Rome did not care that they were coming.
That was the first thing she noticed. Milan had a particular energy — sharp, modern, aware of itself. Rome was older than awareness. It had seen emperors and popes and conquerors and tourists and everything in between and it had simply continued existing through all of it with the particular indifference of something that knew it would outlast whatever arrived at its gates.
She found that comforting.
They arrived in the early evening. The light was doing something extraordinary to the old buildings — that specific golden Roman light that painters had been trying to capture for centuries and never quite managing. It fell on everything equally. Ancient ruins and modern cafes and laundry hanging between windows and men on scooters and a city that ha
