The last email left his outbox at 21:51. Typical. Thomas's brain logged the minute and filed it where it filed everything: under "control."
He slipped his laptop into a slim case, took the elevator down, and stepped out as rain blurred the city's neon lights. He cut straight to the Métro without meeting eyes. Faces were noise. Timetables were clean.
Line 14 hummed. The platform's digital clock flickered—2 min became 1 min, then stubbornly hovered, as if time could be bargained. A teenager leaned past the yellow strip to film his shoes. A man in a suit changed lanes the way bad drivers do: diagonally, entitled. Two buskers tried to make a guitar sound like a cutlery drawer.
Thomas stood a a step back from the glass, briefcase dangling at his side, body angled away from the press. His phone buzzed.
Manager:Pivot has last year's numbers. Fix before morning.
Thomas: I'll fix it. Good night.
Headlights glimmered in the dark tunnel, heralding the arrival of the subway. A rush of air pressed forward before the train itself, and its approach sent vibrations running through the platform. The doors trembled and opened. People surged.
The kid leaned farther, as if being young made him safe. The suited man cut across; heels squeaked; geometry failed.
Thomas didn't think. He calculated.
Angle of the fall ≈ 30° toward the gap. Kid's mass vs. his. Time to impact ≈ two breaths. If he pulled—two lives or none. If he didn't, that scream would share his bed for years.
He hooked his elbow under the kid's collarbone and yanked back, hard. Momentum took it from there. The platform edge kissed, then bit. His grip failed. He drove the boy sideways with everything he had.
Someone gasped for a scream. Rails and light flooded everything.
A ridiculous thought arrived on cue: If this were a webnovel, they'd blame Subway-kun. He didn't smile.
The subway cut the argument short.
Impact wasn't a blow; it was a contract finalized. Then there was water—cold, layered, full of current. The city pretended walls could keep a river in line. The river disagreed.
A pale pane settled in front of him.
[SEQ] Candidate located.
[SEQ] Ledger: empty.
[SEQ] Accept transfer to Sequana's current?
[SEQ] Y / N
A presence moved within the light. No voice—just pressure forming meaning, as if water spoke to stone.
Thomas Marc Lenoir, it said. Not a question.
Who are you?, he said to himself, amazed he could still think after dying.
Sequana, said the voice. The current beneath this city. I keep accounts of intention and outcome. I reroute what can be rerouted.
Reroute me where?
Forward, the river said, as if any other direction were childish. Not to the Paris you know. To its older mirror. You will receive ledger, tasks, and power. Contain whatever leaks through, protect what you choose, and pay the costs when necessary.
Price?
Ledgers. Credit for precision. Debt for harm. Penalties when you miss your marks. I will show panes. I will rarely speak.
If I refuse?
Then your story stops where it falls. Quietly. Briefly.
His life so far had been math in a coat; now it was math that bites.
If I accept, do you own me?
No, the river said. I keep the ledger. You make the entries.
He laughed in silence. Yes.
[SEQ] Acceptance recorded.
[SEQ] SEQUANA established.
When you're near an edge, I will speak, Sequana added, closer now. I'm fond of edges.
So am I, he thought.
Then we understand each other, the river said, letting him go.
—
He woke-up as bells rang and rain fell.
Light tiled the floor in squares from a leaded window. Linen and candle smoke hung in the air. Overhead, a beam carried its centuries easily. He didn't know the room, but he knew the city that shaped it—stone that remembers, water near enough to be a thought.
A woman's voice, breathless and victorious. "Regarde, Christian. Look at him."
A man, roughened by work. "Stubborn. Like you, Patricia."
Counting near the foot of the bed—careful, reverent. "One, two, three… ten. Ten. That's good, right?"
Patricia. Christian. Thibault. Names clicked into place. He tried a move and met tiny, strawberry-scale hands. Panic knocked; discipline answered. Babies who stare at air get noticed. He arranged his face into the neutral baby blank.
A cold glaze passed over his view—attention sharpening. The pane popped back, smaller, tidier.
[SEQ] Awakening complete.
[SEQ] Confluence — Umbral — Black (Grade I)
[SEQ] Pool: 100 | Regen: Low
[SEQ] Perks: Umbral Glide (incipient), Night Veil (+stealth scaling)
One noun where most systems use three. Confluence: bloodline, rank, skill fused. Umbral clicked; shadows had always been polite doors.
He let the pane fade and blinked like a newborn is supposed to. The world showed up oversized.
Patricia's hair kept escaping its pins, as if on principle. Christian's hands were a metalworker's map: scuffed, lined, used. Thibault—seven years older, assuming his careful count—leaned in like a knight before a tiny king.
"Salut, petit," Thibault whispered, as if secrets were the proper way to greet someone. "When you're big, I'll show you where the best bread is and how to jump the curb without getting yelled at."
"You will do no such thing", Patricia said, and kissed Thomas's forehead as if sealing terms. "You will show him kindness."
Kindness is expensive, Thomas thought by habit, and felt the thought soften under their faces. The ledger in his head made a new column without permission. Sometimes we can afford it.
Rain gnawed at the window; he heard the river's patience in it, like arithmetic done carefully, line by line.
Another pane nudged him, almost tender.
[SEQ] Orientation Task — Observe three repeating patterns in the next 24 h.
[SEQ] Reward: +1 Perception. Failure: Penalty (Catacombs).
[SEQ] Tip: Patterns are quieter than voices.
Penalty—like a surgical nick in his calm. He didn't need a tutorial to know Catacombs meant unkind places under kind streets.
You could warn me better, he thought, not sure whether he aimed it at the pane or the water behind it.
The answer seeped through the damp of the room. I do not warn, Sequana said. I offer terms.
Then your terms are accepted, he told it. I'll watch.
Patricia settled; the room settled with her. Christian steadied a blanket corner that didn't need steadying. Thibault counted eyelashes like proof of life. Outside, bells repeated the hour as reassurance more than measure.
Thomas obeyed the only command that had ever worked on him: a reasonable one. He slept.
—
He dreamed in lines: a subway map with unfamiliar stations—Les Passages, Montmartyr, Île du Cœur—sewn together by a silver river. At certain stops the map sank into bone. Small glyphs flashed wherever the skin thinned and something from elsewhere lifted a hand.
He woke to feed—baffled, dignified, like any newborn learning gravity. Between half-sleeps he collected Sequana's patterns: the thickening of rain before the bells; Patricia's three-beat tired laugh; Christian's lamp clicked before it lit. A baby's work is watching. Watching pays well.
He paid the pane the necessary attention.
[SEQ] Orientation complete.
[SEQ] Perception +1.
[SEQ] Title Seed progressed — Night Veil (1/3).
Generous for a bookkeeper, he thought.
Efficient for a newborn, Sequana replied, almost amused. We may get along.
The day flipped. Neighbors arrived warm, shoes dripping; one pinched his cheek—he logged it for payback when tall. Patricia sang instead of sleeping. Christian complained about orders from clean-fingered bosses. Thibault stood watch and briefed him on the best tree for hiding bad grades.
By evening, the rain softened to mist and the city looked preoccupied. A procession hummed two streets over, voices lacing the stone. The river's presence touched the room's edges—gentle, unintrusive; like a landlord fond of his tenants.
The pane waited until the house was only breath and settling wood.
[SEQ] Confluence verified — Umbral — Black (Grade I).
[SEQ] Next: Grade II trial (mobility required).
[SEQ] Umbra Bind: locked.
[SEQ] Lux: locked.
[SEQ] Penalty: Catacombs (on quest failure).
Locks were honest. They told you what you did not yet deserve.
Patricia dozed and woke and set a palm on his chest as if to keep him from slipping off the page. Christian trimmed a wick with a small knife and looked proud of the flame as if he'd invented it. Thibault practiced being unnoticed, failed, and grinned.
"Don't let the gargouilles in," he whispered, solemn as a spell.
Thomas almost smiled. Form an orderly queue, he told whatever watched from stone and glass. I have vows to write before I start collecting.
The bells changed the math again. He allowed it. The river signed off the day.
He slept, and the current carried him forward.