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Of course, if it so transpires that you actually need to use the wand here, in this room, then by any and all measures, that would be the absolute last time to mess around with crippled casts and hobbled wands. For half a second, you seriously consider salting the wand once more– though you come to your senses quickly.
You are in the middle of the fraying room right now, and it is bad enough that you have your left hand in your left apron pocket – messing around any more is just going to signal louder to all and sundry that you have something stowed in there. Instead, you grip your wand tighter and tighter, hoping to keep the salt that you have got on your hands and on the handle safely in place. All the while you maintain as even of a pace as you possibly can, working your way around tables in such as way that the envelope of Strange-Staining covers as much of the common room's floor as absolutely possible without making it blatantly obvious that you are searching the room.
Throttling your wand as you are makes the Socketing needle tug all the more insistently at the crook of your arm, but for once, the pain actually improves your mood. It is a little thing, but at the very least, you can honestly tell yourself that you have done everything that you can to be ready if it comes to a fight in here. Father explained – in no uncertain terms – that if you were ever out in the world, and found yourself in a situation where there was a chance, even a slim one, that there was an unknown Witch or her servants, then you were to jump to conclusions. Specifically, the worst possible conclusions, and then act accordingly. Even though the evidence is strictly circumstantial, you have to assume that a scrap is in offing … no matter how remote a prospect might seem.
Or how much you wish it was just a remote prospect.
Somehow, you manage to grip your wand even tighter as you approach the next table – the closer of the two pairs in the room. When Strange-Staining does not activate as you slip within the six-foot envelope, you relax, just a little … until one of the men starts trying to proposition you.
“Ya working here tonight, lassie? Tending the sheets? Here to tuck us all in?”
On the verge of tears once more and steaming with embarrassment to boot, you have to fight the impulse to put your head down – but even with your eyes nailed to the floor as they are, you can still make out that this whoreless - and tactless - whoremonger is making obscene gestures.
You continue to move, but now there is a new urgency in your steps as you make your way further into the room. As a Leper, you are no whobody to getting shouted, cursed, warded, and crudely gesticulated at. Sometimes, people will spit at you, or even throw things – even when there isn’t illness coursing through the city. On occasion, you will even see children, very young children, burst into tears at the sight of you.
