Alphard woke to the murmur of a grey, rainy morning. Beyond the windowpanes, the streets lay flooded, raindrops drumming with a steady, insistent rhythm, while a heavy blanket of leaden clouds smothered the sky, snuffing out any hint of sun. A current of icy wind slipped through the gap in the window, carrying with it a cold sharp enough to fully wake him.
Despite the miserable weather, he had no choice but to get up and dress as usual, cursing under his breath at the nearly freezing water he had to wash his face with.
Past that initial discomfort, the morning carried on with apparent normalcy. A little later, watching threads of water slide down the glass, Alphard let a faint smile cross his face at a simple but striking realization — this was the first time he'd witnessed rain in this new world.
He was about to head out when his uncle Alexi stopped him with breakfast already on the table. In front of him, Alexi set down a bowl of onion soup, its smell enough to stir his appetite instantly. Alphard didn't have the heart to refuse, especially once he noticed the telltale hint of "demon spice" — a seasoning named not for anything mystical or sinister, but for the searing burn it left on the tongue.
Alphard walked over to the table at an easy pace and settled in to eat alongside his uncle. The spice wasted no time claiming his tongue in a searing warmth, forcing him to alternate every spoonful with generous, cooling gulps of water.
"Hah, hah!" his uncle laughed, watching Alphard's face flush red with every bite.
"Don't laugh at me. This is way too much."
"That's normal — happened to me too, back in the day. You get used to it eventually, and now I'm basically an expert with this soup."
Alphard let out a small laugh of his own, poking fun at his own low tolerance as he kept alternating burning spoonfuls with desperate gulps of water. The bowl didn't last him long. Once he finished, he crossed to the sink to wash his dishes; the icy water running through the pipes hit his hands again, sending a quick, involuntary shiver through him.
Alphard said his goodbyes to his uncle and grabbed a simple black umbrella before stepping through the door. The instant his foot touched the outside, the frigid morning air struck him full force, shaking him with a chill even sharper than before.
Wasting no time, he caught a carriage toward Veilleurs, sheltering from the weather and speeding up the trip. Once in the district, he walked with a firm step toward the station, where, as expected, his first priority was tracking down Madeleine.
He couldn't find her anywhere, though, and guessed she must already be down on the lower level. Undecided, he weighed whether to head for the elevator on his own, projecting an air of calm, or wait for someone he knew to open the way for him without stirring up trouble.
Crossing that particular line wasn't easy — no one in the building recognized him yet, and one wrong move could easily trigger a hostile reaction. Discretion was his best asset here; he needed to move carefully, step by step, and earn the building's trust if he ever wanted proper access to valuable information.
Just as he was bracing himself for a long wait, Philip appeared, dressed in his usual uniform. Spotting Alphard in the lobby, he flashed a friendly smile and crossed to meet him, clearly surprised he hadn't already gone down to the lower floor.
"Hey, Alphard. What are you doing up here?"
"Good morning, Mr. Philip. Nothing much — I was just waiting for someone to walk me down to the underground level. Didn't want to look suspicious wandering down on my own."
"Don't worry about it. I'll take you."
Philip led Alphard toward the elevator without wasting any time. As the cabin descended, a faintly awkward silence settled over the cramped space. Though Philip carried himself with total, unbothered calm, Alphard felt a hazy sense of unease. He found it hard to wrap his head around the irony of the moment — how could someone carrying such a staggering abyss of power move through the world so casually, like any ordinary person?
Working up the nerve to break the silence, he had little choice but to bring up a work-related topic — one Alphard himself barely understood.
"So, what's your Door?"
Philip studied him for a second, a flicker of confusion crossing his face, as if sensing some uncomfortable question hanging in the air. But his expression eased almost immediately. He brushed the concern aside without much thought, assuming it needed no real explanation.
"Thought you already knew. Antonie should've told you."
"No, I never asked about that — I was too focused on my own first invocation."
"Same thing happened to me, actually. I was so nervous I ended up picking a Door completely at random."
"Which one did you choose?" Alphard asked, a faint spark of curiosity in his eyes, eager to hear the answer from such an elegant, peculiar figure.
"The Door of the Blood Moon. I'm Key 2 — it's called Red Moon."
Caught off guard by the detail, Alphard had never heard that Keys carried their own individual names, which led him to assume the naming must be tied intimately to the nature of the power itself. Still, he chose not to assume too much; driven by curiosity, he broke the silence again to ask whether every single Key had its own specific name.
"Can't say for certain, honestly — there are a lot of Keys across a lot of different Doors — but yes, they do carry names, and they're either tied to the power itself, or they're just symbolic."
As the elevator opened, Philip pointed him toward where the boss could be found. Still, Alphard chose to put that meeting off; his real priority was finding Antonie, to ask for his help mastering his abilities. Philip said his goodbyes in the hallway, and Alphard walked with purpose toward Antonie's room, only to find no trace of him anywhere once he arrived.
Suddenly, Madeleine appeared out of nowhere, making him jump in surprise. Despite the initial jolt, Alphard recovered his composure within seconds, while she, visibly embarrassed, stammered out an apology.
"Don't worry about it," Alphard said, offering a reassuring smile.
"I really am sorry, Mr. Alphard. I just came to pick up a couple of things Antonie asked for."
"Do you know why he's not here?"
"He's over at the print shop. If you need to see him, you're welcome to come along — I'm actually headed there right now."
Alphard nodded. Adjusting his top hat with one hand and giving his umbrella a light shake as he walked, they climbed together to the ground floor and caught a carriage bound for Rue Valrose.
As Madeleine held a stack of documents meant for Antonie close to her chest, Alphard stayed quiet, lost in thought. The revelation that Keys carried individual names kept circling through his mind; the idea fascinated him, hinting that the bond between a user and their power ran far deeper than he'd first assumed.
"Sorry to ask, Mr. Alphard, but — have you opened your first Door yet?"
Madeleine's voice cut through his thoughts, pulling him abruptly out of his trance. Shaking off the daze, Alphard turned his attention to the question she'd just asked, noticing the way she pressed the stack of documents against her chest with an almost defensive firmness.
"Yes, I already invoked it. It was genuinely strange."
"That's amazing. What kind of abilities does it have?"
"Uh, I still don't really know how to use it properly. I'm just barely starting to learn — that's actually why I was looking for Mr. Antonie."
"That's so exciting. I hope I get to open my own first Door someday too."
Arriving on Rue Valrose, they headed straight for the print shop without delay. Inside, amid the smell of fresh paper and ink, they found Antonie busy stacking piles of newspapers, his face and hands marked with a few telltale smudges of ink.
"Hello, Mr. Antonie. How are you today?" Madeleine said, smiling.
"Hello, Madeleine. Hey, Alphard, what brings you here?"
"I've come to talk to you."
While Alphard stayed quiet, Madeleine handed over the documents she'd brought and helped him arrange them on a small table in the shop. Though she seemed to want to linger a bit longer, her duties back at the station didn't give her much room to spare. Her visit didn't stretch on for long, though she didn't leave without collecting the ten cents owed for the delivery first.
After clearing the clutter off the counter and washing the ink from his skin, Antonie turned back to Alphard, his mind now fully on whatever the young man had come to ask.
"So, tell me — what can I help you with?"
"I want you to guide me through practicing with my abilities. I need to understand how to handle them more effectively."
Antonie studied him with a touch of confusion, raising an eyebrow.
"That's a rather unusual request. By this point, you should already be handling your abilities almost instinctively — as naturally as breathing."
Those words struck a spark in Alphard's mind. Turning the matter over, weighing the reason behind that gap in his own understanding, he landed on the only logical conclusion: if he lacked the instinct everyone else simply took for granted, it had to be a direct consequence of being a transmigrator.