The quiet ended at noon.
In Stonebridge-on-Rell, the market bells had just finished their cheerful clang when the sound changed—everything humming at once, shutters, awnings, voices—then thinning into a single held note you felt in your teeth. Pigeons lifted in a ragged boil. A child dropped a pear and did not notice it roll.
The cobbles in the central square darkened as if someone had poured night into their seams. Lines met lines, angles finding purpose, until the flagstones sketched a perfect circle blacker than shadow. Heat bled out of the air so fast that breath turned visible for one stunned heartbeat.
Then heat returned like a fist.
