Alex stood there longer than necessary, the echoes of the melody still circling somewhere behind his eyes. The words refused to settle into anything useful. They felt less like information and more like a shape pressed into soft ground—clear now, but already beginning to blur.
This is still a dream, he reminded himself.
Dreams borrowed familiarity to make themselves convincing. They stitched together places and faces, weighted them with history, then discarded them the moment you woke.
He turned away from the square.
The smell found him first.
Bread—warm, dense, unmistakably real. Yeast and smoke and something faintly sweet beneath it, strong enough to make his stomach tighten with a sudden, sharp ache. He followed it without thinking, feet carrying him toward a low, open-fronted bake shop tucked against the stone wall.
Loaves were stacked behind the counter in uneven rows. Dark crusts split wide, steam still lifting faintly from a few of them. The heat from the ovens bled outward, softening the air in front of the shop.
The baker didn't look up right away.
She worked with steady, economical movements, hands dusted white with flour, sleeves rolled past her elbows. Her hair was bound tight at the nape of her neck, streaked with gray that caught the light when she turned.
Alex stopped just short of the counter.
Hunger made him bold enough to reach into his pocket before he'd fully thought it through.
Empty.
His fingers closed on nothing. The motion felt foolish the moment it finished.
The baker glanced up then.
Her eyes flicked from his face to his hand, lingering just long enough to register the absence. Not surprise. Not irritation. Just assessment.
Alex cleared his throat. "I—sorry."
She nodded once and turned back to her work.
The dismissal was quiet, complete.
He stepped away, the warmth falling off him almost immediately. The smell followed for a few steps before thinning, replaced by the cooler air of the square.
Someone sat in the bakery's shadow.
At first, Alex thought it was another of the statues he'd seen lining the village—slumped posture, head bowed, limbs drawn in too close. But the shape shifted slightly as he passed, breath hitching in and out.
A beggar.
The man's clothes were layered and worn thin, patched so many times that the original fabric was impossible to guess. One boot had split along the sole, the leather peeling back like a lip. His hair hung in dull strands around his face, tangled and unkempt.
Alex slowed.
The man's eyes weren't quite right.
They tracked the ground in front of him, unfocused, as if following something only he could see. His lips moved silently, shaping words that never quite formed.
Alex hesitated, then crouched a little, keeping his distance.
"Hey," he said softly. "Do you need—"
The beggar's head snapped up.
Too fast.
His gaze locked onto Alex with sudden clarity, pupils blown wide, swallowing most of the iris. For a split second, recognition flashed there—sharp and unsettling.
"You shouldn't be here," the man whispered.
Alex stiffened. "What?"
The beggar leaned closer, breath sour and shallow. "They don't like it when things don't fit."
Alex straightened slowly. "I don't have anything," he said, unsure why he felt the need to explain. "I just—"
The man laughed.
It came out wrong—too loud, too abrupt, breaking into pieces halfway through. He rocked back and forth, fingers digging into the dirt.
"Too late," he said. "Always too late."
Alex took a step back.
Behind him, the baker had stopped moving.
Alex hadn't heard her turn, but he felt the shift in the air—the absence of sound where there should have been it. He glanced over his shoulder.
She was watching them.
Not with concern. Not with curiosity.
With calculation.
Her hands rested on the counter, flour dusted across her knuckles. Her gaze flicked briefly to the beggar, then past Alex, toward the center of the square.
She stiffened.
Just slightly.
Alex followed her line of sight.
Nothing obvious had changed. People still crossed the square. Voices overlapped. Somewhere, metal rang faintly against stone.
But the rhythm was off.
A pause lingered too long between sounds. Conversations thinned instead of overlapping. Someone near the fountain turned, head cocked, as if listening for something they couldn't quite place.
The beggar's laughter cut off mid-breath.
He went very still.
Alex felt it then—a pressure, subtle but insistent, like the air itself had tightened. The warmth from the bakery seemed to recede, leaving the space colder than it should have been.
"What is it?" Alex asked, voice low.
The baker didn't answer.
She reached beneath the counter and pulled something closer—Alex couldn't see what it was, only the motion. Her jaw set, teeth pressing together.
Across the square, someone dropped a basket.
It hit the ground and didn't roll.
Alex's skin prickled.
Whatever was about to happen hadn't arrived yet.
But the village already knew it was coming.