Nives stared at the solid gold ingot, glinting like a captured star on the ruined porch. The heavy metallic luster, so alien among the rot and silt of the marshy district, pulled at her vision. Her mind, usually quick to dismiss anything that didn’t directly involve a child’s plight or a city ordinance, snagged on the object. It wasn’t a coin for gambling; it was a weight, a declaration. She pivoted, her broom forgotten, narrowing her gaze at Zanni as he scrambled on hands and knees, clawing up the scattered metal like a stray dog over scraps.
“Just… just bait, Nives!” Zanni stammered, shoving a handful of gleaming ingots back into the bucket, his face a mask of sweat and wide-eyed terror. “Finest… finest gilt-fish! Catches the big ones, see? For the docks! Faro, tell her! Tell her about the gilt-fish!”
Faro, who had been leaning against the shattered doorframe, a picture of weary resignation, straightened slightly. A tiny, almost imperceptible flicker crossed his eyes – not fear, but something like a suppressed amusement, quickly veiled. He offered Nives a weak, apologetic shrug. “Zanni’s… particular about his lures, love. Says the light reflecting off the gold draws the rarer deep-sea catch. Always has a bag of strange trinkets.” His voice was laced with a familiar, gentle irony that Nives usually found endearing, but today, it felt thin, like stretched silk.
Nives’s gaze swept from the frantic Zanni, who was now clutching the bait bucket like a holy relic, to Faro’s calm, almost too-calm face. “Gilt-fish,” she muttered, tasting grit on her teeth. The ingot in her mind’s eye was solid, heavy, not a thin flake of gilt. But then, Zanni was always a strange one, a harmless, superstitious fool. And Faro, her Faro, was utterly transparent, bless his honest, poor heart. He wouldn’t lie. She shook her head, dismissing the momentary oddity. It was probably just some cheap, gilded trinket Zanni had fallen for, like all his other charms and talismans.
“Never mind the ‘gilt-fish’,” she snapped, turning back to the broken window. “We have bigger problems than Zanni’s ridiculous superstitions. This window needs boarding before the gala tonight. And I still need to get ready, if I’m going to confront Salvi properly.” She gestured at a flimsy, threadbare gown hanging crookedly from a nail on the wall – her one, carefully mended dress for charity events, acquired from a discarded pile at the city’s opulent ‘Silver Thread Emporium’.
Just as she reached for it, a sudden, sharp trill of carriage bells cut through the perpetual mist, far too close for comfort. The rhythmic clatter of hooves on the water-slick cobblestones grew louder, stopping directly in front of The Lantern House. A polished, obsidian-black coach, far too grand for the canal slums, emerged from the swirling grey, its lacquered crest depicting a coiled serpent devouring a ship. Teodoro Salvi. Her stomach tightened.
The door swung open, revealing Teodoro himself. He stepped down, immaculate in deep marine blue velvet, an ivory orchid pinned to his lapel. The heavy, damp air recoiled from his bergamot cologne. Behind him, two hulking men in dark, unadorned coats emerged from the mist, their expressions blank, their hands tucked into their pockets. They looked less like bodyguards and more like stone gargoyles come to life.
Teodoro surveyed the ruined mansion, his lip curling. His eyes, the color of cold river stones, swept over the broken window, the mud-splattered porch, and finally, Nives. “Nives Corvo,” he purred, his voice a silken lash. “Still playing at savior in this sewer, I see. And you, Faro Bastione.” He offered a condescending nod to Faro, who stood a few feet behind Nives, his shoulders slumped in what looked like defeat. “Still clinging to the skirts of a lost cause, I presume? Or perhaps you’ve found some new, lucrative way to lose your last coin?”
Nives bristled, stepping forward. “This is not a sewer, Salvi. This is The Lantern House. And it will be a beacon for every child you and your ilk have abandoned. Get out.”
Teodoro merely chuckled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. His gaze fixed on the threadbare dress Nives had been about to retrieve. “Ah, your gala attire, I presume? The pinnacle of Drowning Wards couture.” He stepped forward, a thin grin splitting his lips. He reached into his velvet coat, not for a weapon, but for something far more insidious. A gleam of silver. A small, elegant pocketknife. Its razor edge reflected the murky sky.
Before Nives could react, he grasped the thin fabric of her only good dress. With deliberate, measured cruelty, he drew the razor-sharp edge down the length of the gown, from collar to hem. The fragile silk gave way with a soft, tearing whisper, splitting in two, leaving a ragged, irreversible wound down the center. He then opened the knife wider and began to methodically slash across the torn halves, creating a confetti of shredded fabric. Her evening, her dignity, her meager efforts—all reduced to worthless ribbons.
Nives went rigid, knuckles whitening against her palms. Bile rose behind her teeth; her vision flared red. All her life, she had fought for the discarded, the overlooked, the trampled. And Teodoro Salvi, with his polished shoes and his silver knife, epitomized every entitled, cruel obstacle she had ever faced.
Without a word, without a second’s thought, her hand shot out. The crack of her palm against Teodoro Salvi’s cheek echoed off the wet timber, flat as a pistol shot. His head snapped to the side, leaving a stark, crimson mark on his pale skin. The orchid on his lapel quivered.
Teodoro pressed four fingers to his burning cheek, his smile vanishing into pale fury. No one, absolutely no one, had ever dared to strike him. His eyes, now twin points of ice, fixed on Nives. “You… audacious street rat,” he hissed, his voice dangerously low. “You will regret that. You and your pauper husband. Burn it. Burn it all.” He gestured to his men. “Now.”
The two hulking figures moved, their hands emerging from their pockets, revealing small, unlit torches and flint strikers. The air crackled with imminent violence. Faro, behind Nives, flinched visibly, a strangled sound escaping his throat, his body instinctively moving to shield her. But before a single spark could fly, before a match could be struck, a sound ripped through the fog. A pipe's shrill cry. But not any harbor call Nives had ever heard.
It was a piercing, unnatural shriek, a sustained blast rising from the brine under the pier timbers. It was a sound that scraped against the teeth, vibrating in the bones, carrying an ancient, primal menace. It spoke of deep-sea trenches and leviathans, of iron hulls groaning under pressure, of the mournful cry of a thousand lost souls. It was the sound of the dock itself, screaming.
Teodoro’s men froze. Their hands, mid-motion, hung suspended. A look of abject terror, deep and visceral, contorted their blank faces. Their eyes darted wildly into the swirling mist, as if searching for an unseen, monstrous predator. Teodoro himself faltered, his cold fury momentarily eclipsed by a dawning, sickening comprehension. He knew that sound. Or rather, he knew what that sound meant.
His gaze, wild and desperate, scanned the docks, then fell upon Faro, who stood still, his face once again unreadable. The tendon in Teodoro’s throat tightened. He suddenly plunged a hand into the inner pocket of his velvet coat, not for his elegant knife, but for something else. He pulled it out, holding it up for a bare second: a black fish, perfectly preserved, its scales still gleaming wetly, but clearly severed just behind the gills, its vacant eye staring into the mist. The ultimate, inescapable symbol of Illicia’s true power.
Panic, raw and unbridled, seized Teodoro. His face went ashen. He shrieked something unintelligible to his men, scrambling backward, tripping over his own expensive shoes. He scrambled back inside the cab, knees knocking against the lacquered step. The two hulking men, no longer stone gargoyles but terrified children, stumbled after him, abandoning their torches. The horses lunged into the mist, iron-shod hooves throwing sparks, leaving only the dying siren blast across the canal.
Nives stood amidst the tattered remnants of her dress, her hand still tingling from the force of her slap, utterly bewildered. What just happened? The sudden, inexplicable terror of Teodoro and his men, the unearthly whistle, the severed fish… it was all a terrifying, bewildering blur. She looked at the ruined shreds of her dress. The gala. Her one chance to secure funding. And now, this. Now she had only hours before the gala to find another gown, or lose the shelter before it ever began.