Nia couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt her toes. It was hard to care about them, if she was being perfectly honest. Not when the yowling alley cat that was her stomach refused to be quiet. Still, she didn’t want to lose them. It was hard enough to traverse this labyrinth of a city with the nine she had left. She had to imagine any additional losses would make it considerably more cumbersome. 

She’d been wandering the Market all day, the stink of rotten fish now permanently embedded in her grimy skin, and had nothing to show for it. Hunting for scraps was a humiliating business on a good day, but even worse was hunting for scraps and ending the day empty-handed. She hadn’t managed upon a singular ounce of moonmetal or aethereal glass — not even a tin can. Nothing that could be hawked, let alone eaten. She threw her head back and let out a growl of rage more befitting an animal. 

The night sky loomed wide and silent overhead. She blinked at it, a twinge of despair plucking at the space around her heart for the stars she’d never seen — never would see. Not with the miles and miles of city around and above her, diluting the light in the atmosphere to a dim, uninterrupted haze of blue and green. She supposed, to the untrained eye, it might look pretty. Like a famous watercolor, hanging in one of the Upper city’s museums. But anybody who’d ever bore witness to Belham in the daytime knew that the sky here was only pretty insofar as that it was not the Ground. 

She sighed and begrudgingly flopped herself down on a vacant stoop, hardly bothering to assess it for sleeping suitability. She hadn’t the luxury of being picky. Plus, the alcoves that framed the entryways to these ancient government-sanctioned housing units made for a nice shield against the frigid sea air. But you had to lay claim early — there were only so many empty doorways. She supposed she could count herself lucky to have found one at this time of night. Though one sniff told her why this particular doorstep was still unoccupied. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, almost happy for the empty stomach. Someone had used her stoop as a bathroom. Recently. And very thoroughly.

Thankfully, Nia was Proper — in the biological sense, at least, and had a relatively weak sense of smell. Plus, she was accustomed to blocking out the unpleasant odors of the Ground. She pulled out two small wads of cloth, once the hems of either end of her now threadbare scarf, and stuffed one into each nostril.

Now, she could concentrate.

Fires were strictly forbidden in city streets, though that didn’t stop some of the Auror vagrants gifted with fire magic from covertly warming themselves — doubly illegal, since aether magic was prohibited. Nia sighed bitterly to herself as she nestled into her makeshift burrow. If she had any magic to her name, the Governor himself would have to pry it from her cold, dead heart. She scanned the alleyway for any sort of flicker, but the darkness of the Ground was as all-consuming as ever. The pitiful yellow glow emitted by the lamps a few stories above was the only light around – the closest she’d ever get to seeing a star in person. Once or twice she’d managed to find an ancient Astronomy text in the Ground’s original, but abandoned, public library before being chased off by the rat-nosed “librarian” that claimed ownership of the joint. Demented witch. Prowling about the place as if she were any less of a Groundling than Nia herself. 

Nia cocked her head, listening to the low hum of other Groundlings murmuring in the dark to one another, no doubt telling fanciful tales of gods knew what to beckon sleep close. A small comfort, she thought, that no matter how much misery she endured, she was hardly ever alone in it. 

Nia started working at her laces, thick with mud and stiff from the frozen air. She cupped her gloved hands around them and huffed a few hot breaths for good measure. Her hips groaned with the movement, stiff as a board from the cold. 

She’d never known another home but this one — the one she made for herself every night out of stone and ice and willful determination. She wasn’t sure where it came from — that desire to carry on. She’d never known it to exist amongst her peers. Not the sober ones, anyway. Though she didn’t have many of those. Maybe it was the short-lived joy that came with finding a meal only half-eaten and not yet black with mold. Or the escapism of her most treasured — if only — possession: a weather-worn book about a far-off land, a handsome prince, and a magical sword. The hope that maybe one day — one day things might be different than today. 

She didn’t know what kept her going, but she did. 

After several tedious minutes, Nia finally removed her boots. She cringed at the state of her feet. Sheet white toes poked through the ends of her worn and sopping socks. Two of them had begun to blacken at the tips. Her heart sank into her hollow gut. She gripped one foot in both hands and rubbed furiously, her weak arms tiring after only a few seconds. Gods above what she wouldn’t trade for a fire. Or an Auror stoopmate who could draw it out of their veins. Even just a decent meal. One night’s sleep on something not made of cement.

But Nia had nothing. No one. Her pathetic life a reflection of who she was at her core — nobody. And this city never let her fucking forget it. 

So engrossed in her self pity and desperate toe rescue was Nia that she didn’t notice the other denizens of the alley grow deathly silent. She missed the coarse, winter wind slow to utter, complete stillness. She failed to see the nighttime gloom to which she was so accustomed grow to a near impenetrable black. And with two wads of scarf shoved up her nose, she was oblivious to the new stench that crept through the alcoves. The dank, oily reek of decay so foul and otherworldly, as though belched from the deepest pit of the Hells for the single purpose of ravaging everything in its path. Nia didn’t even hear the soft, deadly growl that emanated from the creature in the darkness, despite the sudden quiet. 

It was gruesome. Swift. Unprecedented. The occupants of the alley didn’t ask questions. Didn’t make so much as a whisper of noise. They did what they always did when danger reared its ugly head, as it often did on the Ground. They silently, stealthily retreated into the shadows. Held their breath. Closed their eyes. 

But, Nia. Sweet, clueless, frostbitten Nia. No, the little dreamer didn’t see it coming, her thoughts lost to the night. Maybe, in the eyes of some, it was lucky that the gods spared her the terror of witnessing her slayer. She caught no sight, sniff, or sound of that which ripped her head clean off her shoulders, or her heart straight out of her chest. Yes, lucky indeed was she to be saved from knowing what plucked those icy toes from her feet like kernels off a cob, devouring every last inch of her until she was nothing at all.