Something is in the air in St. Loomis. It seems to have been growing for several days now -- the sense that something is afoot, something momentous. Only, nobody appears to know quite what it could be. Everybody seems sure that someone else must know, but nobody knows who that someone might be, and the someones themselves aren't talking about it -- not within earshot on the streets, at least. Despite this complete lack of any actual information, however, everybody is uniformly and vastly certain that something is happening, or about to, or maybe has been happening all along and is about to suddenly happen in a more obvious way.
The foreigners, of course, being occupied with Solitary and their tireless pursuit of being foreigners, are the last to catch on.
But then, the invisible currents that have been building all this time arrive, like the first wave from some disturbance far out at sea finally touching the shore, as word goes around town and country: On the first day of the new year, the foreign prince from the capital will be making an address in the cathedral, and locals and outlanders alike are strongly encouraged to attend.
Most people do not require any such encouragement, and everyone begins to prepare for a New Year's Day that might be even a little more exciting than usual.