The campus walkway was a river of slow steps and scattered laughter. Daisy moved along the edge where people thinned out. She liked afternoons here because the sun leaned low and the campus smelled faintly of cut grass and warm stone. Her shoulders were hunched against a thin jacket, and her bag felt heavy. The ring she had bought at the market still sat on her finger, cool and quiet, and she turned it around absentmindedly as she walked.

Her head held small, dull things—an email needing a reply, a reading she kept postponing, the time of a seminar next week. She tried to map the rest of her day...