Afterword
During the long period before Vena Ice-Free Port went underground, I ran an inn on Old William Street where most of the time there were more staff than guests — it was left to me by my mother. Although she disappeared more than twenty years ago, with only a cenotaph in the cemetery of Wensel Street Church, her family's care often brought generous nobles to this otherwise desolate inn. At the same time, I was also a writer who had published a few novels — this stemmed from my father's expectations, as he too disappeared with my mother and is buried next to her cenotaph.
I had no expectations for the future; going to the inn to catch lazy staff and writing in the attic were the only two things I did each day. I wasn't a pessimist, but what is there to smile about in this miserable world without hope or sunlight, where not even seagulls defecate on bay windows?
