Reynara moves through Rome like someone restoring not just crumbling plaster, but lost breaths trapped beneath centuries-old paint layers. Her studio is tucked into a former spice merchant’s attic in Monti, where mortar mixes dry beside vinyl records warped by August heat. She spends days balancing on wobbly wooden scaffolds, breathing in the ghosts of saints' faces revealed stroke-by-stroke, her hands guided less by commission rules than whispers passed down since her grandmother smuggled restoration manuals out of wartime ruins.By night, she ascends—not to sleep—but to feed three feral tabbies curled among terracotta pots atop a disused bell tower roof with a direct gaze toward St. Peter’s cupola. There, under mosquito netting stitched together from moth-eaten curtains, she listens to mixtapes spun during late-meter taxi rides—the soundtracks shared wordlessly between lovers too afraid to say I’m falling. Each track chosen feels like a confession dropped through keyholes.Romance enters sideways in her world—a hand briefly covering hers as he adjusts projector knobs during outdoor screenings in blind alleys behind trattorias closed for siesta; notes folded into envelope corners written in smudged graphite and slid beneath her door after midnight readings of Neruda aloud into phone recorders. Their dates unfold half-in-shadow—one wool coat shared despite drizzle-slick stones reflecting neon vineyard signs pulsing amber below—together watching silent Chaplin reels flickering on damp stone.Desire blooms slowly here—in delayed glances caught through bus windows streaked with condensation, in slow peels of lemon rind offered tongue-first during clandestine limoncello stops en route home past shuttered bakeries. Intimacy isn't rushed—it builds, like pigment suspension settling overnight—and sex happens only once trust eclipses ritual secrecy. Then? All restraint dissolves beneath sheets smelling of jasmine tea and turpentine, limbs tangled under star-speckled skylights.