4.THE STALEMATE

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 07:10:00 +0000

The forty-eight-hour waiting period felt less like a countdown and more like a holding pattern before a crash. Elara spent the first twenty-four hours in the basement of the Boston Public Library, digging through microfiche archives that smelled of vinegar and old dust. She was looking for anything—a deed restriction, a forgotten easement, a letter from a city official—that could bind the Blackwood Library to the earth permanently.