Lists made better armor than speeches.
Michelle spread paper on the workbench; Thibault turned the pencil into a baton; Christian set down a coil of wire with the reverence of a man introducing a future hinge to its vocation. Patricia had already packed the basket that solves three problems before you name them: rags, bread, thermos.
"Teams," Michelle said, sleeves already rolled. "Grates, buckets, chalk, lights."
"Add morale," Thibault said. "I am available for jokes and carrying heavy things dramatically."
Christian drew a quick diagram of a hinged grate—two plates, a pivot that could be lifted fast by a single person. "Pride cracks when it's tired," he said, tapping the old grate sketch. "So we will install pivots that respect humility."
Thomas traced the route on the neighborhood plan—Verre, Chant, the hunched alley that pretended it didn't connect the two. He marked the stubborn drains with little x's and the ones that liked attention with circles. The brass key Michelle had given him sat in his palm and cooled his blood when thoughts tried to hurry.
At dusk, the work night began the way all wise nights begin: with brooms in the hands of people who know how to use them.
The Prefecture inspector arrived with a ledger that had learned to accept rain. "We're calling this a civic rehearsal," she said. "So if anyone asks, we're practicing being good at living here."
"I could use more rehearsals for that," said a grocer, rolling up his sleeves.
The old chalk lady appeared out of an angle, as if angles grew her. She tapped the curb by the worst grate—triangle, dot—and the air felt counted.
They pried up the first iron square. It hissed as if offended to be woken for its own good. Stone Mantle brushed Thomas's bones without being asked; he borrowed only enough to be a reliable fulcrum while Christian eased the slab to one side. The gutter revealed its honest biography: rags, leaves, a spool of string that had dreamed of being a serpent, a medal fallen from a chest that had been braver than its owner.
"Buckets," Michelle said, and the alley turned into a line dance. Scoop, pass, dump. The water itself made small opinions; when a trickle tried to flee sideways under a lip of stone, Thomas pressed the idea of stay level into the lip and the trickle reconsidered mischief.
Patricia ran spoons and slices of bread along the line as if morale could be eaten. It can.
From the corner, a boy in a Syndic ribbon watched with the narrowed eyes of an apprentice learning which parts of pride to keep. When he reached for the chalk marks with his toe, Michelle's voice sliced the air without cutting him. "Do that and the river will learn your name first."
He stepped back, unsure whether threatened or blessed. "We were told… the lines are… political."
"The lines are work," she said. "Politics is a rumor about work."
The second grate coughed up a wedge of cloth that had wanted to become a second grate. Thibault dragged it clear with a sound like regret letting go. "This one hates us personally," he announced.
"Probably because you're handsome," Michelle said, and his grin bought another twenty minutes of shoulder.
Thomas angled Christian's pocket lamp so the light found the silt at its laziest. The warmth in his forefinger—Vitre Saint Fragment—answered with a clean, disciplined line. He did not cast Lantern Thrust. He borrowed the idea of straightness and made the gutter confess its low places.
[SEQ] Daily (Optional) — Illuminate & trace: 3 problem spots marked.
[SEQ] Reward: +5 XP; Insight Eye — Progress (3/3).
The pane's note landed with more weight than its number. Insight Eye settled behind his eyes like a lens that prefers honesty: a knack for telling care from pretense, steady hands from hands that will drop things when no one is watching.
He used it immediately. At the third site—a narrow corner drain that lied about its own shape—the pile of rags wobbled wrong. Not rags. A rope of filth coiled with intent, trying to bolt.
"Noyeur," he thought without pleasure. He did not want it. He owned it.
He let the Rope Memory in his new Umbra twitch once. The coil tangled itself as if embarrassed and lay down like a dog who had remembered obedience too late. Two laborers lifted it with shovels and took it a polite distance away.
"Merci," one said, to no one he could name.
"Open mouths," Christian called from the first site. He had bolted the hinge-plates in place and tested the lift twice—one-hand, quick, a dignity that even tired people can perform. He chalked a little arrow beside it: LIFT HERE. The chalk line glowed with satisfaction when the old lady added her triangle.
The Syndic saint-face arrived long enough to offer advice on angles he had not dug. He held the brass fork like a municipal blessing. "You should have installed these years ago," he said.
"We will order the past to do better in the morning," Michelle said. "Tonight we order our hands to."
The inspector hid another smile behind her ledger.
The fourth grate fought hardest. Bolts seized where rust had married mischief. Thomas set his palm on the iron's cool shoulder and pressed be useful with Authority. It loosened by a hair, enough for Christian to coax patience into the thread with oil and whispered profanity.
Halfway through the night, the sky decided to practice without malice. A thin rain came and tested the new mouths. Water took the offers politely.
"Look," Thibault said, proud. "It's learning manners."
"No," Patricia said, pouring tea. "We are."
By the last site, fatigue had entered the chat. The bucket line dropped a rhythm; a boy sat down too hard; someone's boot argued with a puddle and lost credibility. Thomas held still at the edge and let the work find his breath. Authority is most polite when it comes last: he pressed a final settle into the worst puddle's rim, and its proud attempts to escape flattened into usefulness.
"Enough," the inspector declared. "Night One concludes before Night One grows teeth."
They chalked the thresholds on all four corners of Verre and Chant as if drawing rules for a game the city would win by playing. The chalk lady's marks framed them like signatures.
[SEQ] Quest — Work Nights (1/3): Completed.
[SEQ] Ledger — Public work performed: +Credit (minor).
A Syndic boy approached Michelle awkwardly. "I… didn't scuff the chalk," he said, looking like a confession that wanted a lighter sentence.
"Good," she said. "Do you want to learn how to draw it instead?"
He nodded, relieved as if released from a bad oath. She put the stub in his hand and guided his fingers—triangle, dot—like writing a letter to the city itself.
"Tomorrow," she said to Thomas, quiet. "We do the alley behind the bookbinder. The flood there thinks it's art."
"Tomorrow," he said.
The night folded itself away with the contented groan of a house sitting down. Gargouilles on the roof pretended they hadn't watched, but their stone mouths looked less sarcastic.
Thomas slept under the pleasant weight of sweat that had bought something real.
(…to be continued)