The city did not feel hostile as Willow moved through it alone, but it no longer felt provisional either. Los Angeles existed now as a place she was passing through rather than inhabiting, its streets familiar without claiming her attention, its rhythm steady but no longer aligned with her own.
She walked without urgency, her bag resting lightly against her hip as the afternoon unfolded at an unremarkable pace. The shops near the terminal were busy in the way travel corridors always were, full of people marking time rather than occupying it, drifting from one point to the next without attachment. She had not intended to buy anything. The thought arrived only after she found herself slowing in front of a window display filled with children's clothing arranged with exaggerated care.
