Night finally settled over Saint-Rémont, burying the third floor in a thick weave of shadows. When Alphard began to stir back to consciousness, it wasn't his sight that hit him first, but a deafening headache — a rhythmic, violent throb that seemed to drill straight through his temples from the inside.
He wasn't on the floor. Someone had moved him onto an old plush sofa, worn thin and smelling faintly of dust and stored paper. Prying his eyes half open, he made out Antonie's silhouette against the dim light of the room. The man watched him in silence, arms crossed, studying the boy's pale, drained face as his breathing gradually steadied.
"Are you all right? What happened, Alphard?"
Finding his voice again, his vision cleared fully, and he saw the shop stood without any visible damage.
Then, all at once, the memories flooded back, and trembling, half in tears, Alphard began to recount what had happened.
"I heard — I heard whispers, and then a woman, or... a witch, appeared and tore everything apart."
Antonie opened his arms into a warm embrace, and Alphard felt the tears spill over as he returned it with shaking hands.
After a few minutes, Alphard steadied himself and got up right away, borrowing one of Antonie's bicycles to head home. He pulled on his top hat and coat, ready to leave, but not before asking what time he'd need to come back the next day.
"You sure about this? You can keep the whole day's earnings, if you'd rather."
"Don't worry about it, sir — I'll take what's owed to me, nothing more. I'll be back at dawn tomorrow, and thank you for everything you did."
The city stretched out before him in the dark, an endless expanse of shadow. As he moved through the dim avenues, an inner cold trailed him, one no coat could hope to shake off. It wasn't the evening breeze — it was something deeper, a dull, needling chill that started at the base of his spine and spread out to the very tips of his fingers.
Every flicker of yellow gaslight he passed sent a fresh shiver through him, an involuntary reminder of the emptiness he'd seen right before he fell.
It didn't take him long to reach home, exhausted and drained, and climbing the stairs with clumsy steps, he made it to his room, barely managing to shed his coat and hat before collapsing onto his bed, falling into a deep, comfortable sleep, the events of the night forgotten until morning.
The next morning, Alphard went through his usual routine — bathing, dressing for work. Just as he was about to leave the house, though, his uncle stopped him from the dining room, tea in hand.
"Alphard, come here — I need to talk to you."
"Uncle, I have to get to work. I already found a job, remember."
Something distant, something hard to put a name to, stirred inside him, urging him to brush past his uncle's voice. Without bothering to explain himself, Alphard closed the distance by only a step or two, stopping right at the edge of his own urgency.
He gave no sign of easing up; his posture, tight and hurried, made it clear enough that his time was short. Still, he met his uncle's eyes, giving him his full, undivided attention there in the morning light.
"Are you feeling all right? You've seemed strange these past few days — Helena's noticed it too. Ever since those officers came to question you, everything's felt off to me."
Looking away, a wave of helplessness and guilt washed over Alphard at hearing those words from someone who mattered so much to the memory of the man whose name he now carried. Even under that weight, he didn't waver, didn't let himself confess the truth, some part of him convinced his very life might depend on holding the line.
I don't think I'll ever be able to tell them the truth about where I came from. My chest tightens every time I look at either of them — somehow, I've grown attached, even though I'm still a stranger here. I'll be home soon. I have to be.
"I'm fine, honestly. Just been stressed about work and everything else going on. It's not that something's wrong — it's just hard, finding my own footing for the first time. When Helena goes through the same thing, she'll understand, and I'll be there for her."
Alexi caught the weight behind Alphard's words instantly. A flash of memory carried him back years, reminding him just how unforgiving life could feel when youth gave way to adulthood and responsibility landed all at once.
Swept up in a deep concern for his beloved nephew, Alexi didn't press further with questions or reproach; he simply rose and pulled him into a firm, steadying embrace. At the contact, the storm churning through Alphard's mind seemed to still.
The warmth of the embrace smothered the icy terror he'd been carrying since the night before, offering him something solid, something to hold onto that kept his sanity, in that final instant, from breaking apart entirely.
"Don't worry. Nothing's changed. I'm just growing up, that's all."
Alexi smiled and nodded, understanding exactly what Alphard meant. It was only natural, for someone his age, that things would shift this much. He wasn't a boy anymore. He was a man now.
Alphard pulled back, said his goodbyes, and left for the shop on his bicycle. The morning air struck his skin, sending a sudden shiver through him. He paid it no mind and kept riding.
Arriving at the shop, he found Antonie sorting through papers, setting some aside. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and, with a calm, easy smile, tried to leave the night before behind him.
"Good morning, Mr. Fournier."
"Morning, Alphard. How are you feeling?"
"Better, actually. Turns out it was some kind of hallucinogenic mushroom I ate at lunch. Sorry about the scare."
Without so much as a flicker of hesitation, Alphard reached for the same excuse that had already gotten him out of trouble with Helena days before. He delivered the lie with practiced ease, stripping it of any weight that might have raised suspicion.
His only goal was to defuse the tension before it could build into anything more, and the move worked flawlessly — the concern dissolved instantly, and Antonie accepted the story without a trace of doubt.
"Happened to me a couple times too, back in the day. Watch yourself around the mid-tier cafés — most are clean enough, but a few reuse dirty dishes to cut costs."
"Noted."
With nothing else to attend to, Alphard headed straight for the back courtyard, pulled on his full uniform, and prepared for the day, loading up a hundred newspapers to sell. Antonie had given him a map marking the route through the middle-class districts.
"Alphard, before you go — I need you to stop by a place for me. Le Caveau des Sages, a bar in the Bercy district, Rue Saint-Émilion. Since it's Independence Day and the Dance of Heroes is tonight, you'll finish early — but I need you to deliver this letter to a Mrs. Charlotte White first."
Taking the envelope in hand, a faint air of mystery settled over the moment, and for an instant Alphard wondered whether the sender might be someone closer to his own situation than it seemed. But the thought slipped to the back of his mind, overtaken by something far more unsettling — the errand was leading him to the exact same bar he'd already planned to visit on his own, with no one having to send him there at all.
In his mind, the piercing stare of that strange man from days before resurfaced — the same man who'd handed him the note bearing that very bar's name, etched in dark lettering.
"Once you drop off the letter, don't bother coming back — head straight home, and clean up your uniform while you're at it."
Wasting no time, Alphard climbed onto the bicycle and followed the map's route to the letter. He pedaled briskly through the streets and avenues, managing to place more than sixty papers before the sun began to sink.
As the hours wore on, the sky over Saint-Rémont bled once more into that same deep, familiar red. But the city didn't sink into its usual quiet dark — people began pouring out onto the streets instead, lighting rows of candles at every corner to mark Independence Day, and above all, the long-awaited Dance of Heroes.
Whether in the noise of crowded taverns, the vastness of the Plaza of Heroes, or at the doorsteps of the humblest homes, Saint-Cyr seemed to breathe as one. For a single night, the entire nation drew together in a shared embrace, the cold divisions of class forgotten entirely.
Before the celebrations began, Alphard sat on a bench near a park, his bicycle resting against a large tree beside him. Watching the crowds gather in the distance, he readied himself for the bar, sinking first into the deepest corners of his own thoughts.
I need to be ready. I'll deliver this letter to Mrs. Charlotte White and leave — but not before I do some digging of my own. So many strange things have happened lately. Why did I run into that old friend of Mr. Villeroy's, of all people? Why did Mr. Blake's stare feel so much like the man who handed me that note?
If Mr. Blake really is connected to this bar somehow, then something's going on here. Most likely, he's been planning all of this to dig deeper into the cathedral incident — which would explain why he's taken such an interest in me.
This letter could just be an excuse — or it could mean nothing at all. Maybe being related to Marcus Quinn, and everything tied to the Dance of Heroes, was just another excuse to get close to me. That might be reading too much into it. But if the figure I saw really was Mrs. Charlotte, and this whole connection through Mr. Fournier was arranged by Mr. Blake too — whatever's going on, I'll find the truth.
Pulling himself out of his thoughts, he stood, straightened his clothes, and, unhurried, took hold of his bicycle and rode toward the bar, watching the spectacle unfolding around him as it began.
Turning onto Rue Saint-Émilion, the festive noise took on a warmer, more intimate quality, the street unfolding into a maze of old stone warehouses and alleyways carrying the scent of damp wood and aged liquor.
On one of the more sheltered corners, where the festival candles cast long shadows against the walls, the bar stood waiting.
Its façade, dark brick framed by Victorian arches, bore a wrought-iron sign that swayed gently under the night breeze, its name catching the light with every motion. Through the frosted glass of the entrance, a warm, amber glow spilled out, carrying with it the muffled murmur of conversation.
Alphard brought the bicycle to a stop in front of the entrance, feeling that crossing this threshold wouldn't just mean delivering a letter — it would mean stepping straight into the heart of the mystery itself.
Pushing open the heavy oak door felt like leaving the cold of the night behind entirely, stepping into a small world of warmth and shadow.
The inside of the bar smelled of roasted beer, candle wax, and sweet pipe tobacco. Along the main wall stretched an imposing mahogany bar, its dark, polished surface catching and throwing back the amber glow of the yellow-shaded gas lamps.
Taken aback by what his eyes found, Alphard couldn't help the strange mix of warmth and bitterness that settled into his chest.
Beneath its festive surface, the bar simmered with something far less cheerful — beneath the toasts and laughter, the air was thick with sour arguments and the violent scrape of benches dragged across the floor, the unmistakable prelude to disputes that felt ready to boil over at any moment.
Deafening himself to the chaos around him, Alphard refused to let the tension pull him off course. He pushed forward with purpose through the sea of arguments until he found himself standing close to an imposing figure — a tall man, heavily built, with a thick mane of hair brushing the line of his back.