The Market of Almosts opened under a roof made from decisions no one had made.

They hung overhead in translucent sheets, each one showing a life that had leaned close to happening and then stepped back. A marriage proposal swallowed. A train missed by three minutes. A letter burned before posting. A child almost named after an uncle and spared the burden by a sneeze. The sheets rustled whenever shoppers bargained below.

Iona entered with no west and a sour apple in her hand. Pella walked beside her, untroubled by the stalls, the noise, or the vendor selling jars of last words at discount because some were clearly first drafts.

"Rule here?" Iona asked.

"Nothing finished may be sold," Pella said. "Only almosts. Almost-keys. Almost-apologies. Almost-maps. Do not buy food unless you are hungry for nearly."

"That means nothing."

"It means if someone offers you soup, ask whether it almost contains spoons."

The market's lanes bent around stalls that did not touch. A woman in a silver apron sold umbrellas that kept secrets dry. A boy with ink-stained teeth offered unspent courage by the thimble. Three elderly accountants argued over a box labeled Alternative Grandmothers, Slightly Used. All around them, traders called out:

"Nearly true names!"

"Unmade mistakes, fresh this morning!"

"Second chances with minor cracks!"

Iona clutched Maer's toothless key. "We need Rowan's next mark."

"We need not to look as if we need it," Pella said. "Desire raises prices."

"How do we not desire it?"

"Think about laundry."

They found Rowan's mark at a stall selling almost-doors: frames that led almost to bedrooms, almost to gardens, almost to courtrooms where verdicts had softened at the last instant. His handwriting ran along the underside of a lintel:

THE OFFICE CAN FOLLOW. FIND ARLO. TRUST HIM HALF.

"Half is better than I expected," said a man behind them.

He wore a velvet coat patched with curtain fabric, boots polished only in front, and a face so handsome it seemed borrowed for an event. When he bowed, the face flickered. For a heartbeat he looked older, then younger, then like someone who had once disappointed a queen and considered it training.

"Arlo Quince," he said. "Actor, ending broker, and occasional moral hazard."

Iona stepped back. "You knew Rowan."

"I was fond of his entrances. Less fond of his exits. He bought three unused endings from me and paid with a secret that immediately lost value by being true."

Pella picked up an almost-key from the stall and squinted through its handle. "Iona, you will regret trusting him at a doorway with green tiles."

"Half trusting," Arlo corrected. "Let us be faithful to prophecy."

"Where did Rowan go?"

Arlo's performance softened. "Toward the Quiet Republic. He believed the Noon Archive held canceled continuities. People the Office removed but could not entirely digest."

Iona's throat tightened. "Did he think he could restore them?"

"He thought he could bargain with the First Door using evidence that Latch was built on theft."

"Was it?"

The market quieted around them by one degree. Even the last words in their jars stopped fizzing.

Arlo lowered his voice. "All cities are built on something. Latch was built on agreement. Then agreement became law. Then law became memory. Then memory hired clerks."

Before Iona could answer, a bell rang from no visible tower.

The vendors began covering their wares.

Pella swore. "Office."

At the far end of the lane, the Auditor of Cancellations walked between stalls. Her charcoal uniform looked untouched by travel. Behind her came two clerks carrying ledgers and a portable doorframe made of white metal.

"Iona Vell," the Auditor called, not loudly. The market carried her voice with great reluctance. "You are beyond licensed protection."

Arlo took Iona's elbow. "Time to nearly leave."

"No," Iona said. "I want answers."

"Answers are what Auditors use instead of nets."

The Auditor stopped ten paces away. "This market is tolerated because its goods are unfinished. You, however, are carrying an active original debt through secondary jurisdictions."

Iona's fear had changed since the First Draft. It had less room to be shapeless. "You canceled Rowan."

"I prevented him from opening a breach he did not understand."

"If he is canceled, why does he leave messages?"

"Because cancellation is not execution. It is removal from ordinary consequence. Some people are rude enough to continue."

The answer hurt and helped at once.

Pella murmured, "Green tiles soon."

Iona looked down. The lane beneath her boots was paved in green.

Arlo winced. "Ah."

The portable doorframe opened behind the Auditor. Through it Iona saw her own kitchen, frozen in white light. Mirela stood beside the table with one hand raised, caught mid-motion. The soup pot hovered above the stove in three possible shapes.

"Return," the Auditor said. "Acknowledge the debt. Let us close what can be closed. Your mother remains conditionally intact while you cooperate."

Iona moved toward the frame before thought caught her.

Arlo grabbed her sleeve. Pella grabbed the other.

"That is not your kitchen," Pella said.

"It is."

"Almost," Arlo said.

Iona looked harder. The kitchen was wrong in tiny ways. The curtains had the pattern from her childhood, not the current plain cloth. The table had four chairs, though one had broken years ago. The mother in the frame looked a little younger than Mirela had that morning.

"An almost-home," Iona said.

The Auditor inclined her head. "Close enough to save."

"But not enough to return to."

"Precision can be a refuge for cowardice."

"You would know," Iona said.

The Auditor's eyes cooled.

Pella threw the sour apple.

It struck the portable frame and became fully, violently an apple: red, bruised, sour, defended by Iona's declaration. The almost-home flickered. Arlo swept his coat from his shoulders and flung it over the frame. The velvet absorbed the image like a curtain taking applause.

"Run," he said.

They ran.

The market rearranged itself to make pursuit profitable. Stalls folded into alleys. Vendors lifted goods out of reach. A man offered Iona a nearly successful escape for the memory of her first tooth. She ignored him. Pella shouted directions based on disasters that had not happened yet. Arlo changed faces twice, confusing clerks into apologizing to strangers.

At the market's edge stood a door of green tiles.

Pella groaned. "Here."

"Do we trust him?" Iona asked.

"Half."

Arlo produced a brass token stamped with a sun at noon. "Rowan purchased this and neglected to collect it because he was being chased by philosophy. It opens the Quiet Republic's outer gate."

"What do you want for it?"

"A promise."

Iona laughed breathlessly. "I am beginning to hate commerce."

"Promise that if you reach Rowan, you will ask why he left me with the bad ending."

"That is all?"

Arlo's face flickered again, and beneath the charm was grief. "That is not small."

Iona took the token. "I promise."

The green-tiled door opened onto silence so complete the market noise seemed cut with a knife.

Behind them, the Auditor's clerks pushed through the crowd.

Arlo bowed. "Half was a pleasure."

Then he stepped through with them anyway.