Waiting eventually changed its texture.
Aria felt it before she understood it. What had once been quiet observation had thickened into something heavier, denser, like air before a storm that had not yet decided where to fall. Palermo still moved. Cars still traced their usual routes. Shops opened and closed. Voices rose and fell in familiar rhythms. But beneath that surface, something strained.
The city was no longer simply watching.
It was holding.
Holding questions. Holding resentment. Holding hope that had nowhere to land yet.
Aria noticed it in the way people spoke more carefully now, not out of fear, but calculation. She noticed it in the delay between messages sent and replies received. In the way conversations paused, as if waiting for permission that never came.
The council noticed it too.
Marcelo arrived early one morning, jacket still buttoned, eyes sharper than usual. He did not sit immediately.
"They are moving again," he said.
