Weeks passed. She began to notice how little acts reshaped more than one life at a time: a returned phone led to a reunited family, a repaired bike unlocked a new job. When her neighbor, an elderly man who rarely spoke, forgot to water his fern, Riya watered it for him. The next week he invited her in for chai and, between sips, told her how he used to be a cartographer of fishing harbors before the sea took most of his maps. In a drawer he gave her a faded compass— "For your salahkaars," he said with a wink.