Paris stretched out before them like a luminous beast, pulsating and unaware of the two shadows from another world observing it. Modern skyscrapers, with their glass facades reflecting the last rays of twilight, stood proudly alongside century-old Haussmannian buildings. On the boulevards, car headlights paraded like hurried fireflies, tracing ephemeral lines of fire in the growing darkness.
In a narrow, damp alley in the 14th arrondissement, hidden between two decrepit buildings, Ygdrasyle looked up at the Parisian sky. He studied the position of the moon, barely visible behind a veil of low clouds, before pulling on the sleeve of his black coat, a mechanical gesture betraying an inner tension he was struggling to control.
