"Beta, when will you come home?" her mother asked.
And the Grand Seasons Business Hotel, with its four false climates and its thousand identical doors, hummed on into the small hours—a monument to the strange, quiet tragedy of people who were always arriving and never truly checking in.
No one laughed. But Priya smiled. Arthur flinched. Eleanor didn't react at all.
Leo pressed the intercom button. "Good evening, Grand Seasons guests. The forecast for tomorrow is… more of the same."
His phone buzzed. His daughter, for the third time. Call me, Dad.