The day began with a quiet that felt almost deliberate, as if the town itself were holding its breath. Ivo Segal, the Captain of the Guard, stood at the west gate before dawn, watching the fog press against the wall of trees like a living thing. He tightened the strap of his shield and said nothing. He had been thinking, ever since Ophir's words, about whether the fog and the old man's talk were connected, but he kept it to himself.

Fernando the instrument maker was the first to notice something wrong. He had gone to the quarry early, as he often did, to examine the stones for his records. He counted them, as he always did, and found seven where the ledger listed six. He knelt, ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the extra stone, and then stood up, brushing chalk from his knees. He made a note in his small book and walked back toward the square, his mouth a thin line.

Later, Tirzah the orchard keeper came to the same quarry to collect a stone for her new wall. She stopped, counted, and counted again. Seven. She looked around as if expecting someone to explain, then shook her head and went back to her orchard, muttering about the clerk's sloppy bookkeeping.

By mid-morning, the trouble at the mill had started. Gilead and Hadas were arguing over nothing—a spilled sack of grain, a misplaced shovel—and before anyone could separate them, they were at each other, fists flailing, dust rising in the air. The miller's wife pulled them apart, her face red. Obed and Matan came to blows in the yard a short while later, over a bench that had been moved. No one could say why. In the square, Ariel the younger and Rachel scuffled over a loaf of bread, then parted without a word.

At the hall, the bodies of Gideon the weaver and Joel the scribe lay in the cool room, both having died in their sleep, both aged and peaceful. Hannah the smith and Malachi the teacher lay in the sick ward, feverish, their eyes glassy, lost to the valley fever for the third day. The midwife moved between them, pressing cool cloths to their foreheads.

In the birthing room, two newborns—Oren and Leah—were brought into the world within the hour. As they slept, each in a separate cradle, each dreamed a sentence in a voice like their own: "the fog is just fog." The midwife heard them murmur it in their sleep and told no one.

Down on the south path, a guard stopped Eliana, who had wandered too close to the fog with wet boots, and sent her home with a reminder that the Council preferred people to mind their trade. On the west path, the same happened to Tal, who had been drawn by the shimmer of the mist. Both walked back without protest, their faces blank.

By evening, the town had settled into a restless peace. Ivo walked the perimeter once more, his boots crunching on the gravel. He saw Fernando at his bench, writing in his ledger, and Garrin Zohar, the Clerk of the Record, standing at the quarry's edge, counting stones under the fading light. Garrin muttered to himself, "Six," then paused, and counted again. He frowned, pulled out his own book, and scratched a note.

Fernando looked up from his work and met Ivo's eye. Neither spoke. The fog hung at the edges of everything, patient, unchanged, and the town waited for morning.