Quoted By:
<span class="mu-s">Nocturne for the Damned</span>
<span class="mu-s">ACT I – The Unseen Ledger, page 1</span>
The lamps along the street sputtered under the thickening fog, their flames dimmed to sullen embers. Windows along the boulevard glittered with light and laughter, but behind every curtained veil, a ledger was kept — invisible, meticulous, merciless.
<span class="mu-i">"Every pleasure tallied. Every deviation remembered."</span>
The mist creeps low around your boots as you walk with your collar turned high, the taste of wet stone sharp on your tongue. The gaslights sputter and hiss above, their glow struggling against the gloom, gilding the marble columns and ironwork balconies in a sickly, shifting halo.
Somewhere nearby, a musician saws a mournful tune from a battered violin. The notes drift through the fog, warping into something cracked and broken before reaching your ears. Perfume and coal smoke tangle in the air, masking the more honest scents of rot, iron, and old blood.
Carriages roll past in steady procession, wheels throwing up muddy fans of water onto the cracked stone. The passengers inside wear painted smiles and jewel-toned silks, but their eyes — when they dare to glance at you — are hollow, distant, hungry.
One carriage slows as it passes. Behind its glass, a pale figure presses her hand to the window, her fingers delicate and gloved, her expression hidden by a lacquered mask. A child's mask, you realize — frozen in a rictus grin.
<span class="mu-i">"Is it warning... or farewell?"</span>
You tighten your grip on your coat and keep walking.
Above, the rooftops groan as something moves through the mist, too swift and sure to be the wind. The corner of your eye catches a glint — polished glass, perhaps a monocle — and the flutter of a long coat as a figure slips from one eave to another. Watching. Always watching.
The bells of Marrowgate sound the hour, a long, wheezing groan that shudders through the stones beneath your feet. A reminder: Curfew is near. Eyes are everywhere.
<span class="mu-i">"You are weighed,"</span> the signs say, gilt letters flowing like blood in the lamplight. <span class="mu-i">"You are watched. You are wanted."</span>
