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Tam drags Vela through Halfsun's sleep-shift market, where an old busker sings about the Striker who stopped the sun and never heard music again. On Lantern Street, bottled noon light nearly blinds Vela, Tam saves her with a fish basket, and a crest on a lamp cap gives him something new to wonder about.
Halfsun in its sleep-shift. The sun has not moved; it sits half over the sea as always. But every shutter in the city is half closed, every street hung with small oil lanterns, and the canal market is full of people in loose sleeping clothes, eating, singing, drinking tea.
Caption (narration): "Sleep-shift again, after a day of hiding from the square. Halfsun pretends it is night."
Tam and Vela in the crowd, both in borrowed sleep robes over their clothes, hoods up. Tam is carrying two skewers of grilled fish.
Tam says: "Best disguise in the city. Nobody looks at anybody at sleep-shift."
Vela, goggles still on, hood pulled low.
Vela says: "Everyone is wearing pyjamas."
Tam says: "It's night."
Vela.
Vela says: "It is not night. The sun is right there."
Tam, handing her a skewer.
Tam says: "It's night if you believe in it hard enough."
A rope bridge over the canal, lanterns strung along it, children dangling their feet over the water.
Vela, quieter, chewing.
Vela says: "After the square, I thought you'd want to hide."
Tam, not looking at her.
Tam says: "I can't go back to the shop yet. Pell will make tea and not talk to me. It's worse than shouting."
Vela, watching him.
Vela says: "You'll have to go back eventually."
Tam says: "Eventually is a long word."
Tam rubbing his ear, remembering.
Tam says: "That silence. In the square. What was it?"
Vela.
Vela says: "A Hush. Hushers make them. The Wardens' best."
Vela.
Vela says: "I'd only read about them. Now I've been inside one, I never want to be again."
Tam.
Tam says: "I couldn't hear the world. First time ever. It was like dying with your eyes open."
A pause. Then Tam shakes it off and grins.
Tam says: "Okay! Enough. You're in Halfsun. You need to see Halfsun."
Vela.
Vela says: "I've seen it. It's bright."
Tam pulling her by the sleeve into the thickest part of the market.
Tam says: "You've seen the bright part. Come see the good part."
A montage panel of the sleep-shift market: a stall selling pepper candy, a man juggling lanterns, two old women arguing over a board game, a tea cart with a kettle the size of a barrel.
Tam at a stall, pointing at jars.
Tam says: "Ember-pepper candy. Same as the bread, but it hurts longer."
Vela says: "Why would anyone want that?"
Tam at another stall, hands full of tiny paper boats.
Tam says: "You write a wish, you put it on the canal. It goes out to sea."
Vela, despite herself, interested.
Vela says: "Where does it go after the sea?"
Tam says: "Nobody knows. That's the point of wishes."
Near the water, a ring of people sitting on the steps. An OLD BUSKER with a battered stringed instrument begins to play.
Sound: "plink plink plunk"
Tam sits down on the step at once, pulling Vela with him.
Tam says: "Shh. This one's old."
The old busker, eyes closed, singing.
Old busker says: "She climbed to the drum at the top of the day..."
Soft, drawn in muted tones like an old woodcut: a faceless woman climbing a mountain of steps toward a huge drum under a sky.
Old busker says: "She struck it once, and the sun had to stay."
The woodcut woman striking; the sun stopping, armies freezing on a battlefield below.
Old busker says: "The war fell still, and the bells rang loud..."
The old busker, softer.
Old busker says: "...but she never heard music again."
The crowd humming the last line together, the way everyone knows it.
Crowd says: "Never heard music again."
Vela, frowning.
Vela says: "That's a sad song for a party."
Tam.
Tam says: "It's the Striker. The statue in the square. Every kid here learns it."
Vela.
Vela says: "Why did she never hear music again?"
Tam, shrugging, spinning a stick.
Tam says: "It's a song. Things happen in songs because they rhyme."
Tam, though, keeps looking at the old busker's hands on the strings.
Tam thinks: "Never hear music again."
Tam's own hand on his drum. A tiny unconscious tap.
Sound: "tok"
Tam, standing up quickly.
Tam says: "Come on. Lantern street."
A wider lane where the richer merchants trade. One stall blazes brighter than everything else: glass bottles of pure white light, hung on brass chains, burning like small captured suns. People shield their eyes to look at them.
Caption (narration): "Sunglass. Light bottled at Noon, where the sun stands straight overhead."
Caption (narration): "Worth more than the stall it hangs on."
Tam, delighted, face lit white.
Tam says: "Look at that! I've only seen one once, on a ship!"
Vela, beside him, has stopped walking. She is turned half away, one arm across her face.
Vela's goggles, the glass flaring white. Her teeth bared in pain.
Vela says: "Tam. Tam, I can't."
Tam turning, the grin gone.
Tam says: "Vela?"
Vela backing into an alley mouth, crouching, both hands over the goggles.
Vela says: "It's Noon light. Pure. It goes straight through the glass."
Tam, panicking, looking for something, anything.
Tam says: "Okay. Okay okay okay."
He grabs an empty wicker fish basket from a nearby stall.
Fish seller says: "Hey!"
He jams it down over Vela's head.
Sound: "FWUMP"
Vela crouched in the alley with a large fish basket over her head and shoulders. A long silence.
The basket. From inside.
Vela says: "...It smells like eels."
Tam, deadly serious.
Tam says: "It's dark, though."
The basket begins to shake.
Tam, alarmed.
Tam says: "Are you crying? Is it the eels?"
Vela lifts the basket an inch. Underneath, she is laughing. Helplessly, silently, shoulders shaking.
Tam starts laughing too, sliding down the wall beside her.
Sound: "HAH. HAHAHA."
The two of them in the alley, laughing, the basket on Vela's head, passers-by stepping round them like they're mad.
Vela, wiping her eyes under the goggles, still in the basket.
Vela says: "I crossed half the world. I've been chased by Wardens. And this is the worst thing that's happened to me."
Tam.
Tam says: "You're welcome."
Tam gets up, offering her his hand. She takes it, the basket still on, turning her back to the white stall.
Tam says: "I'll walk you round it. Keep your head in the fish."
As they pass, Tam glances back at the stall. The LAMP MERCHANT is counting coins, rich rings on his fingers.
Lamp merchant says: "Real Noon glass! Straight from the top of the world!"
Tam looking closer at one lamp's brass cap.
The brass cap of the sunglass lamp. Stamped into it, a crest: a sun at its very highest point, straight overhead, rays falling down in perfect lines.
Tam, the white light on one side of his face, frowning at the crest. Behind him, Vela in her fish basket, waiting.
Tam thinks: "A sun at the top of the sky. I've never seen one of those."
Art made with AI tools, lettered and laid out by hand.
