I will confess this much: walking through a city that had once been thrumming with life only to find it hollowed out like a rotted gourd does curious things to the mind.
I had always prided myself on being quick with words, on having some razor-edged quip tucked away for every occasion, but there are only so many clever remarks one can make to soot-stained walls and broken windows.
The silence of the streets was its own kind of insult, an orchestra of absence that refused to play along with my humor.
I caught myself muttering greetings to the empty stalls we passed, mock bowing to toppled statues, and at one point I even tipped my pen like a hat at a startled cat that bolted down an alley.
Rodrick muttered that I was losing it, to which I replied that losing it required first owning it, and I had never owned much sanity to begin with.
He didn't laugh.
