Author's Preface
Elsewhere and otherwhiles...
The Above where Autumn now curls into Winter, like a leaf blown and beset by frostburn.
The disciple, swaddled in voluminous ink-black work-robes of a common scoundrel of the Lower Houses.
Buoyed by the haemal gift from her patron, floats with the near inaudible tip-tap of a graceful dancer across the lanes and leaning, mazy thoroughfares of the Opal Quarter.
The thought of her night-shrouded destination burning with a bright and sickly anticipation:
The ghastly-gaudy Hall of Stews and its blazing pleasure-plazas.
Turning swiftly down the twist of a tight, adjacent lane, there is the suddenness of a lonely loiterer, his broad-backed leathers a feral, imposing pungence. A tang of bitter animal sweat.
Why here? This one should not be here...
His back to her soundless approach, he bears a tourniquet heavy with sharp alloys, dense in the dull illumination of middle-night. And a distended cudgel, fat-iron lazily dangling from thick, idle fingers.
Colours and emblazons of the Burning Houses capering across home-spun cloth.
The disciple, her thoughts moving oily-supple and inhuman, carry her like a conscienceless wind. Her hand-span blade an airy whistle.
Her new strength is ill-contained, and unfamiliar.
Clumsy, she cuts too deeply and wastes too much.
With an inward sob, she flees the dark, discarded lump.
Finger-tips and lips sweet, with a sticky odious heat.