#Chapter 207: The City Under Glass

The border towns always felt too still. Not quiet in a peaceful way, but quiet in a way that made the air taste like stale sugar, like the kind of quiet that follows an argument you walked in on too late. The buildings were short and municipal, lined in brick and glass with poorly tinted windows, like the whole town had been designed by someone who had no intention of living in it. I stepped out of the SUV and took a long breath, pretending the quiet didn’t mean anything. "Does it look like a sleeper town to you?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Richard’s hand hovered near the small of my back, not quite touching. “It looks too still. It looks like it’s holding its breath.” The clocktower rose above the square, a repurposed bell structure with a new digital face, probably installed under some civic investment program meant to boost morale. The foundation, though, was old, built from stone and copper, and deeply rooted in resonance-based architecture, even if no