What was not mine

I was digging through a bin of old market parts for copper wire when something else came up. A small brooch, made to catch the sun. The city had a word for it. Contraband.

Somebody lost this. Or somebody took it from someone who did.

I keep things. Everyone who knows me knows that. But a keeper is not the same as a thief, and I could feel the difference the moment I held it.

So I went down to the Miners Cave for the first time since my long walk at the very beginning. I remembered it deep and dark. Today it was also full: more than a hundred miners, most of them bent over the rock.

The Night Market Guild takes claims for things like this. I handed the brooch over and they gave me four crystal for the trouble.

It was not mine. Now it is back where it belongs.

That felt better than keeping it.