Afternoon softened the market's edges. The relic tent gained a queue of people ready to be told their keepsakes were obligations. The Prefecture table gained a stack of signatures that looked like they had been convinced rather than persuaded.
They circled back through honest stalls to teach their feet patience. Christian bartered a length of brass into dignity. Patricia purchased two extra candles and one extra kindness. Thibault acquired a joke about a broom that identified as a vector.
At the arcade mouth, a Syndic clerk with a crate and vowels gathered attention again. "Cooperative order will meet after-hours," he announced, "under this very arcade."
"After-hours," Thibault echoed, as if testing a stair. "Where oaths go to have their insides checked for money."
They went home the long way because that is how debt is paid in advance. Thomas conserved his noise for evening. He practiced making hands empty, which is harder than making them useful.
Supper became competence: soup with purpose; bread with patience; a lamp that agreed to be enough. Michelle knocked once, twice—code for this is either foolish or necessary—and slipped in to ask permission she would not require. "After-hours," she said. "The Syndics."
Patricia weighed faces and river, then set curfew where the tenth bell loses count. Which is to say: go, but bring the city back nicer than you found it.
[SEQ] Side Quest — Under the Arcade
[SEQ] Objective: Observe; do not be observed. Witness required.
[SEQ] Reward: Hidden Gate advances.
[SEQ] Penalty: Catacombs (minor) if noise is made.
"Noise is expensive," Thomas told the pane without speaking.
Good, Sequana answered without pane. You are becoming rich.
They went when the market lights decided they were stars and the rafters of the arcade wrote dark sentences against a lighter sky. At the steps, a Syndic boy in a hat that believed hats made authority extended a palm of stop. Thibault handed him a lie wrapped in courtesy—"Our mother is terrible with clocks; we're delivering her forgiveness to the pastry stall at once"—and the boy stood aside in the universal way of boys addressed in the language of mothers.
Under the arcade, oaths learned their second life. Men and women read each line as if the font might admit error. Some signed with brave strokes; some with knives disguised as pens; some did not sign and practiced the art of being present without being counted.
At a back table, a man with a pinched saint-face collected names and rang a tiny bell as if sound conferred sanctity. Michelle posted herself two stalls away with pamphlets that were knives in paper clothing. Thibault mapped exits with cartographer greed.
Thomas stood at the pillar where two shadows crossed like a kiss.
He didn't reach for the door. He disliked early. He watched the pen strokes make debts. The river laid a hand on the bottom of his breath and kept it from rising too fast.
When the bell above the arcade chimed the tenth—tired, pleased with the day—it did not lose count. The Syndic at the table pressed a seal onto an oath with the sort of flourish that believes flourish changes math.
Two shadows agreed in the corner of Thomas's eye. A seam in the world softened.
"Witness," Michelle said, voice so low it was geography.
He would step in a different hour. Doors should want you back. They left when the bell finished and the city translated itself into night.
The pane saved its applause for mornings. He appreciated restraint.