It smelled like drowned linen and rat-logic. It dragged itself in with hands that wanted to be rope—fingers of thread and sewer-silt, a face that faced and unfaced. Old tales named many mouths for it: noyeurs, égout-gnats, drowned men's memories given elbows. The market would have called it an incident.
Thomas did not flee. He had come for a door; doors deserve guests who don't shout. He pressed Stone Mantle to the edges of his intention—just enough to be weight where weight keeps you.
The thing swung an arm made mostly of wish. He stepped into the gap where wishes fail. He put two fingers not on flesh—it had none—but on outline. Umbra Bind asked whether this would be rude.
[SEQ] Umbra Bind (I) — Eligible
[SEQ] Target: Noyeur's Shadow (minor). Hold: 2 s.
[SEQ] Risk: Cold drain; backlash (splash).
Two seconds is a fair price if you counted them first. He held one at the wrist, two at the elbow, and asked Sequana politely if this debt belonged in his ledger.
Rivers dislike thieves. They like correct custody.
[SEQ] Umbra Bind (I) — Success.
[SEQ] Umbra acquired: Noyeur (Minor).
[SEQ] Trait: Siphon Chill (brief slow); Rope Memory (tangle).
The outline softened, then joined the cool place in his attention where the Red-Guard Captain had taken up residence. Cold requested lodging. He assigned it a corner.
The Dame watched from the right distance for learning. "You collect on brinks," she said. "Useful. Expensive."
"I'm an accountant with a flexible definition of revenue," he said.
She tipped her head toward the door that was really a seam. "Bring your witness at the eleventh bell on their next after-hours," she said. "Let the Syndics speak and ask the river to change in public. We will show them what public means to water."
"Will the Catacombs take a tithe?" he asked.
"They always do," she said. "Bring exact change."
He let the seam forget it was open and stepped back into the arcade. Pigeons resumed their voter meeting. The watchman found something interesting across the street and made it his problem. The oldest cat closed its eye, satisfied.
He walked home under a sky buttoning itself to gray. The pane wrote in a margin.
[SEQ] Quest — After-Hours Arbitration (seeded).
[SEQ] Objective: Witness Syndic proposal re: Eau. Outcome: Ledger shift (public).
[SEQ] Bonus: Hidden Gate → Shadow Jump (I) unlock condition: Witness present.
At the door, Michelle waited in the posture of someone pretending she'd just arrived. "You found it," she said.
"I found work," he said.
"Same," she said, and held up a sheaf of oaths with five different handwritings and one marginal drawing of a squirrel stealing a seal.
Patricia let them in with soup and stipulations. Christian put a small wrench exactly where a small wrench belongs. Thibault asked whether the door had been nice and whether it had paid rent.
"Soon," Thomas said. "We will collect."
Under everything, the river added up small mercies and small audacities and found the day's math unoffensive.
He slept with Stone Mantle less shy in his bones, a minor noyeur sulking in his attention, and the clear idea that the city would ask for precision in public, soon.