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You linger just long enough to make sure that it doesn't swing back ajar, then you lower your head and move as fast as you dare up the street - forgoing the sidewalks, as swathes of them are simply too well lit. You are exposed to the point that you feel as if you were naked - but some houses have fenced the alleys between them off, and other houses don't even have alleys, so it is that dealing with the light of the street-lamps is not worth the few, far-between and questionable havens of alleyways offered by the sidewalk. At least, that is what you are telling yourself, over and over. About half a dozen houses away, there are lights on upstairs, and you find that your eyes are drawn to it as if they were moths. You have to keep dragging your gaze downward - just as you have to stop yourself from picking up speed. You could go faster, but you are not so sure that your foot-wraps could. It certainly doesn't help that these streets are paved with cobblestones and not proper pavers. You look up - and you catch your first glimpse of your goal, the Cleaners Closet, half obscured around a corner. Before you can catch yourself, you glimpse upward again at the house with the lit windows. You are getting closer.
Off in the distance somewhere, you can hear a horse and team moving, just on the edge of audibility. There is nothing that you can do about that now though, even if you were on the sidewalk, there are no alleys between here and the corner for you to duck into. You allow yourself a little more haste, dropping your head once more, trying to keep your new pace as your 'sack starts to shift noticeably back and forth. Damn it all, you must not have adjusted it properly - or perhaps you had adjusted it properly, only to -
Far up on the Promontory, Giotto begins his softer night-time tolling - his dull, long ring unmistakable even at this distance. Perhaps a heartbeat later, his brothers begin their softer chimes as well, the lot of them together ringing in a new hour - though you suppose you cannot be too sure if was a heartbeat later, as your own heart just so happened to skipped that beat.
