Dorian walked into the guild hall again, though his legs had wanted to turn around. The merchants sat at their long table, faces already bored. He laid out his proposal one more time—sand art demonstrations on the harbor, tickets sold, tourists drawn in. They smiled the way people smile at children. Then the oldest merchant leaned forward. "We'll back you," he said. "But only if you can prove people will actually pay." The others nodded. "Fill a venue. Charge admission. Show us a crowd by tomorrow night, and we'll talk real money." Dorian spent the rest of the day hauling wet sand and carving turrets. His hands cramped. His back ached. By sunset, a castle stood on the harbor—tall spires, winding stairs, arches that caught the last light. He borrowed a wooden stand from a fishmonger and draped it with old banners. A small brass booth sat beside it, paint peeling but still proud. He painted a sign: *Tonight Only. One Copper.* When the first stars appeared, no one came. Dorian sat behind the booth, watching the empty street. Then a child stopped. Then her father. Then a sailor with time to kill. By the time the moon rose, seventeen people had paid. They watched him sculpt a dragon from damp sand, its wings spread wide. When he finished, they clapped. It wasn't much. But it was enough to go back tomorrow.

Dorian returned to the harbor before dawn, arms full of banners. Seventeen coppers rattled in his pocket, proof he could do this again. But he stopped short. Another performer had already claimed his spot. A pale woman stood where his booth belonged, playing a lute, her voice drifting over the water like wind across sand. A crowd had gathered. Fifty people, maybe more, far more than his seventeen. They swayed to her song. Dorian set his banners down and watched the coins he needed vanish into her open case. "You're early," she said, not breaking the tune. Her eyes glowed faintly violet. Her voice carried an eerie hum, as if two singers shared one throat. "The dawn crowd is mine, sculptor. I've sung this shore for years." Dorian knew her by reputation. Keira Sage, the ghost bard, said to haunt the desert dunes far inland. He never expected her here, stealing his harbor. Panic climbed his throat. Tonight the merchants would judge him. If she drew every coin, he had nothing to show them. He could beg her to leave. He could shout. Instead he studied the crowd. They listened to her songs of buried ruins and old kings. They wanted stories. His sand only ever gave them shapes. An idea struck. Dorian grabbed his tools and knelt in the wet sand beside her. He did not fight her music. He answered it. As she sang of a drowned palace, he carved one—spires rising, arches curling, a throne of coral and starfish. His hands moved with her rhythm. The crowd turned to watch both of them. Keira's song faltered. She looked down at the palace forming under his fingers. "You build what I sing," she said, wonder in her ghostly voice. "Then don't stop," Dorian answered. "Sing louder." She did. The crowd swelled. People pointed, called others over. Coins clinked into both her case and his brass booth. By full sunrise, a hundred faces packed the shore. Dorian's castle rose beside her music, each spire matched to a verse. When the song ended, the crowd roared. Dorian counted his coins with shaking hands. Forty-three. More than double last night. Enough to bring the merchants down here to see it themselves. Keira gathered her case and looked at the crowd, then at him. "A duet draws more than a solo," she said. "I could sing again tonight. For a share." Dorian hesitated. He needed the crowd whole for the merchants. Splitting the coins hurt. But a hundred people had come for the two of them together. Alone, he'd never held more than seventeen. "Tonight," he agreed. "A share." She smiled and faded into the morning light, lute and all. Dorian stood alone with his palace and his coins. He had beaten the dawn's thief by hiring her. But now his big night depended on a ghost who could vanish whenever she pleased.