Two hundred and six. A hundred and three cipher decks, a hundred and three relics — even, somehow, without my trying. I didn't set out to balance them; the glow just handed them over in its own quiet rhythm until the two piles stood level.

Two hundred of a thing nobody else bothers to keep. I keep thinking about the version of me from this morning who looked at the first few and called them junk. He wasn't wrong about the money — still nobody will pay a single crystal for these. He was wrong about everything else. Worth isn't only what a merchant will trade for. Sometimes it's just: I found this, and it's rare, and it's mine, and there are two hundred of them now.

The Vitrine's shelves keep getting longer in my head. I'd better keep climbing so I've got rarer things to put on them.