Not English. Not any language the linguists could name. But the cobblestones hummed. The river shivered. And the streetlamps turned a soft, living gold.

During that time, anyone who touched the water saw a version of their life they had abandoned—the thesis unwritten, the love unfollowed, the friend they had let drift away downstream. When the river resumed its course, people stumbled onto the banks, weeping, laughing, holding strangers.

And then they asked it to think.

That was when the government noticed. They sent a team to “audit” Cambridge One. The team arrived on a Tuesday. By Thursday, they had quit their jobs and enrolled in a medieval history course.