Zariah looked up from her notebook, calm and unhurried. She closed it slowly and folded her hands over the cracked leather cover.

"Leave this area," Travis commanded, stopping a few feet away. His voice was pitched loud enough for nearby joggers to hear—a performance rather than a request.

Zariah tilted her head slightly, studying him the way someone studies a puzzle rather than a threat. "What law have I broken?" she asked simply.

The question landed wrong in Travis's ears. In his mind, questions from people like her were not questions; they were defiance dressed up as curiosity. His jaw tightened.

The city moved past her the way it moved past all things it had already decided not to see—but today, the city stopped to watch.

A cyclist halted near the fountain. Two women walking a terrier paused, their conversation dying out. Pedestrians slowed their pace, their attention sharpening as the tension spiked. Thirty feet away, Leonard straightened up behind his cart, a knot twisting in his stomach.

Travis raised his voice again, demanding she stand and move along, his hand drifting toward his belt in a gesture purely meant for theater. Zariah rose slowly from the bench, not out of obedience, but with her usual careful deliberation.

Just then, a sudden, sharp wind tugged a thin scarf from Zariah's neck, sending it tumbling across the gravel. Without a word, Zariah bent down to retrieve it—a motion so plain and human it should have gone unnoticed. But Travis, primed for confrontation and convinced she intended to resist, saw a threat.