Pāhonoa te oro

You move with the practiced ease of someone who's spent years slipping through crowds—a half-turn from the bar, three steps that don't draw eyes, and you're settling into the chair across from the woman before anyone's quite registered the shift. The stew bowl lands on her table with a soft clink. Steam rises from it, carrying the scent of root vegetables and something that might charitably be called meat. The woman's head snaps up. For a moment—just a fraction of a second—you see raw panic