Returning to "normal" was like trying to put on a shoe that was two sizes too small.
I went back to the Museum. I sat at my desk. I drank coffee that tasted like burnt beans and answered emails about humidity control and donor galas.
My colleagues treated me with a strange, walking-on-eggshells politeness. They didn't know I was the Weaver of Strasbourg. They just knew I had disappeared for a month with a mysterious "illness" and had returned looking thinner, paler, and sharper.
"Elara?"
I looked up from a stack of invoices. My assistant, a sweet, frizzy-haired girl named Chloe, was standing in the doorway. She looked pale.
"What is it, Chloe?"
"It's the basement," she said, wringing her hands. "The storage vault. The humidity sensors are going crazy. Pierre went down to check the HV
