Nights in Tuscany still hold the day’s heat long after sunset. It lingers in the stone walls and the packed earth, rising in a faint breath as Rosa walks, careful to place her feet where the path dipped between olive roots. She does not carry a lantern. The night is silent, and still, and does not ask her to pretend - it covers her without question. But the night is brutal, and picks no sides. It covers the wolves in the same darkness that it covers the herd.

She did not carry a light. She counted instead.

Not because she might lose her way, but because counting gave her something to do with the nervous energy that crept in whenever the road narrowed and the trees closed ranks. The cicadas were loud, almost obscene in their persistence, but she welcomed the noise. Silence was worse. Silence meant listening for sounds that did not belong.

Seven minutes from the farmhouse to the bend in the road. Thirty steps from the bend to the fig tree. Then the gate, always unlatched, always complaining softly when pushed. She had walked it enough times that her body moved ahead of thought. The satchel crossed her chest did not swing. The paper inside it—freshly printed, still faintly damp—pressed flat against her ribs.

The churchyard twenty steps later, its low stone wall pale in the dark, the cross at its center barely visible against the sky. Rosa slowed. She always did here. The ground changed texture, packed dirt giving way to scattered needles and gravel, and she felt them through the thin soles of her shoes. The satchel at her side is heavier than it looks - paper is deceptively dense when stacked. She takes out a flyer - Né Dio Né Padrone - in red print, bold against the white paper. Places it on a bench and repeats the words to herself like a prayer. She tries to evade the irony of that fact - and she slips into the shadows once again. Tuscan nights are bipolar, and she prays that the balmy heat will not be overtaken by the wind and ruin her work.

Then the churchyard dog barked.

It was a single sharp sound at first, startling in its suddenness, followed by another, deeper and angrier. Rosa froze, one foot half-raised, her body instinctively lowering its center of gravity as if she could make herself smaller by will alone. The dog threw itself against the gate, chain rattling, nails scraping metal. It was a big animal—she could tell from the sound of it—and it barked as though insulted by her presence, as though she had broken some private agreement.

She did not move.

Her breath came shallow and fast, and she forced herself to slow it, counting again. The dog’s barking echoed off the church wall, loud enough that she imagined it carrying across the fields, reaching the nearest house. She pictured a light flicking on, a man stepping outside, pulling on his jacket and his authority in the same motion.

The dog barked again. She imagined its eyes—dark, bright with agitation—its mouth open, tongue lolling, teeth white and bared behind the iron bars. She thought absurdly of how close those teeth were to her calf, how easily they would tear through skin.

She waited.

After a moment that stretched too long to be comfortable, the barking slowed. The dog whined, paced, barked once more for good measure, then settled into a low, resentful growl. Rosa let her foot touch the ground again. Slowly, carefully, she backed away from the gate and took the long way around the churchyard, keeping the wall between herself and the sound.

By the time she reached the far edge of the trees, her heart was hammering hard enough that she pressed a hand flat against her chest, as if to keep it from betraying her. She did not run. Running made noise, and noise invited questions. Instead, she walked at the same steady pace she always did, her posture relaxed, her face composed, as though she were nothing more than a woman returning late from a neighbor’s house.

She took the long way home. At the farmhouse on the edge of the valley, she tapped twice on the back door, paused, then tapped once more. The man who answered did not speak. Neither did she. He took the satchel, weighed it with a practiced hand, and nodded once. Rosa turned and left before he closed the door, the exchange complete.

She did not breathe easily again until the lights of home came into view—one window dimly lit, the others dark. Lupo, a small, aging mutt with graying fur around the muzzle, lifted his head when she pushed open the gate. His tail wagged once, politely.

He was a foolish animal, half-grown and earnest, with ears too large for his head. He whined softly from inside, the sound rising into a thump as his tail struck the floor. Rosa smiled despite herself and slipped through the door, bolting it behind her.

“Good,” Rosa murmured, crouching to scratch behind its ears. “Good boy. Quiet,” she murmured, crouching to scratch behind his ears. Rosa pressed her forehead briefly to his warm neck and breathed in the smell of fur and dust.

Inside, the house smelled of oil and soap and the faint medicinal tang that never quite faded, no matter how much they aired the rooms. Rosa hung her jacket by the door and went straight to the basin, scrubbing her hands until the water ran pink, then clear. Ink clung stubbornly to the creases of her fingers. She left it there. Complete cleanliness was a luxury these days.

She dried her hands on her skirt and stood for a moment, listening.

From the other room came the soft, familiar sounds of Viola settling herself—the creak of the chair, the controlled exhale as she shifted her weight. Rosa crossed the room and pushed the door open. Viola was already in bed, propped against pillows, a book open but unread on her lap. The lamp beside her cast a warm circle of light that softened the angles of her face. When she looked up, her expression shifted from concentration to something gentler.

“You’re late,” Viola said, closing the book and placing it on the seat of her wheelchair beside her.

“Not by much.” Rosa crossed the room and leaned down to kiss her. Viola smelled faintly of lavender soap. “The dog was restless tonight.”

Viola’s mouth tightened. “The one by the church?”

“Yes.”

“They should move it,” Viola said. “It’s not safe.”

Rosa smiled faintly. “You know how people are. They like to feel protected.”

“And does it protect them,” Viola asked, “or just warn them when someone is passing through?”

Rosa did not answer. She slipped off her shoes, shaking loose a few pine needles that scattered across the floor, and pulled her dress over her head. The night clung to her skin, and she welcomed the cool sheets when she slid into bed. Viola shifted to make room.

For a moment they lay in silence, their breathing slowly syncing. Rosa stared at the ceiling, tracing familiar cracks with her eyes. The adrenaline drained from her body in stages, leaving behind a heavy, aching fatigue.

“You’re shaking,” Viola said quietly.

“I’m fine,” Rosa said, hurriedly.

“You say that every time.”

“You weren’t followed?”

“No.”

“Stopped?”

“No.”

Rosa turned onto her side. Viola’s hand found hers under the blanket, fingers warm and sure. “I was careful,” Rosa said. “No one saw me.”

Viola did not say this time. She squeezed Rosa’s hand instead. “Good.”

Viola nodded once, satisfied for the moment. “You’ll need to change the route tomorrow,” she added.

Outside, the cicadas continued their relentless song. Rosa closed her eyes, letting the noise wash over her, anchoring herself to the small, solid facts of the room: the weight of Viola’s hand, the rise and fall of her chest, the familiar scent of home.

For this night, Rosa let herself believe it was the only thing that mattered.

Saturday mornings belonged to the market.

Rosa hated it. She did even before the war, wary in crowds and open spaces. Stalls appeared at dawn in the square as they always had, canvas awnings stretched between poles, crates thumped into place, voices raised in argument and greeting alike.

Viola, however, liked that the town kept the habit. The rhythm of it reassured her. It suggested continuity, a stubborn refusal to let politics reorder the basic facts of hunger and trade. Rosa reckoned it was a form of prefiguration for her.

Rosa walked to the square beside Viola, her wheels clicking softly over the uneven stones. She walked at her left, close enough to intervene if needed but not touching. They had learned that distance, how to make it look accidental. A hand on Viola’s shoulder drew eyes; walking together did not.

People looked anyway.

They always did.

Some glanced at the chair and then away quickly, embarrassed by the instinct to stare. Others lingered, curiosity outweighing tact. A few—older women, mostly—looked at Rosa with something like approval, the look reserved for dutiful daughters and patient nurses.

Rosa ignored them. Viola noticed every one.

At the fruit stall, the vendor leaned forward and spoke to Rosa, raising his voice unnecessarily. “The peaches are ripe today. Best you’ll get this late in the season.”

Viola answered instead. “Two kilos. The smaller ones.”

The man blinked, recalibrated, then nodded. “Of course,” he said, finally meeting her eyes.

Rosa passed over the money. The exchange followed its usual pattern: Rosa handled the physical negotiation, Viola the verbal one. It was not deliberate, but it worked. Between them, they presented something legible to the world—caretaker and dependent, efficient and unremarkable.

It was safer that way.

They moved on, stopping for bread, then cheese. Viola kept a mental list as they went, aware of the subtle shifts in the square. There were more uniforms than last month. Not many—two men near the fountain, another leaning against the municipal building. Conversations softened as people passed them. A joke cut off mid-sentence. A laugh turned brittle.

Rosa leaned closer, her voice low. “Pietro sent word yesterday.”

Viola nodded, eyes forward. “I know. I was there.”

Rosa made a small, incredulous sound. “You didn’t say.”

“There wasn’t time,” Viola said. She paused as Rosa stopped to let a cart pass, then continued. “He thinks the shop’s being watched. Not directly, yet. But paper orders are delayed. Ink’s harder to get. Someone asked questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

Viola tilted her head slightly, tracking one of the uniformed men as he crossed the square. “Who else comes by. Whether Pietro’s nephew still helps out. Whether there’s enough work to justify the press running so late.”

Rosa exhaled slowly. “That’s not good.”

“No,” Viola agreed. “But it’s not panic yet.”

They reached the edge of the square and turned down a narrower street where the crowd thinned. The sound of the market softened behind them, replaced by the echo of wheels and footsteps between stone walls.

Viola adjusted the strap of the satchel hooked to the back of her chair. It held nothing incriminating today—ledgers from the print shop, a folded list of names written in Pietro’s careful hand—but habit made her check it anyway.

“Luca. Does he still work with his uncle?”

Viola did not answer immediately. They passed a group of women clustered around a butcher’s window, their voices animated. No one paid them any attention.

“Not at the shop,” Viola continued, “But he is in contact.”

They stopped at the edge of the street, waiting for a cart loaded with firewood to pass. The driver nodded to Rosa, then glanced at Viola with polite indifference.

Rosa leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Pietro shouldn’t be keeping you there if it’s getting risky.”

Viola looked up at her. “I can handle myself. He trusts me over you.”

“That’s not—”

“It is,” Viola said gently. “And you know it. He thinks you’re brave, which is another way of saying reckless.”

Rosa snorted despite herself. “And what am I supposed to do with that information?”

“Trust me to handle my part.”

Rosa thought of the shop—the familiar smell of ink and oil, the weight of the press handle under Viola’s palm. She could not stand for long periods, could not lift the heavier cases of type, but her hands were steady and her eye was sharp. Pietro relied on her for layout, for timing, for knowing when a run was finished and when it needed another pass.

She was not hidden there. She was useful.

At the last stall, they bought eggs. The woman selling them smiled at Rosa and nodded toward Viola. “You’re good to her,” she said.

Rosa stiffened. Viola answered before she could. “She is.”

The woman seemed satisfied with that and turned away. Viola made a point of calling Rosa signorina as they turned away. They headed home by a longer route, avoiding the square on the return. The sun had climbed higher, warming the stones. Viola felt it in her forearms, the familiar ache settling into her joints. She welcomed it. Pain was a measure of presence.

As they passed the churchyard, Viola glanced at the gate. The dog lay in the shade, head on its paws, eyes half-lidded. It did not bark. She nudged Rosa gently.

“Amore.”

“Lucky,” Rosa murmured.

At home, Rosa unpacked the basket while Viola wheeled herself to the table and sorted the papers from her satchel. She read quickly, committing names and dates to memory, then folded the list smaller and tucked it into a book on the shelf.

Rosa watched her from the sink. “You could stop,” she said quietly. “If you wanted.”

Viola met her gaze. “So could you.”

Rosa said nothing. Her knife hummed over the tomatoes, breaking skin like the tender bursting flesh of a bruise.

They ate lunch together, simple and unremarkable. Bread, cheese, tomatoes sliced thin. And they sat at the table, close enough that their knees brushed, sharing the small, stubborn fact of being there at all.

The first sign that something was wrong was the silence.

Rosa noticed it even a street away. The print shop was never quiet—not truly. Even on mornings when the presses were still, there was the hum of the street, the scrape of chairs, Pietro’s coughing laugh drifting from the back room. Ink had a sound too, if you paid attention: the soft tacky pull as paper lifted from the plate, the whisper of pages stacked too quickly, or the escape of sheets not weighed down.

Viola noticed as soon as Rosa slowed her steps. Rosa always did that—adjusted before speaking, before acting, as if her body registered danger faster than her thoughts. Viola tightened her grip on the wheel rims, rolling forward another half meter until the shop came fully into view.

The door was open.

Two men stood just inside, their backs to the street. The cut of their shoulders gave them away even before the armbands did.

Viola stopped.

Rosa’s hand came down on the back of the chair without thinking—not gripping, just there, a familiar weight. It was a mistake. Viola felt it immediately, the way you felt a wrong word land in your mouth.

“Don’t,” Viola said quietly.

Rosa withdrew her hand at once, and rehearsed in her head. Companion. Assistant. Nurse, if anyone needed the lie simplified.

A third man emerged carrying a box. Not a crate—too small for machinery. A paper box, sagging slightly in the middle. Viola recognized it. Pietro used those for misprints, for flyers that didn’t align cleanly, for drafts meant to be burned.

The man dropped it onto the step. Paper spilled out, white flashing in the sun like exposed bone.

“Né Dio Né Padrone,” one sheet read, red ink stark against the pavement.

Viola inhaled sharply. Rosa didn’t need to look at her to know what her face would be doing—anger first, then fear, then calculation.

The box was kicked aside.

A neighbor across the street closed her shutters.

That was when Rosa understood: this wasn’t a search. It was a display.

They were meant to see it.

Viola rolled forward.

“Cara,” Rosa murmured under her breath.

“I know,” Viola said. Her voice was calm. It had always been calm in moments like this. “Stay behind me.”

She moved into the open space of the street, positioning herself where she would be seen clearly, where retreat would look deliberate rather than afraid.

One of the men turned.

His eyes dropped automatically to the chair, then flicked back up to her face, reassessing. Viola met his gaze and did not look away. Years of practice had taught them both that this was often enough. Men like this were trained to read bodies for weakness, for evasion. They were less prepared for stillness.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I work here,” Viola said. “This is my place of employment.”

He snorted. “Not anymore.”

“Where is Signor Lombardi?” she asked.

The man smiled without warmth. “If he’s smart, he’s somewhere else.”

Rosa absorbed that. Not arrested, then.

“And the shop?” she asked.

“Closed.” He shrugged.

Viola almost laughed. Ink stained her fingers even now, ground permanently into the lines of her hands. Sanitation had never been part of Pietro’s vocabulary.

She inclined her head. “May I collect my personal belongings?”

The man hesitated. Behind him, another voice—older, impatient—snapped something she couldn’t hear. The man sighed.

“Five minutes.”

Viola rolled past him without thanking him. Rosa followed a few paces behind, silent, stopping shy of the cordon. She craned her head to look, to watch Viola. Too much air, too much light. The presses stood idle, their metal arms frozen mid-gesture like bodies caught during flight. Drawers were open, papers strewn, the careful order of the place unraveled.

Viola moved straight to the back room.

Rosa hovered, alert, cataloguing exits, sounds, shadows.

“You have two minutes,” the man barked.

Viola turned the chair with practiced efficiency. At the door, she paused, looking once more at the presses. She tried to memorize their shapes, the way the light caught the worn handles. Loss came faster if you didn’t prepare for it.

Outside, the street had gathered a cautious audience. People who pretended to be passing through. People who stared too long and then looked away. Rosa caught sight of a familiar scarf at the end of the street—blue, knotted carelessly.

Pietro’s.

He did not come closer. He didn’t meet her eyes. He turned down an alley and vanished.

Good, she thought. Live first. Regret later.

The men watched them leave but did not follow.

Only when they were home did Rosa speak again.

“They knew,” she said. “They must have.”

“They suspected,” Viola corrected. “If they knew, Pietro would already be gone.”

She sat at the table with Pietro’s chair pulled close, one hand resting flat against the wood as if it might speak, slowly unpacking what she had salvaged. She reached for the ledger first—not the real one, but the false accounts Pietro kept for appearances. She lay it on the table, then her shawl, her pencil case, the small framed photograph of her parents she kept facedown in the drawer. The radio was off. Papers lay stacked and aligned with unusual precision. That alone told Rosa how serious it was.

“They went in this morning,” Viola said, without preamble. “Just after opening.”

Rosa set the bread down too hard. “I saw him.”

“Pietro?”

“Yes. He escaped.”

Viola’s jaw tightened. “They took the plates. The press. Everything they could lift.”

Rosa leaned against the wall, the familiar room suddenly feeling unreliable, as though its angles had shifted. Pietro Lombardi had been careful—too careful, sometimes. He had survived worse than this. Raids came and went. Shops reopened. People reappeared. That was how one stayed sane: by believing in patterns.

“They can’t have found much,” Rosa said, though she was no longer sure who she was convincing. “We never kept names there.”

Viola looked at her steadily. “They don’t need names.”

They sat in silence, listening to the distant sounds of the village continuing as if nothing had happened: a cart rattling past, a child calling, a dog barking once and then stopping. The world, infuriatingly intact.

“You shouldn’t go out tonight,” Viola said finally.

“I have to,” Rosa replied. “If anyone’s being watched—”

“They’re all being watched now,” Viola cut in. “And you walking into it won’t help Pietro.”

Later that afternoon, Rosa went anyway.

She kept to the main road, walking at an unhurried pace, her satchel empty and conspicuously so. She nodded to people she knew, accepted greetings, let herself be seen. It felt backward—exposure instead of concealment—but sometimes the safest place was the one everyone could see.

She was stopped just before the square.

The man was young, barely older than Rosa herself, his uniform stiff and new. He asked for her papers politely enough, though his eyes flicked constantly to her hands, her bag, her face.

She passed them over without comment.

He studied them for longer than necessary, his finger tracing the stamp, the signature. Rosa kept her expression neutral, her weight evenly distributed, her breathing slow. She thought of Viola’s voice, calm and exacting, drilling her on these moments late at night. Stillness reads as confidence, Viola always said. Nervousness invites curiosity.

Finally, the man handed the papers back.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home,” Rosa said. “My aunt needs help.”

He hesitated, then nodded and stepped aside.

Rosa did not let herself breathe again until she was halfway down the next street.

That night, the argument happened the way all their worst arguments did: quietly, with the windows shut and the lamps turned low.

“They took Pietro,” Viola said. “Or they will.”

“You don’t know that,” Rosa replied.

“I know how this works.”

“So do I,” Rosa said, sharper than she meant to. “And running every time something happens won’t save us.”

Viola’s hands clenched in her lap. “This isn’t something. This is the center of the network.”

“They’ll rebuild,” Rosa said. “They always do.”

Viola looked at her then—not angrily, but with a kind of weary clarity that made Rosa’s chest tighten.

“And what happens to the people in the meantime?”

Rosa had no answer for that.

Viola spoke again, slower now. “You need to go.”

“No.”

“Rosa.”

“I won’t leave you.”

Viola exhaled, controlled and deliberate. “Amore. Listen to me. You’re visible. You move. You carry things. You know routes that no one else does.”

“And you think I can just walk away from this?” Rosa demanded, her voice still low but trembling now. “From you?”

“I think you can survive,” Viola said. “Which is more than I can promise if you stay.”

Viola softened her voice. “Listen to me. They will watch the shop. They will watch Pietro’s known routes. You move. I stay still. We reduce the number of moving parts.”

“You make it sound like machinery.”

“That’s because it is,” Viola said. “Bodies are tools whether we like it or not. Mine does one kind of work. Yours does another.”

Rosa looked at her hands, still faintly smudged with ink. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Viola reached out and took her wrist, firm and grounding. “I am not asking what you want.”

Rosa looked up, eyes bright with unshed fury and fear.

“I am asking you to survive.”

The words landed between them, solid and immovable.

Rosa turned away, pressing her palms flat against the table. “If I go,” she said, “it’s temporary.”

“Yes,” Viola said, too quickly. “Of course.”

They both knew the lie for what it was. Neither of them said so.

Later, when the house had gone quiet again, Rosa lay awake listening to Viola’s breathing, steady and precise even in sleep. She watched the familiar rise and fall of her chest, memorizing it without meaning to.

Outside, a dog barked once in the distance.

Rosa closed her eyes and counted the seconds between the sound and the silence that followed, already measuring how much time they had left.

The morning arrived the way mornings always did, with light slipping between the shutters and dust lifting lazily in the air. Viola woke first, as she usually did. Her body kept its own schedule, indifferent to urgency. She lay still for a moment, listening to the house breathe around her—the faint creak of wood settling, the far-off clatter of a cart on the road, Rosa’s steady breathing beside her.

Rosa slept deeply, one arm flung across the sheet, her hair loose and unfamiliar in the daylight. Viola watched her with deliberate attention, cataloguing details she normally took for granted: the faint crease between her brows, the scar along her knuckle from a fall years ago, the way her mouth softened when she slept. Memory, Viola knew, was most reliable when fed specifics.

She shifted carefully, easing herself upright. Rosa stirred but did not wake.

In the kitchen, Viola set water to boil and sliced bread with measured precision. The smell of coffee filled the room. Lupo lay near the door, head on his paws, tracking her movements with one cloudy eye. He wagged his tail once when she spoke his name, then settled again. Viola set out a scrap of meat, an old chicken bone, and scratched him behind the ears. Rosa joined her moments later, hair damp, face drawn but determined.

“You don’t have to come,” Rosa said, reaching for a cup.

“I know,” Viola replied.

They ate in the kitchen. The table felt too formal, too much like an occasion. Rosa packed her bag methodically: one change of clothes, papers folded and refolded until the creases were familiar, a pencil stub, the address written small enough to hide in the seam. Viola watched without interfering. This was Rosa’s domain—movement, preparation, the logistics of escape.

At the door, Rosa hesitated.

“You’ll follow,” she said. It was not a question.

“Yes,” Viola replied. The word came easily. Truth had weight, but so did necessity.

They stood in the narrow space between the table and the door, the house still half-dark, the morning not yet decided on its shape. Rosa had her bag slung over one shoulder, the strap cutting a familiar line across her chest. Viola watched her adjust it—too tightly, then loosen it again—hands betraying the strain Rosa’s face refused to show.

“You’ve packed too much,” Viola said.

Rosa huffed a quiet, humorless breath. “I know.”

She stepped closer anyway, close enough that the edge of the table pressed into Viola’s knees and Rosa’s coat brushed Viola’s wrist. For a moment neither of them moved. The house seemed to hold its breath with them: the kettle cooling on the stove, the shutters creaking faintly as the air shifted.

Rosa reached out, then stopped herself. Her hand hovered, uncertain, just short of Viola’s shoulder.

“Come here,” Viola said, a smile breaking through her face.

Rosa obeyed at once.

She leaned down, bracing one hand on the back of the chair, the other settling at Viola’s waist. Up close, Viola could see the fine lines at the corners of Rosa’s eyes, the faint flush already rising along her cheekbones. Rosa smelled of soap and wool and the sharp, familiar tang of ink that never quite left her skin.

Viola tilted her head, instinctive, already anticipating the weight of Rosa, the warmth of her. Rosa’s breath stuttered. Her lips parted. For a heartbeat, it felt inevitable—something physical and hungry, something they had deliberately denied themselves since the decision had been made.

Rosa’s hand tightened.

Then her face crumpled.

The sound that escaped her was small and ugly and unguarded, torn from somewhere beneath discipline and habit. She pressed her forehead hard against Viola’s shoulder, as if struck there, her body folding inward despite her height, despite her strength.

“I can’t,” Rosa whispered, the words muffled, breaking apart. “I can’t do this.”

Viola did not shush her. She did not rush to reassure. She brought one arm up instead, steady and sure, anchoring Rosa where she stood. Rosa clutched at the back of Viola’s coat, fingers digging in, shaking now in earnest.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Rosa said, the sentence collapsing into itself. “I don’t want—” She stopped, breath hitching, as though finishing the thought might make it permanent.

Viola closed her eyes.

She pressed her lips, not to Rosa’s mouth, but to her temple—firm, grounding, almost severe. When she pulled back, she kept her forehead against Rosa’s, forcing her to stay present, to breathe.

“Listen to me,” Viola said quietly. “This is not abandonment.”

Rosa laughed weakly, the sound edged with tears. “You always do that.”

“Because it’s true. My idea.”

Rosa nodded once, then again, though her grip did not loosen. She wiped her face hastily with the back of her sleeve, embarrassed by the evidence of it, by how visible she had allowed herself to be.

Viola cupped Rosa’s face briefly, thumbs warm against her jaw, committing the shape of her to memory with intention rather than desperation.

“Go,” Viola said, gently this time.

Rosa closed her eyes for one last second under Viola’s hands. Then she straightened, stepped back, and reached for her bag.

The station was louder than Viola expected.

Voices overlapped, sharp with impatience. Boots struck stone. Steam hissed from the engine, hot and metallic. Rosa stood beside the chair, close enough that their shoulders brushed, her body angled protectively without thinking. People looked at them and saw what they expected to see: a woman assisting another, a practical arrangement, unremarkable.

They stood close in the narrow space by the station wall, close enough that their coats brushed. Rosa had tied her hair back, hastily and imperfectly; loose strands escaped at her temples, already darkening with sweat. She was taller than Viola by a head, her build spare and wiry, shoulders strong from years of carrying loads meant to be unremarkable. Her face bore the marks of sun and wind—olive skin browned unevenly, a faint crease between her brows that deepened when she concentrated. There was ink still lodged beneath one fingernail, a remnant she had not noticed or had chosen not to remove.

Viola sat upright in her chair, spine straight, hands resting lightly on the rims. She wore a wool coat she had tailored herself to sit properly when seated, the hem falling cleanly over her knees. Her hair was pinned back with precision, dark and glossy despite the early hour, revealing a face shaped by intention rather than softness: high cheekbones, a mouth inclined toward seriousness, eyes that missed very little. Her body was slighter than Rosa’s, compact and contained, strength gathered inward rather than displayed. Her hands—long-fingered, ink-stained despite her efforts—were steady.

Rosa bent without being asked.

She did not rush it, but she did not linger either. One hand came to rest at Viola’s shoulder, warm and familiar. Viola lifted her chin just enough to meet her.

The kiss was brief and exact. Rosa’s mouth pressed to Viola’s, firm but restrained, as if sealing something rather than indulging it. There was no urgency in it, no attempt to take more than was offered. Viola’s hand rose and closed around the sleeve of Rosa’s coat, gripping once—hard—before releasing.

When they separated, they did not look at each other immediately.

Rosa straightened, swallowing, her face already reassembling itself into something portable. Viola exhaled, slow and controlled, her expression composed again, as though nothing had passed between them that could be read by a stranger.

The train’s whistle cut through the air.

Rosa glanced at Viola. “I should go.”

Viola nodded. “Yes.”

Rosa bent, quickly, and kissed her cheek. Her lips lingered half a second longer than necessary. Viola did not look at her when she straightened. She focused instead on the ticket seller’s hands, on the pattern of cracks in the platform stones, on the way Lupo—left at home—would be waiting by the door even now.

Rosa stepped back.

“I’ll write,” she said.

“I know,” Viola replied.

Rosa hesitated, as if waiting for something else—permission, perhaps, or forgiveness. Viola did not give it. She had learned, long ago, that watching was its own kind of violence. To witness was to make something final.

Rosa turned and moved toward the carriage.

Viola did not follow her with her eyes.

She fixed her gaze on the opposite platform, on a woman arguing with a conductor, on a child dragging a suitcase too large for him. She listened to the sounds instead: the scrape of metal on metal, the murmur of voices, the sudden rush of air as the train began to move.

Only when the noise receded did she allow herself to breathe fully again.

Rosa watched as she rolled herself back from the platform edge and waited until the space where the train had been was definitively empty. Then she turned and left the station, her movements steady, unhurried. Anyone watching would have seen only a woman returning home from an errand.

At the house, everything was exactly as it should be.

The cups sat drying on the rack. The chair Rosa had used was pushed in. Lupo lifted his head at the sound of the door and trotted over, tail wagging, searching instinctively for the second set of footsteps that did not come.

Viola knelt with effort and pressed her face briefly into his fur.

“She’s gone,” she said softly, though she did not specify to whom.

Later, she sat at the table and opened the ledger Pietro had left behind. She sharpened a pencil. She began to write, steady and precise, adjusting routes, reassigning names, preparing for a future that had already narrowed.

She did not imagine Rosa on the train. She did not picture her leaving the platform.

That was the price of survival: you did not watch what you could not afford to lose.

And Viola, more than anyone, knew how to look away.