SINS.

By noon, the festival had swallowed the street whole.

Smoke rose from grills and carts, thick with the smell of frying dough, roasted meat, sugar, spice, everything loud and indulgent and alive. Music thumped from speakers set up on corners. People packed the street shoulder to shoulder, laughing, shouting over one another, greeting relatives they hadn’t seen in years like no time had passed at all.

Aria stepped into it like she’d been holding her breath for months and could finally exhale.

Her family showed up in waves. Aunts she barely remembered. Uncles who still called her by childhood nicknames. Cousins twice removed who hugged her like they’d grown up together. Hands pulled her this way and that. Voices overlapped. Laughter echoed off brick walls and windows strung with lights.

She let herself disappear into it.

She helped her mother in the kitchen first, rolling dough, dipping pastries in syrup, stealing bites when her mother wasn’t looking. Sugar stuck to her fingers. Her moth