The market beat the bells awake. Canvas lids snapped on; crates ticked; stone took the morning's weight. Patricia bartered with a woman who believed vinegar could cure shyness; Christian bought brass screws as if the day would fall apart without them. Thomas held Thibault's hand and trusted his curious feet.
"Rule one," Thibault said, and squeezed twice. "Bread first. If you buy sugar first, the bread gets jealous and hardens in revenge."
"Rule two?" Thomas asked, which sounded like "doo?" because his mouth was smaller than his questions.
"Never walk right behind a man carrying fish," Thibault said gravely. "You will smell like his intentions."
They stepped into the bookstall's shade. A girl about Thomas's size stood on a crate, ink on three fingers and the edge of her hand—real reader's marks. She was arranging pamphlets in ranks.
"Bonjour," Thibault offered.
She assessed him with a look that sorted people into useful categories. "Bonjour." Her eyes fell to Thomas. "That one is small."
"Temporarily," Thomas said, which came out as "tem-poo." He pointed at her inky hand. "You fight words."
She considered his words, then shrugged. "They start it." She slid a pamphlet toward him. "'On the precautions to be taken by persons who read at night.' Useful. If you are not tall enough, you can stand on it to reach a shelf."
Patricia drifted a couple of stalls away, flirting with peaches. Christian had already found the screw-seller who taxed perfect threads and was staging his outrage. The family orbit would circle back. It always did.
Thomas leaned over the pamphlet. The type carried deadline bruises; the ink betrayed a tired press. "Who wrote it?"
"My mother," the girl said. "I cut out the foolish parts." She held out her inked hand. "Michelle."
He took it solemnly. "Thomas."
Her mouth tilted, impressed that his name fit in his mouth without wobbling. "Bon. Now do not touch anything with that hand, or you will owe me a rag and an apology."
He put his hands behind his back to avoid debt.
Across the aisle, a man with too many rings clinked when he moved. He had laid a velvet cloth and placed three objects on it: a tarnished coin, a chipped bottle, a shard of glass that would bloom with color if the light behaved.
"Relics," the man announced, , as unmistakable as rain to those who read the sky. "From the age when Paris remembered its other name."
"Which holds the strongest memory?" Thomas asked.
"The coin," the man said. "It was carried by a monk who never lied."
Michelle made a noise that sounded like a book disagreeing. "Monks often lie. They just do it politely."
The man smiled. "You are a child. You will learn your errors."
"I am learning them now," she said, and hopped off her crate. "Show me your proof."
The man held the coin up to be taken seriously. "See the seam? It is not a seam. It is a memory. And the weight—feel it. Heavier than it should be, because stories are heavy."
Michelle didn't touch it. "You like words that cannot be measured."
"They are the only real ones," he returned, pleased with himself.
"Then allow me an unreal word," she said, and turned to Thomas. "What does the coin smell like?"
He blinked. Smell was not his field—truthful, but meddlesome. He leaned forward the distance of one rule of caution, then the distance of a second. Brass. Old oil. Someone's palm and a drawer that had been closed for a long time.
"Like a drawer," he said.
Michelle nodded. "The monk lived in a drawer? Unlikely. The seam is a seam. The heaviness comes from those who want the story to be true."
The man's smile drew tight. "You cannot afford these, little scholar. Do not ruin other people's fun."
Michelle folded her arms, which were not large but were very organized. "If it is fun to be lied to, you should charge more."
"Come along," Thibault said softly, a hand on Thomas's shoulder. "We will buy bread and failure will sound less clever with butter on it."
"Un moment," Michelle said—voice made for summoning certainties. She picked up the bottle instead of the coin. The glass had a poor opinion of itself; its chip flashed like a memory of another shape. "This says it is 'Seine water, purified by the prayers of Saints.'"
"It is," the man said.
She held it to the light. A filament hung inside, almost invisible, and when she shook the bottle, the filament curved but didn't break. Thomas watched the arcs it made. The motion looked deliberate, not accidental.
"How did you get the filament into the glass?" she asked.
He swallowed. "By—by filling it with saintly breath at dawn."
Michelle looked relieved. "Alors, it is not a good lie. If it were good, I would have to think about it. This is merely a pretty thing with a trick inside. You should sell it as a toy, not as prayer."
The man reached, fast and unfriendly, to snatch the bottle away.
Thomas didn't reach. He pressed.
The bottle slowed just enough that the man's hand found glass and not Michelle's wrist. The cap rattled but held. A bead of water swam uphill, arguing with gravity, as if it were optional.
Michelle noticed the wrongness and didn't look at Thomas. This pleased him.
"We will take the bottle," Patricia said behind them, with the voice that stops arguments before they rise. She had arrived exactly on time, which was a thing she enjoyed doing to fate. She placed three coins on the cloth without asking the price. "For a lamp trick."
The man, disarmed by profit, performed a clumsy bow. "Madame has an eye for wonders."
"Madame has a need for them," she said, and took the bottle off his velvet. "Christian likes to be right about light."
Michelle smirked, inky hand on her hip. "You are wrong about the coin, but only a little wrong. Sell the story; it costs less to haul and pays out more."
The man considered being offended, then remembered he had just sold a toy for the price of a prayer, and decided to be magnanimous instead. He shooed them away with a rustle of velvet.
A small notice slid into Thomas's vision and pretended not to be proud of itself.
[SEQ] Lore Entry added — Relic Fakes & Tell-Tales.
[SEQ] Effect: None.
[SEQ] Tags: Markets, Trinkets, Claims vs Proof.
They wandered toward the river, trailing the smell of bread. A violin tried to make the morning romantic; an onion seller argued it back. At the end of the arcade, stone steps went down to the water, as if the city apologized to the river every day.
"Not down there," Thibault warned. "It's slippery, and we've got no bread to bribe the ducks."
"Ducks do not take bribes," Michelle said, scandalized.
"Everyone takes bribes," Thibault said. "The moral part is choosing what to pay with."
Patricia laughed and guided them away from the edge. Christian tested the bottle's filament with a gentle shake and made his familiar it can be better grunt.
Michelle fell into step with Thomas like a co-conspirator. "You look at things like they've whispered their secrets to you."
"I wait for them to change their minds," he said, which came out as "cha minds."
"Bon," she said. "Patience earns better secrets."
They passed a board whose face was more holes than wood. It announced the same thing it had announced yesterday and would announce tomorrow: BASSES EAUX — DÉBARCADÈRES GLISSANTS — ATTENTION.
Someone had written ATTENTION twice, the second in a shaky hand freshly acquainted with gravity.
A rumor came the standard way, carried by a mouth that wanted to matter. Near the shadow of a moored barge, two men argued.
"I tell you, it was a chill, not a hand."
"And I tell you, a chill does not count how many you are."
"Then it was a fish," the first man said, scornful. "A counting fish."
"Do not mock," the second said. "There are nights when the stairs think like men."
Thomas filed the phrase stairs that think in a drawer he kept for metaphors that might turn into blueprints after midnight.
He wore a child's face and let his ears do their work.
Michelle clearly kept a similar drawer. "You hear that?" she asked without moving her mouth.
"Yes," he said.
"What are stairs good for?" she asked.
"Up and down," he said.
"And what else?" she asked.
"Hiding under," he said.
She nodded, content with his facts. "We will not go down today," she said, as if she managed the river and had just omitted the memo.
Thibault bought bread, and—genius move—two loaf-ends for instant experiments. They ate standing up, which made the bread taste like permission.
"Rules three and four," Thibault said, mouth full. "Do not argue with people who are arguing with the weather. And never step where you cannot see the bottom."
"Even with bribes?" Michelle asked.
"Especially with bribes," he said. "Ducks will forgive you. Stones will not."
They came back through the stalls. The day's collar was loose; the market made noise deliberately. Patricia bought thread the color of old paper. Christian bought more screws, because the world had not ended the first time and might profit from a second attempt.
Michelle sold a pamphlet to a man who pronounced each syllable as if it were a too-large coin. She sold another to a woman who smelled like flour and secrets. Then she turned to Thomas and, with great seriousness, handed him a scrap of paper.
"For you," she said. "A receipt for not touching anything."
It read, in the solemn hand of a person who enjoys solemnity: THOMAS — 0 TOUCHES — BON.
He tucked it into his pocket as if it weighed something. "Merci."
"De rien," she said. "You may owe me later."
The pane returned, brisk and bureaucratic.
[SEQ] Daily quest (Optional) — Observe 3 honest trades.
[SEQ] Status: Completed.
[SEQ] Reward: +5 XP, +1 Insight Eye progress (1/3).
He did not ask how it knew which trades were honest. He preferred a universe that could surprise him with its competence.
They took the long way home so Christian could try to remember the name of a street that had changed its mind about existing. Patricia hummed a line of something that had once been a prayer and now was a habit. Michelle peeled away toward the passage, calling over her shoulder, "Do not buy relics that explain themselves with breath. Or monks who fit in drawers."
"Or ducks with pockets," Thibault added.
"Especially ducks with pockets," she said, and vanished into the bookstalls like a whisper shelved.
The workshop greeted them—warm with a day's worth of labor. Christian set the bottle near a lamp chimney and watched how the filament and flame spoke to each other. Patricia adjusted the wick so the light softened. Thomas climbed back onto his stool. The coin on the table and the knot in his shoe resumed their argument about who was more important.
He practiced stillness until the need to perform let go. He practiced the press of not falling with nothing at risk. In the bottle, the filament hummed, a fine wire matching the room's breathing.
The final pane promised nothing extra.
[SEQ] Confluence — Umbral — Black (Grade I) [stable].
[SEQ] Next unlocks require mobility and trial.
Patricia kissed the top of his head as she passed, because this was a house where you paid your taxes on time. Doorway-leaning, Thibault arranged himself as the street's expert witness.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we test the butcher's smile."
Thomas looked at the bottle's filament and watched how it curved toward the lamp.
He let the day fold itself up.