Dawn arrived without spectacle. The sky above Veythra returned to its ordinary washed gray, and the canals once again reflected only the buildings that stood beside them. Yet the city did not resume its previous rhythms. Too many panes had broken. Too many people had been forced to look at what they had paid to forget. In the middle districts the streets filled with quiet figures carrying cloth-wrapped bundles—mirrors, family spheres, workshop stock—seeking either repair or final destruction. No one was certain which was safer.
Lira walked the lower towpaths with the new lens secured inside a lined satchel against her ribs. The silver scars on her face and throat had faded to pale, raised lines that caught the light like fine wire. The lattice no longer glowed, but it remained present ben
