March 14, 1807.
Rue de Grenelle. Ministry of Provisions. 06:27 a.m.
Garnier changed gloves every morning.
Not because of protocol — but because of the scent.
It clung to him.
Bitter. Soft. Familiar.
Not sweat. Not rot.
Flour.
He'd washed his hands three times before dressing — first with vinegar, then with salt soap, then with lemon peel. Still, when he tugged the linen gloves over his fingers, the powder whispered back from his nails.
He stood before the mirror, adjusting his cuffs. His uniform was perfect. Gold-threaded. Smooth.
But he didn't look at his reflection.
He stared at his hands.
> "You ever bake, Claude?" he asked his manservant behind him.
> "Only once, Minister," the old man replied, setting tea.
> "It sticks to you," Garnier said. "Even years later.
Like it has memory."
Claude hesitated.
> "Muck leaves. Ink fades. But flour…"
"It lives under the skin."
Garnier blinked.
He hadn't meant to say that aloud.
> "Leave me," he muttered.
Claude bowed. Closed the door.
Garnier turned back to the mirror.
He raised his right hand. Flexed the fingers.
There — just above the knuckle — a faint gray line.
He tugged off the glove.
Stared.
The line remained.
A crease of ash.
He rubbed it. Hard. With the edge of his sleeve.
It stayed.
On his desk, a note had arrived.
No seal. No ink.
Just a sheet of rough brown paper.
And pressed into its center — a single handprint.
Made not with blood. Not with soot.
With bread.
He touched the paper. His fingers trembled.
It was warm.
---
He staggered back, knocking the chair behind him.
His pulse thundered. His chest locked.
He pressed both hands flat against the polished desk, steadying himself.
Flour drifted down from his sleeves — invisible at first.
But on the dark wood, the dust drew lines.
Not random.
Words.
Just three:
> YOU FED THEM.
Garnier backed away, breath shaking. He tore open his drawer — pulled out lye soap, scrubbed until his palms turned raw, until blood broke through the nail beds.
The mark faded.
But when he looked again—
The handprint remained.
On the paper. On the desk.
And now—
On the mirror.
---
March 14, 1807.
Archives du Nord. Sublevel 2. 09:12 a.m.
Inspector Renaud preferred cold rooms.
They kept the ink dry, the hands stiff, the mind alert.
But this morning the archives felt wrong — not cold, but clammy. The kind of damp that soaked into the ledgers and bones.
He adjusted his glasses and turned back to the registry book.
> "District 11. Shipment 14-C. Delivered February 27th."
"Two tons. White flour. Declared clean."
Except it hadn't been.
The original entry, written by a junior clerk weeks ago, was still faintly visible.
He'd crossed it out. Rewrote it in his own hand.
Cleaned. Certified. Sanitized.
But now, as he leaned in —
The first line had returned.
Ghost ink.
The words he'd erased were rising again.
> "13.7 tons. Not suitable for consumption."
"Redirected to Faubourg 6."
"Authorization: Renaud."
He rubbed his eyes.
> "I changed that."
His voice echoed softly.
He flipped the page.
Shipment 15-A.
He had falsified it last week. Just names. Nothing criminal. Just safe.
But the page was wrong again.
Under the altered weight, something had appeared. A word in looping charcoal:
"Rot."
He slammed the book shut.
The dust rose around him in a swirl, too dark, too deliberate.
He coughed.
Then reached for the firebox.
The flames took the ledger without protest.
But as he watched the binding blacken, something cracked in his ear.
A high-pitched scratching — like charcoal against wood.
He turned.
On the far wall of the archive, where no one had written in years, a phrase was being etched:
> "We remember your pages."
"So will the bread."
Renaud dropped the torch.
It clattered across the floor, and for a moment, the firelight caught his face in the polished steel of the shelving.
Not just his face.
His fingers.
They were coated again — not in soot. Not in ink.
In white dust.
And it wasn't from the books.
---
March 14, 1807.
Southern Rail Junction. Warehouse 4B. 14:40 p.m.
Sylvain had built his empire on silence.
Not political silence. Not moral silence.
Logistical silence. Routes that changed nightly. Codes that resembled invoices. Deliveries that never bore names — only weights, stamps, and timing.
He thought silence was immunity.
Until now.
The shipment came two hours early.
No seal. No manifest.
Just a crate.
He opened it alone, knife quick, hands precise.
Inside: flour sacks. Standard. Labeled correctly.
But the flour was warm.
Not room temperature.
Body temperature.
He reached in.
The flour parted easily. Not clumpy. Not wet.
Alive.
At the bottom of the crate was a folded linen cloth.
Wrapped in wax paper. No symbol.
He unwrapped it slowly.
Inside — a strip of bread crust.
Hard. Blackened.
Stamped with his name.
Not his full name.
Not Monsieur Sylvain Fournier, Quartermaster-General.
Just:
> "You."
And under it:
> "You knew.
You stayed.
You profited."
He stumbled backward.
The flour in the crate began to settle — as if breathing.
He stared down.
His boots were dusted now. The floor beneath him had gone white.
But it wasn't flour.
It was crushed paper.
He knelt. Brushed it aside.
Receipts.
Dozens of them. His own.
Each one a copy of deliveries he'd signed. Each one stamped with a fingerprint.
He tried to scream — but the room swallowed it.
---
That night, Sylvain bought a train ticket south.
Changed his name. Paid triple.
But on the platform, as he waited — coat pulled tight, hat low — he saw a child holding a loaf of bread.
And pressed into the crust:
Seven black lines.
Not printed.
Branded.
---
In the dining car, he ordered nothing.
But when the waiter cleared the table next to him, he noticed something tucked into the linen folds.
A napkin. Folded.
And on it, drawn in coal and flour:
> "There is no border below the skin."
"You carry the guilt with you."
He didn't sleep that night.
The motion of the train felt like breath.
And in every reflection, the windows whispered back his name —
not the one he had bought.
The one he had buried.
---
March 14, 1807.
Basilique Saint-Denis. Sacristy Hall. 17:55 p.m.
Cardinal Vassel had always trusted rituals more than faith.
Incense hid the smell of rot. Latin concealed the tremor of doubt. Vestments stitched from silk and gold did more to inspire awe than the parables ever could. And awe — awe held people still.
But lately, silence had crept into the ritual itself.
Not the holy kind.
The other kind.
---
He stood now in the sacristy, alone, fastening the final buttons of his cassock. The mirror caught him from the waist up — pale hands, papery skin, eyes red from lack of sleep. He had written his sermon six times. Burned five.
The sixth was on the lectern now. A sermon on mercy. On forgiveness. On bread broken in fellowship.
He stepped toward the door.
Paused.
Something was wrong.
He looked back at the cassock sleeve.
A mark.
Faint, almost invisible — but present.
Seven lines. Fanned. Parallel. Curved slightly.
A palm print.
He checked the other sleeve.
Another.
Not soot. Not wine. Not candlewax.
Flour.
He tore off the cassock, gasping.
Underneath — the same handprint, faintly marked on his undershirt.
> "No," he whispered. "No one's touched these robes."
He looked to the sermon on the lectern. The ink had bled.
The words had blurred.
One phrase remained clear:
> "Pekite, dum pueri vivunt."
(Bake, while the children live.)
He hadn't written that.
He hadn't read that.
But it was there.
---
The bell rang once.
He stepped into the nave.
Congregants stood in quiet rows — not large in number, but still.
They didn't sit.
They didn't bow.
They watched.
He opened the book.
Cleared his throat.
But when he spoke—
His voice cracked.
> "Today we speak of guilt—"
A cough.
> "Of grace—"
Another cough.
He looked down. The pages were now blank.
He looked up.
In the pews, seven loaves of bread had been placed.
One on each aisle.
Identical.
Plain.
Marked.
No blood. No crosses.
Just handprints.
And silence.
---
He collapsed before the altar.
The vestments tangled at his feet.
His mouth moved, but no sound came.
The incense swung — but no smoke rose.
And outside, on the stone steps of the basilica, someone had placed a final message:
Carved into the bread's crust with a nail.
> "Not all who broke bread were innocent."
> "Some broke it from the bones of others."
---
That evening, Cardinal Vassel locked his chamber door.
And began writing his last confession.
Not to God.
Not to Rome.
To the children who could not eat.
He wrote until his hands cramped.
And when he slept, he dreamed of a chalice —
filled not with wine,
but with flour.