatory can help us,” she said. “Its lens can focus the sky’s attention. If we go there, we can ask properly.”
Eris hesitated.
Lumen stepped forward. “Look, Eris. If you want to be seen, the sky is the biggest audience you’re going to get. And it’s harder to haunt.”
Eris’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “You are… strange.”
“Thank you,” Lumen said, pleased.
Tatti held the vial out carefully. “Will you come?”
Eris reached out.
Its smoky hand hovered over the vial.
Then it pulled back, as if remembering restraint.
“I will come,” Eris said. “But if you betray me…”
Tatti met its gaze. “I won’t.”
They moved through the vale together.
It was unsettling, walking beside something that made the air cold, but Tatti noticed that as Eris focused on its name, its edges became clearer and less hungry.
They reached the observatory by late morning.
The shadow curtain Tatti had asked for the night before still clung to the doorway, like a tired cloak.
Eris touched it gently.
The curtain dissolved, not with violence but with relief.
“It listened to you,” Eris said, voice quieter.
Tatti nodded. “Shadow Planet listens when you treat it like a partner.”
Lumen muttered, “I treat it like a partner and it still won’t give me cake.”
Inside the observatory, echoes whispered from the tubes.
When Eris stepped in, the whispers changed.
Some became clearer.
A tube that had been repeating “Don’t step there” shifted to “Step carefully.”
Tatti stared. “You’re stabilizing the echoes.”
Eris looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time in centuries. “This was mine.”
Tatti climbed to the top chamber, Eris drifting beside her, Lumen bounding up the steps and occasionally slipping because it insisted on going too fast.
In the main chamber, Tatti stood beneath the great lens.
She held the crystal vial up.
Outside, the sky was still dim, but the constellations were visible faintly, like chalk marks.
Tatti took a deep breath.
“How do you ask the sky?” she whispered to Eris.
Eris’s voice was almost gentle. “You don’t demand. You introduce yourself. You tell it why.”
Tatti nodded.
She stepped into the center of the chamber.
She opened her lantern seed and let its small light bloom.
Then she spoke upward, as if the sky were a person leaning close.
“My name is Tatti,” she said. “I am a fairy of Shadow Planet. I tend the lanterns now, but I cannot do it alone. The grove is fading. A keeper was forgotten, and that forgetting became a ghost. We have found the name. We want to restore what was lost, not just punish what went wrong.”
Lumen whispered, “Nice speech.”
Tatti kept going. “Sky, will you give us a breath of your starlight? Enough to refill the lantern fruits, enough to keep the night gentle.”
She held up the vial.
Nothing happened.
The silence stretched.
Tatti’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment. She hated asking for things.
Eris drifted forward. “Sky,” it said, voice rough but steady. “I am Eris Noctvale. I tended the grove when the lanterns were young. I was forgotten, and I did wrong. I took what wasn’t mine. But I remember now. Let me mend what I broke. Lend your light so I can guard the shadow without devouring it.”
The air shifted.
A faint wind circled the chamber.
The lens overhead trembled, catching a thin thread of brightness.
It wasn’t like sunlight.
It was colder, cleaner.
A piece of star.
The thread focused through the lens and touched the mouth of the crystal vial.
The vial filled with a shimmering breath, swirling like liquid music.
Tatti’s hand shook.
Lumen’s eyes were huge. “Whoa.”
Eris stared, silent.
The vial pulsed once, warm against Tatti’s fingers.
The sky had agreed.
Tatti exhaled slowly, relief making her wings feel lighter. “We have it.”
Eris whispered, “Thank you.”
Lumen said, “Now what? Do we pour it on the trees like syrup?”
“Not like syrup,” Tatti said, but she couldn’t help smiling. “We’ll return to the grove. We’ll share it fruit by fruit.”
Eris’s face tightened. “The ghost hunger will fight me.”
Tatti looked at it carefully. “You’re not just hunger now. You have a name. And you have help.”
Lumen puffed up proudly. “We are excellent help.”
They left the observatory and raced back toward the Lantern Grove.
As they approached, the grove looked worse.
Many lantern fruits were dark. The trees sagged.
The shadows between trunks were thick and restless.
A low moan drifted through the branches.
Eris shuddered. “That… is me. The part of me I fed.”
Tatti swallowed. “Then we have to be fast.”
They entered the grove.
The air grew cold immediately.
The hungry ghost-part rose from the roots like a wave, towering above them.
It had no face now, only a mouth-like rip in its shape.
It lunged toward the vial.
Tatti reacted without thinking.
She snapped her lantern seed open and blasted light.
The ghost-part recoiled.
Lumen darted forward and—because imagination could be brave—became a creature with a wide, flat tail and slapped the ground hard.
The shadows rippled, distracted.
Eris drifted up, placing itself between Tatti and the hungry wave.
“I am Eris Noctvale,” it said, voice loud enough to rattle lantern branches. “I am Keeper. You are hunger. You are not all of me.”
The hungry ghost-part hissed.
Eris reached into it—not with hands, but with will.
The wave shook, as if being pulled into a tighter shape.
Tatti realized what was happening.
Eris was trying to merge with its own hunger, to contain it.
But it needed reinforcement.
Tatti uncorked the vial.
A ribbon of starlight breath rose, twisting gently.
It didn’t rush out like water.
It drifted, as if it were deciding where to go.
Tatti spoke softly to it. “Please. Help us.”
The starlight breath moved toward the lantern trees.
As it touched the first dim fruit, the fruit brightened.
Warm glow spread through the branch.
The tree shivered, straightening.
More starlight drifted, touching fruit after fruit.
The grove began to glow again.
The hungry ghost-part screamed, as if the returning light burned it.
Eris’s form flickered.
Tatti felt panic surge. “Eris!”
Eris’s voice strained. “Keep pouring. Restore the grove. I can hold it.”
Tatti clenched her jaw.
She moved through the grove, directing the starlight breath carefully, not wasting a single shimmer.
Lumen ran beside her, guiding her away from cracked roots, occasionally yelling unhelpful advice like, “Aim for the sad-looking ones!”
But it did help in other ways.
When the hungry wave tried to reach Tatti again, Lumen distracted it by turning into a bright, ridiculous bird and flapping in its face.
“Over here, scary fog!” Lumen taunted. “Bet you can’t catch me! I’m emotionally complicated!”
The hungry ghost-part swiped at Lumen.
Lumen squeaked and narrowly dodged.
Tatti’s heart lurched. “Lumen, stop that!”
“It’s working!” Lumen yelled, voice muffled as it rolled behind a stump.
Tatti poured the last of the starlight breath into the largest lantern tree at the grove’s center.
The tree’s crown lit up, bright as a small moon.
Glow spilled outward in waves.
The shadows softened.
The hungry ghost-part shrank, forced into clearer edges.
Eris’s form steadied.
With a final shudder, the hunger collapsed into Eris like a storm folding into a cloud.
Silence fell.
Then, slowly, Eris opened its eyes.
They were no longer blank.
They glowed faintly, the same warm hue as the lantern fruits.
Tatti sagged against a tree trunk, exhausted.
Lumen stumbled over, panting. “Did we win? I feel like we won.”
Eris turned toward Tatti.
“I… am here,” it said, voice hoarse. “I am whole.”
Tatti swallowed hard. “Are you still hungry?”
Eris looked at the glowing grove, at the lantern fruits shining steadily, at the shadows resting comfortably between roots.
“No,” Eris said softly. “I am… needed. That tastes better.”
Lumen made a face. “That’s a weird sentence, but I’ll allow it.”
Tatti stood slowly. She approached the central lantern tree.
At its base, something shimmered.
A small chest, half-buried in roots, its lid carved with star patterns.
Tatti frowned. “That wasn’t here before.”
Eris drifted closer, surprise flickering. “It was. Long ago. My keeper’s cache.”
Tatti knelt and brushed away dark soil.
The chest’s latch clicked open easily, as if it had been waiting for the right hands.
Inside were objects that glowed faintly: a coil of silver thread, a compass with a needle made of shadow, and a wand-like tool shaped from moonstone.
Tatti’s breath caught. Moonstone tools were rare on Shadow Planet, because moonlight was shy.
Eris’s voice warmed with something like pride. “That is a Lanternwright’s Scepter. It can mend cracked lantern fruits instantly, and it can coax new lantern saplings from seeds.”
Lumen leaned in. “Treasure!”
Tatti lifted the scepter carefully.
It was cool and smooth, humming faintly against her palm.
She felt a gentle surge of confidence, not loud, not flashy—steady.
A tool that matched her careful nature.
“This is… for me?” she asked, almost afraid.
Eris nodded. “You restored my name. You restored the grove. The cache recognizes you as the new keeper alongside the fairies. Not the sole keeper. But the one who listens.”
Tatti’s throat tightened.
She had always been the one in the background, the one who noticed and repaired.
Now she held proof that those skills mattered.
She bowed to Eris. “Then I accept. And I’ll use it to keep the night gentle.”
Lumen tapped the compass with a paw. “Can I have the compass? I love needles. They make everything feel dramatic.”
Tatti raised an eyebrow.
Eris’s mouth twitched. “Give it to the Imaginary Animal. It will point toward what is missing. That seems appropriate.”
Lumen’s eyes shone. “I have a job now. I’m official.”
Tatti looked at Lumen. “You stayed. You helped. Even when it was dangerous.”
Lumen shrugged, trying to look casual, but its fur shifted to a pleased bright blue. “I made a promise. My name sounded like one.”
Tatti smiled fully now. “You kept it.”
The grove brightened as if responding.
Shadow Planet’s twilight returned to its usual velvet softness.
In the distance, the valley lanterns began to glow again, one by one, like waking eyes.
Eris drifted into the lantern trees, its form blending into the shadows without disappearing.
“I will guard,” it said, voice now part of the grove’s hush. “And I will remember.”
Tatti watched until she could no longer tell where Eris ended and the grove began.
Then she lifted the Lanternwright’s Scepter.
A cracked lantern fruit on a nearby branch caught her eye.
Carefully, she touched the crack with the scepter’s tip.
The moonstone hummed.
The crack sealed, smooth as if it had never existed.
The fruit glowed brighter.
Tatti’s chest filled with a quiet joy that didn’t need to shout.
Lumen spun in a circle, compass clutched in its mouth, muffledly proclaiming, “We should celebrate with cake that definitely exists somewhere!”
Tatti laughed, and her laugh didn’t hide in the stones this time.
It rose into the grove, warm and clear, and the shadows welcomed it.
Together, fairy and Imaginary Animal walked deeper among the lantern trees, not as trespassers, not as frightened visitors, but as caretakers with a new tool, a new ally, and a treasure that promised many bright nights ahead.