Semua Bab All the Names She Wore: Bab 1 - Bab 3

EVANThe city greets me with heat and stone and a sense that everything here existed long before I did and will keep existing long after I’m gone.Rome isn’t subtle about herself. She doesn’t build up slowly the way some places do. She hits all at once—bright sunlight reflecting off pale stone, horns blaring in impatient bursts, the smell of exhaust and espresso and something sweet I can’t name drifting from an unseen bakery. The air moves in pockets: one breath hot and dusty, the next carrying a cool draft from somewhere shaded and ancient.I step out of the terminal, and for the first time in months, my chest loosens just enough for me to feel it. A breath that doesn’t hurt going in. It’s not relief exactly, but it’s less pressure, less constant ache. A slight softening at the edges.Maybe that’s why I said yes to this job so quickly. Maybe that’s why I packed my bags before Leah had finished asking if we could talk.“Signore?” A taxi driver lifts a hand, his wrist lined with faded

LIVIAThe man is exactly on time.That tells me something before he even opens his mouth.I watch him through the rows of shelves as he steps into the archive, the heavy door sighing shut behind him. He hesitates in the same spot most people do, just past the threshold, instinctively aware that this room is different from the ones above it.Light falls in rectangles across the floor. Dust moves in those rectangles like it has nowhere else to be. The old clock on the wall ticks a little louder than necessary, filling the spaces where people might otherwise talk.He doesn’t talk.He scans the room: the central desk, the lamp, the stacks of boxes. His gaze lingers on the old plans I left rolled near the edge, then on the coffee mug, then on the small tower of files I didn’t bother to straighten before leaving last night.He reaches out. His fingers hover a fraction above the corner of a folder.Of course they do.“Don’t touch anything,” I say.His hand freezes, the way most people do whe