The market by midnight was no time for a young thing in a barely a breath of linen to be trespassing against. There were ivory cracks through the otherwise ash-mottled statues and large shadows that dreamed of their darkness and unfolded as the hour her feet wandered.

But her heart was sunflower and fox-fur, wrapped up like a pouch beating only the good things. Beyond the margins of her aura were where the dangers knelt in predatory benediction, but she did not entice them because she carried no fear on her breaths and no hate, and so sleeping giants had no reason to awake and harass and her path was admitted through the closed stalls and cobbled lanes.

When she reached her destination, it was only with a smile. Fingers unlaced the talisman and unwound the string and on to crate she crept to hang it secretly on a simple, well placed nail. It shone and chimed just as Perpetual Misery began to toll.

Raising her hood, she dashed back the way she came, leaving the ward to watch over the market and sing its tiny symphony of protection. On the edge of the city the aghast Morkod were already lifting fists from gravebeds. Blood curdling yelps and piercing whines with them.