The apartment felt different in the evening light.

It was not because anything visible had changed. The furniture remained where it had always been. The glass coffee table still reflected the skyline in fractured angles. The long cream curtains stirred gently with the hum of the city’s ventilation currents. Yet something in the air carried a density that had not existed before, as though the walls themselves had absorbed the night and decided to hold it carefully rather than release it.

Violet stepped inside first, slipping off her heels near the door. The faint ache in her calves reminded her that the day had been long, but the exhaustion did...