The salt-laced wind whipped off the Lament Port, carrying the stench of fish, brine, and the faint, coppery tang of the city's industrial quarter. Felicity Morwenna Corven clutched the handle of her worn leather suitcase until her knuckles turned white, the other hand gripping her staff, 'Whisperer', like a lifeline. The cobblestones of Port Lament seemed to tilt and sway beneath her boots, a nauseating echo of the ship she'd just disembarked from.
Too many people. Her internal monologue was a frantic, skittering thing. Too many eyes. Don't look at them. Don't make contact. Just walk.
Her wide-brimmed black hat, its gold-threaded hem flapping in the breeze, felt less like a piece of her craft and more like a beacon screaming 'WITCH HERE, COME AND STARE'. She kept her indigo eyes locked on the ground a few feet ahead, watching the scuffed toes of her boots navigate the gaps between stones. Her two lavender braids, usually a source of quiet pride, now felt like ropes tying her to this awful, exposed feeling. Every shouted conversation between dockworkers, every creak of a wagon wheel, was a physical blow to her senses.
She was looking for a place called 'The Salty Mermaid'. A boarding house, her sparse instructions had said. A place that supposedly didn't ask questions. The buildings pressed in on her, tall and leaning, their timber frames dark with damp. Laundry lines crisscrossed the narrow alleys, dripping onto the already slick cobbles. She could feel the latent magic of the town—a grimy, low-thrum thing, mostly from cheap industrial enchantments on the fishing nets and preservation barrels. It itched against her own Source Well, a discordant static.
A group of men lounging outside a chandlery fell silent as she passed. She felt their gazes like hot brands on her back. One of them muttered something, and a low chuckle followed. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone. Don't run. Running draws attention. Just walk faster.
She rounded a corner, hoping to escape their line of sight, and nearly collided with a stack of crates overflowing with silver-scaled fish. The reek was overwhelming. Gagging, she sidestepped, her shoulder brushing against the rough brick of a building. A sharp pain lanced through her temple. A headache was brewing, the precursor to a full-blown panic if she didn't find shelter soon.
Where is it? Where is the damn Mermaid?
Her eyes, still downcast, caught a sign swinging from a rusted iron bracket. A crudely painted, leering figure with a fish's tail and improbably large breasts. 'The Salty Mermaid'. Relief, sharp and dizzying, washed over her. It looked as unwelcoming as she felt. Perfect.
Pushing the heavy, salt-crusted door open, she slipped inside. The interior was a cave of shadows and smoke, smelling of stale beer, old wood, and boiled cabbage. A few grizzled patrons hunched over mugs at a scarred bar, their conversations dying as the door shut behind her with a definitive thud. All eyes turned to her.
Felicity froze in the doorway, her grip on Whisperer so tight the Veilwood staff seemed to hum in protest. She could feel the barman's gaze first—a heavy, assessing weight. Then the others. A man with a face like a crumpled map. Another missing an eye, the socket a mass of knotted flesh.
"Help you?" the barman grunted, his voice like gravel grinding underfoot. He was a mountain of a man, with a thick, greying beard and arms covered in faded tattoos of anchors and sea serpents.
Felicity's throat clicked, dry. She tried to speak, but only a faint squeak emerged. She swallowed, tried again. "A... a room." The words were barely a whisper. "I was told... you have rooms."
The barman's eyes narrowed, traveling from the tip of her ridiculous hat down to her travel-stained boots. He took in the staff, the braided hair, the palpable aura of 'otherness' that clung to her like mist.
"We don't get your kind here often," he said, his tone flat, not hostile, but not friendly either. It was a statement of fact, loaded with unspoken implications. Your kind. Witches. Alters.
"I just need a room," Felicity repeated, a little stronger this time, forcing her chin up a fraction. Her indigo eyes met his for a split second before darting away, focusing on a sticky stain on the bar top. "For a week. Maybe two."
The barman studied her for a long, silent moment. The other patrons had gone back to their drinks, but she could feel the tension of their listening. He gestured with a thick thumb towards a narrow staircase at the back of the room. "Top of the stairs, last door on the left. One silver stag a night. Payment up front. No magic in the rooms. You break it, you pay for it. You bring trouble, you're out."
She inwardly sighed a breath of relief. "Oh, thank you!"
The barman's grunt was the only acknowledgment of her thanks. Felicity practically fled up the narrow, creaking staircase, her suitcase banging against her leg with every hurried step. The wood groaned under her feet, each sound a fresh spike of anxiety. Too loud, you're being too loud, they're all listening.
She fumbled with the tarnished brass key, her hands shaking so badly it took three tries to fit it into the lock. The door swung inward with a protesting whine, revealing a room that was little more than a closet. A narrow bed with a thin, grey blanket, a rickety washstand with a chipped ceramic pitcher and bowl, and a single, grimy window overlooking a cramped, brick-lined alley. The air was thick with the smell of dust and mildew.
She dropped her suitcase just inside the door, let Whisperer clatter to the floorboards, and sank onto the edge of the bed, her entire body trembling. The springs squealed in protest. She buried her face in her hands, the rough wool of her gloves scratching against her skin.
Idiot. Clumsy, panicking idiot. You couldn't even say a full sentence. "A room." Gods, you sounded like a simpleton. Her thoughts were a vicious, familiar spiral. They were all staring. They knew. They always know.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, making herself as small as possible. The big, stupid hat was still on her head, casting her face in shadow. She tore it off and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a soft thump and slid to the floor.
A dry, hiccupping sob escaped her. This was it. This was her grand escape from the suffocating expectations of her family, from the whispers in her hometown. To this... this damp, grey box in a town that smelled of dead fish and suspicion.
"Sylvester would love this," she muttered into the rough fabric of her trousers, her voice thick with miserable irony. Just the thought of her childhood friend was like a splash of cold water. Sylvester. All easy grins and reckless confidence. He'd have swaggered into that bar downstairs, slapped a coin on the counter, and had the whole place eating out of his hand with some stupid story within five minutes. He'd find the adventure in the grime, the charm in the leering mermaid sign. He'd probably already be down there, arm-wrestling the one-eyed man for a free drink.
The image was so clear, so painfully Sylvester, that a wet laugh bubbled up amidst her tears. He'd thrived in chaos. She dissolved in it. He was probably somewhere right now, on the other side of Foloria, doing something brilliantly stupid and getting away with it, while she was hiding in a rented room, afraid of her own shadow.
She uncurled slightly, wiping her nose on her sleeve with a grimace. Unladylike, Felicity. Another voice, her mother's this time, chiding and distant. She looked at Whisperer lying on the floor. The Veilwood staff was smooth and dark, the Spirit Silk thread within it now calm, a quiet hum against her senses. It was the one thing that felt truly hers. Not the name, not the hair, not the expectations. This.
With a shaky sigh, she pushed herself off the bed and picked up the staff. The familiar weight was a comfort. She went to the window, rubbing a clean spot on the grimy glass with her elbow. The alley below was deserted, a canyon of damp brick and overflowing refuse bins. But beyond the rooftops, she could see the masts of ships in the harbor, their pennants snapping in the wind. A sliver of the grey, churning sea was visible.
It was ugly, and frightening, and it wasn't home.
But it was hers. For now.
Sylvester could have his taverns and his tall tales. She had this room, her staff, and the vast, terrifying unknown waiting just outside her door. The thought didn't calm her, not exactly. But it shifted something. The panic receded, leaving behind a cold, hard knot of resolve in the pit of her stomach.
She was here. However awkwardly she'd arrived, she was here.
*
The dream was a familiar, suffocating one. Endless corridors in her family's manor, the portraits on the walls whispering her failures. She was running, but her feet were stuck in thick, black tar. The whispers grew louder, coalescing into a single, urgent pressure in her lower abdomen.
Felicity's eyes snapped open in the absolute darkness of the rented room. For a disorienting moment, she didn't know where she was. The ceiling was too close, the air too foreign. Then the reality of Port Lament and The Salty Mermaid crashed back into her, followed immediately by the desperate, bladder-twisting need to pee.
No. No, no, no.
She squeezed her thighs together, a futile attempt to quell the urgency. She'd been too anxious to ask about facilities when she'd checked in, too eager to escape the judging eyes downstairs. Now, in the dead of night, her body was betraying her with a vengeance.
A hot flush of embarrassment crept up her neck and burned in her cheeks. Of all the humiliating scenarios... She contemplated the chipped pitcher on the washstand for a wild, desperate second before dismissing it. She wasn't that far gone. Yet.
With a groan of pure misery, she pushed back the thin blanket. The floorboards were icy against her bare feet. She fumbled in the dark, pulling on her boots without lacing them and throwing her heavy wool cloak over her nightdress. Her hat and staff she left behind—they felt like too much, too witchy for a simple, shameful midnight errand. She just needed to be a girl who needed to pee. Not Felicity Morwenna Corven, witch of a minor but proud lineage. Just a girl.
She cracked the door open, wincing at the sound. The hallway was pitch black and silent. Holding her cloak tightly closed, she crept down the stairs, each step a careful, agonizing negotiation with her screaming bladder. The main tavern was empty now, chairs upturned on tables, the hearth nothing but cold ashes. The silence was a living thing, pressing in on her.
She spotted the barman—or someone—asleep on a cot behind the bar, a lump under a coarse blanket. She hesitated, her courage faltering. She could just... go back upstairs. Try to hold it until morning.
A sharp, painful spasm in her gut decided for her.
She shuffled forward, her boots scuffing softly on the sawdust-covered floor. "E-Excuse me?" she whispered, her voice a reedy thread in the silence.
The lump under the blanket stirred. A grimy, bearded face emerged, squinting at her in the gloom. It was the same barman. He looked even less friendly half-asleep.
"What?" he grunted, his voice a low rasp.
"The... the water closet?" Felicity managed, her face now fully aflame. "Where is it?"
He stared at her for a long moment, as if processing the sheer absurdity of being woken for this. Then he jerked a thumb towards the back door. "Out back. Outhouse. Don't fall in."
He pulled the blanket back over his head, the conversation clearly over.
Outhouse. Of course. She should have known. Pushing the heavy back door open, she was hit by the full, ripe stench of the alley, now amplified by the still night air. It was even darker out here, the only light a sliver of a sickly green moon peeking between the rooftops.
She saw it—a small, dilapidated wooden shack leaning precariously against the back fence. Relief warred with revulsion. She hurried towards it, her unlaced boots slapping against the wet cobbles, her focus entirely on the rickety door.
She was fumbling with the simple latch when a voice, rough and slurred, cut through the silence behind her.
"Well, look what we got here. A little lost lamb."
Felicity froze, her blood running cold. She slowly turned.
Three men stood a dozen feet away, blocking her path back to the tavern door. They were the picture of waterfront scum—filthy clothes, scarred faces, and eyes that gleamed with a predatory dullness in the weak moonlight. One, a hulking brute with a broken nose, leered at her. Another, shorter and weaselly, was taking a long swig from a bottle. The third, who had spoken, was lean and sharp-faced, with a knife scar tracing his jawline. He was the one looking at her with a chilling, appraising interest.
"Not so fancy without your pointy hat, are ya?" the weaselly one chuckled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Felicity's heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. The urgent pressure in her bladder was now a secondary, distant concern compared to the raw, primal fear flooding her system. She took a step back, her shoulders hitting the rough wood of the outhouse.
"I... I was just..." she stammered, her voice a terrified whisper.
"Just what, sweetheart?" the sharp-faced leader asked, taking a step forward. His eyes traveled over her, from her disheveled braids down to her cloak, which she now clutched like a shield. "Out for a midnight stroll? All alone?"
"Leave me alone," she said, trying to inject force into the words, but they came out thin and tremulous.
The brute laughed, a sound like rocks grinding together. "Or what? You gonna hex us, little witch? We heard about you. New in town."
The leader was closer now, close enough for her to smell the cheap gin on his breath and the unwashed stink of his clothes. "We're just being friendly. Port Lament can be a dangerous place for a girl on her own. Maybe you need some... protection." His gaze was a physical violation. "Might cost you, though. A little coin... or a little somethin' else."
He reached out, not towards her, but to touch one of her lavender braids.
That was the breaking point. The fear, the humiliation, the violation—it all coalesced into a single, sharp point of terror. A small, choked sound escaped her lips as she flinched back violently, her head cracking against the outhouse door. The world swam for a second.
The men laughed, a cruel, unified sound that echoed in the cramped alley.
"Skittish, ain't she?" the weasel sneered.
Tears of pure panic and shame welled in Felicity's eyes. She was trapped, cornered against a reeking privy by three thugs, in her nightclothes, about to either wet herself or be assaulted, or both. And she had nothing. No staff. No hat. No Sylvester. No brave words. Just the terrified, rabbit-fast beating of her own heart.