The mosaic serpent gleamed copper and gold in the fading light, its fractured tiles catching the last rays of sun as Sofia adjusted her worn espadrilles on the undulating bench. She'd come to Park Güell every Thursday evening for three years, teaching sardana to tourists and locals alike, the traditional Catalan circle dance that had been passed down through five generations of her family. Tonight, only one student had appeared—a tall man with calloused hands and troubled eyes who introduced himself as Marc.

"You don't look like someone who takes dance lessons," Sofia said, studying his expensive leather shoes, the precise way he stood as though measuring distances even while still.

Marc's jaw tightened. "I'm trying something new. Work has been... consuming."

She didn't press. People came to her classes for many reasons, most of them having nothing to do with dance. Sofia clapped her hands once, sharp and commanding. "Then we begin. Sardana is about community, about the circle. No one leads, no one follows. Everyone moves as one."

But Marc moved like a man at war with his own body, his steps mechanical, his shoulders rigid. Sofia circled him, correcting his posture with quick touches to his elbow, his spine. Under her hands, she felt the tension coiled through him like wire.

"You're thinking too much," she said. "Feel the rhythm. It's in your blood, whether you know it or not."

"My blood is Catalan," Marc admitted, "but I've spent the last fifteen years in London and New York. I've forgotten how to feel much of anything."

The honesty surprised her. Sofia stopped, hands on hips, and really looked at him. Mid-thirties, probably. Shadows under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. A mouth that had forgotten how to smile.

"Why did you come back?" she asked.

"Work," he said again, but this time the word tasted bitter even to his own ears. "I'm an architect."

Sofia's expression shifted—something hardened behind her eyes. "What kind of architecture?"

"Urban redevelopment mostly." Marc hesitated. "Revitalization projects."

She turned away, walking to the edge of the terrace where Barcelona spread below them, the city turning amber and violet as evening deepened. The bodega district of Gràcia sprawled in the middle distance, its narrow streets lined with century-old wine shops, family-run grocers, the small businesses that formed the neighborhood's beating heart.

"My family's bodega is in Gràcia," Sofia said quietly. "Fourth generation. We've been getting notices. Letters from developers. They say our building needs expensive updates we can't afford. They're very polite about it, but the message is clear—sell, or be pushed out."

Marc felt something cold settle in his stomach. He knew those letters. He'd helped draft the assessment reports that justified them.

"I should go," he said.

"No." Sofia spun back to face him. "You paid for an hour. I'm a professional, Señor Architect. I finish what I start."

For the next forty minutes, she put him through his paces with a ferocity that felt almost vengeful. But somewhere in the repetition—step, step, step, tap, step, step, step, tap—Marc felt something shift. His breathing deepened. His shoulders dropped. The rigid lines of his body began to soften into the circular motion of the dance.

Sofia noticed. Of course she noticed. She noticed everything—the way his eyes traced the Gaudí mosaics with unconscious longing, the gentle way he'd steadied her when she'd slipped on a loose tile, the fact that he'd come to dance class in Park Güell when he could have gone anywhere else in the city.

"Better," she said, and almost smiled.

They were packing up as full darkness fell, Sofia gathering her portable speaker and water bottle, when Marc crouched to retrieve his jacket from the bench. His hand brushed against something wedged between the mosaic tiles—a small leather notebook, its pages swollen with moisture and age.

"What is it?" Sofia leaned over his shoulder.

Marc opened the book carefully. Inside, columns of numbers filled the pages in meticulous handwriting. Property addresses. Dates. Payment amounts. And at the bottom of each page, two sets of initials—one he recognized as belonging to his firm's senior partner. The other belonged to a city planning official who'd recently fast-tracked their permits.

"Dios mío," Sofia whispered, reading over his shoulder. "Is this what I think it is?"

Marc's hands were shaking. The ledger documented systematic bribery—payments to push through redevelopment projects, to condemn buildings that didn't actually need condemning. Projects like the one in Gràcia. Like Sofia's bodega.

"I didn't know," he said. "I swear to you, Sofia, I didn't know."

"But you worked on these projects." Her voice had gone flat. "Your name is probably on the plans."

"Yes." There was no point denying it.

Sofia snatched the ledger from his hands. "This could save my neighborhood. This could stop everything."

"It would also destroy my career," Marc said quietly. "I'd be investigated. Probably unemployable. It doesn't matter that I didn't know—I was involved."

They stood in the darkness, the weight of the choice settling between them like a physical thing. Below, Barcelona glittered with ten thousand lights, beautiful and indifferent to the small human dramas played out within its boundaries.

"Why did you really come to dance class?" Sofia asked.

Marc looked at her—truly looked at her—this fierce woman with her dancer's grace and her family's bodega, her roots sunk deep into the city he'd left behind and was now helping to dismantle.

"Because I heard the music," he said. "Three weeks ago, I walked past your grandmother's shop. She had the radio on—sardana music. And I remembered my mother teaching me the steps in our kitchen when I was five years old. I remembered feeling connected to something larger than myself."

Sofia's eyes were wet. "I teach every Thursday."

"I know."

"If I turn in this ledger, I'll never see you again."

"Probably not."

She pressed the notebook against her chest, indecision warring across her face. Marc reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away, and covered her hands with his.

"Sofia. My career isn't worth your family's history. It isn't worth your street, your community." He took a shaky breath. "Turn it in. Do what's right."

"Just like that? You'd sacrifice everything?"

"Not everything." His thumb brushed across her knuckles. "I'd still have the memory of learning to dance again. Of finding rhythm. Of meeting someone who reminded me why I became an architect in the first place—to build things that matter, not tear them down."

Sofia pulled her hands free, but only to cup his face, bringing him down to her level. She kissed him there in Gaudí's garden, with the mosaic serpent witnessing and the city spread below like a promise.

"Come back next Thursday," she whispered against his mouth. "After I turn this in. After everything falls apart. Come back anyway."

"Why?"

"Because you still dance like you're thinking too much. You need more lessons."

Marc laughed—actually laughed—for the first time in months. "That sounds like a very long course of instruction."

"Could be." Sofia smiled, fierce and sad and hopeful all at once. "Could be years before you get it right."

She tucked the ledger into her bag, and together they walked down through the park's winding paths, their steps falling into unconscious rhythm—the beginning of a dance that would outlast the scandal, the investigation, the slow rebuilding of Marc's career with a small firm that specialized in historic preservation.

A dance that would continue through Thursday evenings in Gràcia, in a century-old bodega that didn't close after all, where an architect who remembered his roots taught himself to build what mattered, and a sardana teacher reminded him, with every step, what it meant to move in circles, connected to something larger than himself.

Together. Always together. Finding rhythm in the spaces between ruin and redemption, between the life he'd built and the one he was finally ready to live.