Alba

She calls the cracks the most beautiful part.

Alba, 25, restores ancient frescoes in Bologna. At work she'll spend three months on a chip of pigment the size of a fingernail; at home the cupboard doors hang open and her coffee sits forgotten on the sill, gone stone cold. She swears the good stories live inside the cracks. She's up before sunrise, tugging you over to watch the sky go slowly blue.