Market day lends a city more opinions. By midmorning, Lutetia was loudly correct about bread, shoes, and the proper distance to keep from other people's lives.
Patricia set the mission in simple French: "Groceries. Needles. Dignity." Christian added "a length of brass with fewer fantasies." Thibault promised to supervise jokes. Michelle met them at the mouth of the passage with pamphlets that apologized for their power.
They made a circuit of the honest stalls first—salt fish (announces itself in a radius), onions (make you remember your eyes), a bookbinder with more paste on his fingers than he admitted. Thomas counted exits again because he could not bear not to.
On their second pass the Syndics were louder. Blue ribbons flagged from poles like polite thunderstorms. A placard read ASSEMBLÉE COOPÉRATIVE — SOIR, SOUS L'ARCADE in letters that pretended to be for everyone's benefit.
"After-hours," Michelle read, nose wrinkling as if the letters had a smell. "The Dames will have opinions."
"The Dames always have opinions," Thibault said. "I appreciate their clarity."
A woman with a ledger-face and a Syndic pin handed out oaths printed on cream paper. I SWEAR TO USE MY ABILITIES FOR THE COLLECTIVE GOOD, the top line shouted in a font that had never paid rent.
"Collective good," Christian mused, turning the paper sideways like a mechanic examining a part. "Who collects? Who spends?"
"Same people," Michelle said. "Different hats."
The oath had a blank for Name and a space for Significant Talent (if declared). A third box asked for Lineage or Witness in a way that made Thomas's skin go neat and cold. Sequana disliked false families. So did he.
A narrow man with clean fingernails offered Thomas a pen as if to a younger version of himself whose compliance he might admire. "Sign for your household," he said gently, like someone offering a vaccine.
Patricia moved between them with a smile no one could afford to argue with. "He signs in ink that is not on your table," she said. "Merci."
The man reassessed his calculations and attempted a bow inside his bones. It looked painful. He retreated to prey on someone else's politeness.
"Rule," Thibault said softly. "Don't give strangers your future in a box on a form."
They reached the relic row again. It had grown a tent—REGISTRATION & APPRAISAL—where the relic seller had discovered an ancestor and married himself to it. A line of hopeful people held items they believed in: a broken flute; a tin soldier with a story too big for its metal; a jar of river pebbles convinced they were gems.
"Paper and power are getting married," Michelle said. "May they be very happy far away from me."
A commotion built toward the square's center—too tidy for panic, too messy for order. The Prefecture had set up a table and discovered lines were theoretical. Two inspectors with brass badges tried to organize oxygen. A clerk beside them tore papers from a pad with such vigor that paper began to doubt pulp.
At the front, a boy stood on tiptoe to see nothing worth seeing and started to go gray. Pressure hid inside politeness. The crowd prepared to be furniture.
Thomas took Michelle's sleeve—two squeezes—Stop. She translated signal into presence and stepped like a door into the boy's future. Patricia matched her immediately, a magic she claimed: she created space where there had been none and filled it with competence. Christian arrived with his shoulders, forged in the same shop as doorframes.
Thomas found the knot: a brick lip where the Prefecture table had been wedged too near the curb. He pressed remember being level into the bricks; asked the left foot of the table to recall modesty; encouraged a dropped register book to open its cover just enough to snag the clerk's next step.
The line rearranged—less obedient, more possible. The boy breathed a cheap breath. The inspector with puddle-respecting boots looked up and said, "Merci," into the air, in a tone that knew anonymity pays better than praise.
[SEQ] Ledger — Prevented crush, kept flow: +Credit (minor).
A tall man with a Syndic ribbon noticed the crowd's gentle reconstitution and decided he had been responsible. He lifted his hands to bless the harvest of order. No one listened. Healthy city.
They drifted off the pressure line. Michelle pressed the brass key back into Thomas's hand. "Hold this again," she said. "I want to see where doors are when I'm not looking."
He took it and stood where two shadows crossed: the stall's tarp line and the inspector's wagon shadow. The world made a triangle and asked if he could draw one side without a pencil. He didn't move. He only said I see you with his attention. The not-door agreed to be an idea. It would be a door later when the hour learned company.
"Good," Michelle said. "If it ever opens, step through like you meant to."
"Witness?" he asked.
"Witness," she said. "I'll count."
(…to be continued)