Silas noticed the moment she noticed him.

Not because she was particularly obvious about it. If anything, he suspected most people would have missed it entirely. She moved through the motions of closing up her booth with practiced ease, placing a sign on the table, gathering her belongings, and shutting off her music with the kind of casual efficiency that suggested she was trying very hard not to draw attention to herself. Yet for someone who had spent most of his life watching people from the edges of rooms and crowds, the subtle shifts were impossible to miss. He caught the brief pause when her gaze first settled on him. He noticed the way her attention continued drifting back toward him even when she pretended to be looking elsewhere. More importantly, he noticed the threads.

The magic surrounding her behaved differently than it did around the other witches. The familiar signs of broken spellwork still lingered around her like they did around every practitioner he had ever encountered, but there was something else there as well. Something he couldn't immediately identify. The living weave seemed almost curious around her, responding to her presence in a way that felt strangely uncertain. More than once he caught her reaching toward the threads themselves, fingers brushing through the currents of magic that drifted unseen through the festival air. She couldn't manipulate them. He could tell that much. Yet she seemed aware of them in a way most witches never were. That alone was enough to hold his attention.

Ordinarily, he would have left the moment a witch took an interest in him. Years of caution had taught him that curiosity rarely ended well when magic was involved. Most witches couldn't sense exactly what he was, but many sensed enough to know something wasn't right. Something about him never fit properly into the shape of the world they understood. Over time he had become exceptionally skilled at disappearing before questions became dangerous. Today, however, he found himself remaining exactly where he was, seated on the edge of the fountain while the crowd flowed endlessly around him. Perhaps it was because she seemed just as uncomfortable with the festival as he was. Perhaps it was because the threads behaved so strangely around her. Or perhaps curiosity had simply gotten the better of him.

Whatever the reason, he stayed.

Silas watched her weave her way through the crowd, pretending to examine stalls and passing strangers while steadily moving in his direction. The effort would have been amusing if it wasn't so transparent. By the time she finally abandoned any pretense and approached the fountain directly, a faint smile had already begun tugging at the corner of his mouth. He didn't move when she sat beside him. He didn't speak first. Instead, he simply waited, patient as ever, allowing her to make the first move while quietly studying her from the corner of his eye.

When her question finally came, he felt the weight behind it immediately.

"Who are you?"

Up close, he could see the frustration lingering beneath her composure. Whatever she had been trying to discover while making her way across the festival grounds, she had clearly failed to find the answer she was looking for. The realization brought a strange flicker of satisfaction. It wasn't often that someone looked at him and came away confused. Most people either ignored him entirely or made assumptions based on whatever version of himself he chose to present. This woman seemed genuinely perplexed, and he found himself wondering if that bothered her as much as it appeared to.

His gaze drifted briefly back toward the festival before returning to her face.

"I'm nobody," he replied calmly. "Nothing particularly interesting. Just another curious visitor who wandered somewhere he probably shouldn't have."

The answer wasn't entirely false. It simply wasn't the answer she wanted.

A soft breeze drifted through the square, carrying distant music, laughter, and the scent of food from nearby vendors. Silas sat quietly for a moment, letting the sounds settle around them before speaking again. His eyes flicked briefly toward the booth she had abandoned and then back to her, the faint smile never quite leaving his expression.

"Though I imagine that's going to disappoint you. You packed up your table, crossed half the festival, and sat beside a complete stranger. People don't usually do that unless they're looking for something."

His attention lingered on her for a moment longer. The longer he watched, the more convinced he became that whatever had brought her over here had very little to do with him personally and everything to do with whatever she thought she had seen. The frustration beneath her calm exterior hadn't faded. If anything, it seemed to deepen the longer she sat there.

"I get the feeling," he continued thoughtfully, "that you're not entirely sure why you're talking to me either."

There was no accusation in his voice, only quiet observation. It was the same tone he might have used while discussing the weather or commenting on a particularly interesting book. Yet beneath the gentleness of his words, genuine curiosity lingered. She was the first witch he had ever encountered who seemed capable of noticing something unusual about him without immediately understanding what it was.

For the first time since she had approached, Silas turned fully toward her, meeting her gaze directly.

"So perhaps a better question would be..." A hint of amusement touched his smile. "Who are you?"