Chapter 30. Final Words

It was raining the moment he spotted her again—though not the kind of downpour that blasts city streets into chaos, the kind that forces umbrellas to invert and drenches clothing in seconds.

This rain was softer, a steady, gentle drizzle that seemed more like the sky sighing than weeping. It washed over the city in long, hushed breaths, making the pavements gleam like dark slate and carrying the faint tang of wet metal, mingled with the earthy faintness of damp leaves clinging to gutter grates.

Streetlamps glimmered through the mist, halos dissolving into the low cloud cover, and the river nearby swelled in its banks, whispering against the quay walls as if keeping the city’s confidences.

He paused just outside the café door, lingering beneath its modest awning. The place was tucked into a narrow side street that followed the riverbank’s curve, its façade modest and unobtrusive: brick walls draped in creeping ivy, a hand-lettered sign swinging slightly in the win