The city did not change overnight.
That was how Elyon knew something had.
The Low Priority Zone still woke unevenly. Lights flickered in the same tired rhythm. People walked with the same careful spacing. The hum beneath hearing remained, thin but present, like a wire pulled too tight.
But the attention had shifted.
Elyon felt it before he saw it.
He sat against the wall where he always sat now, eyes half-closed, breathing slow. The board still stood near the steps. The words DECISION PENDING had not been erased. No new lines had been added.
That absence was deliberate.
Someone wanted the question to stay visible.
A man stood across the street, leaning against a pole. Not a guard. Not a resident. His clothes were plain. Clean. His posture was relaxed in a way that took practice.
He wasn't watching Elyon.
He was watching how others watched him.
The hum beneath hearing tightened slightly.
Elyon opened his eyes.
The man met his gaze for half a second, then looked away. Not caught. Acknowledged.
That was new.
By midmorning, there were three of them.
They did not stand together. They did not speak to one another openly. They placed themselves where lines crossed—sightlines, not paths. Each one had a clear view of the board, the zone, and the people who lingered near the edge.
People noticed.
They adjusted the way they spoke. Not quieter. More precise.
"It held this time," a woman said near the water station.
"Yes," a man replied. "But it took longer."
One of the watchers wrote something down.
Not about Elyon.
About the conversation.
Elyon felt something cold settle in his stomach.
This was not assessment of stability.
This was assessment of belief.
At noon, one of the watchers approached him.
Not close.
Close enough.
"You don't need to sit like that," the man said.
Elyon looked up. "Like what?"
"Like you're waiting for permission," the man replied.
Elyon laughed softly. "I am."
The man studied him for a moment. His eyes moved carefully, cataloging details without lingering.
"Permission from whom?" he asked.
Elyon gestured around them. "The city."
The man nodded once. "That's what we're here to understand."
"We?" Elyon asked.
The man smiled faintly. "The people who worry when cities make decisions without knowing why."
Elyon felt the hum beneath hearing shift, not spike. Just… align.
"You're not guards," Elyon said.
"No," the man agreed. "Guards respond."
"Then what are you?" Elyon asked.
The man glanced toward the board, then toward the edge of the zone.
"We watch patterns before they harden," he said. "So they don't surprise us later."
"And me?" Elyon asked.
The man met his eyes. "You're a pattern that formed too fast."
That answer stayed with Elyon long after the man stepped away.
Throughout the afternoon, the watchers moved closer to the watchers already present—the guards, the monitors, the officials with tablets. They asked quiet questions. They observed reactions.
They were not interested in Elyon's movements.
They were interested in how much fear followed those movements.
A guard raised his voice once, telling someone to step back from the line.
One of the watchers wrote something down.
The guard noticed and corrected his tone.
Elyon saw it.
So did others.
By evening, the zone felt different again.
Not tighter.
More aware.
People checked themselves before acting. They corrected their words mid-sentence. They stopped using the word Anchor out loud.
That absence was louder than the name had ever been.
Mara came at dusk and stood farther away than usual.
"There are people asking questions about the questions," she said quietly.
Elyon nodded. "I noticed."
"They're not asking if you should move," she continued. "They're asking who decided you shouldn't."
Elyon closed his eyes for a moment.
That was dangerous.
"Do they think the decision was wrong?" he asked.
Mara shook her head. "They think it was rushed."
The hum beneath hearing wavered again. A light flickered near the edge and held.
No crack followed.
One of the watchers looked disappointed.
That scared Elyon more than failure would have.
Later that night, the man from earlier returned.
"Do you know why cities fail?" the man asked, standing at a respectful distance.
Elyon shrugged. "They run out of resources."
The man smiled slightly. "No. They lose track of who is allowed to decide."
Elyon studied him. "And you're here to stop that?"
"We're here to slow it down," the man replied. "Long enough to see the shape of the mistake."
"And if the mistake is me?" Elyon asked.
The man didn't answer right away.
"When a system pushes too much onto one point," he said finally, "the mistake is rarely the point itself."
The hum beneath hearing thinned again, but did not break.
Elyon felt something else then.
Not pressure.
Not weight.
Attention.
Focused, deliberate, patient.
The watchers were not here to remove him.
Not yet.
They were here to observe what happened when a city began to doubt its own solution.
That was worse.
Because doubt does not rush.
It watches.
Elyon leaned back against the wall as the night settled in uneven layers. The watchers stayed. The board stayed. The question remained unanswered.
But something new had entered the space.
A second layer of observation.
The city watching Elyon.
And now—
Others watching the city.
Elyon closed his eyes, feeling the hum hold just enough.
The Serpent Watchers had not announced themselves.
They did not need to.
They were already doing what they came for.
Watching the watching.
And waiting for the moment the city's answer revealed more than it intended to.