Chapter 77 Verona, The One Who Burns In Silence

• VERONA
• The lamp in the living room flickered as if the house itself were holding its breath. Outside, night fell over the Alps with a dense, almost liquid cloak that seemed to want to penetrate the windows and sink everything into shadows. The wood of the cabin creaked under the pressure of the wind, and the fireplace crackled with an irregular rhythm, as if trying to warn us of something we did not yet know.
• I remained bent over the table, the map spread before me. My fingers traced the blue and red lines marking impossible routes, and amid that tangle, I discovered the fold that should not have been there. A barely visible crease, hidden among the marks of time and the wear of the paper. I opened it carefully, as if extracting a secret from the earth’s core.