The change did not arrive like an attack.
It came the way weather does.
Ira felt it first in her body, not in the city. A faint tightness settled across her shoulders as she crossed one of the inner spans, the kind of tension she used to get in crowded places back home, when too many conversations overlapped and her senses couldn't decide which one to follow. She stopped walking, one hand resting on the cool railing, and waited for the sensation to pass.
It didn't.
The air felt thinner. Not cold. Not warm. Simply… less accommodating.
Devansh noticed her pause and turned. "What is it?"
She searched for words. "Do you ever get the feeling someone has opened a door in a room you didn't know had one?"
He looked at her for a moment, then shifted his attention outward. His posture changed slightly, the way it always did when he focused beyond what was visible.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "That is accurate."
Rehaan joined them from behind, carrying a folded length of dark fabric he'd been trying to turn into something like a blanket. He stopped when he saw their faces.
"They're closer," he said.
Not a question.
Devansh nodded. "They are adjusting the surrounding field. Not to enter. To observe how the city compensates."
Ira let out a slow breath. "They're poking it."
"They're learning how it reacts," Rehaan replied. "Which means they're learning where it doesn't."
Meera appeared at the far end of the span, walking more carefully than usual, one hand trailing along the wall. She had started doing that without realizing it, as though touch reassured her that things were still where they should be.
When she reached them, she didn't speak right away. Her gaze drifted upward, following the pale stone towers into the dim.
"Something's wrong," she said quietly. "The place feels… thinner."
Ira looked at her sharply. "Where?"
Meera lifted a hand, hovering it in front of her chest. "Everywhere. Like when pressure drops before a storm. My ears used to do this when I was little. Just before rain."
Ira swallowed.
Devansh closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. "They are not touching the city," he said. "They are reshaping what surrounds it."
"To see what leaks," Rehaan added.
The word settled heavily.
Ira's fingers curled against the railing. "And is something leaking?"
Devansh did not answer immediately.
"Yes," he said at last. "Information."
The air around them shivered faintly, not enough to move hair or cloth, but enough that Ira felt it brush her skin.
She closed her eyes.
Instead of reaching outward, she paid attention to what was already inside her. The heaviness had not grown. It had… spread. It occupied her ribs, her throat, the space behind her eyes. It made her more aware of every small shift in herself.
"I think they're learning how I change the city," she said. "Not by watching me. By watching what changes after I move."
Rehaan gave a short, humorless breath. "That's worse."
Meera hugged her arms to herself. "Can they come in?"
Devansh turned to her. "Not easily."
"That wasn't an answer," Meera said.
"No," he agreed. "It was the truth."
The air tightened again, then slowly eased, like something testing a boundary and retreating.
Ira straightened. "We need to stop standing in open spaces," she said. "If they're reading how the city compensates, then the city needs places it can't compensate around."
Rehaan's brows lifted. "You're talking about blind spots."
"I'm talking about lived spaces," she replied. "Rooms where things happen. Messily. Not the grand structures. The places where people sit and sleep and argue and get tired."
Devansh watched her closely. "You think those spaces will disrupt their readings."
"I think systems are always worse at interpreting ordinary life," she said. "Especially emotional ones."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Devansh inclined his head. "There are inner residential layers that have been unused for centuries."
"Then that's where we go," Ira said.
And somewhere beyond the city's hidden edges, instruments tuned to anomalies began returning less coherent results.