The stone pavement split into two distinct forks at the edge of the lower market district. The left path sloped down toward the timber wharves, where cold sea spray whipped off the harbor pilings and coated the iron railings in wet salt. The right path descended into the narrow, shadow-draped alleys of the slums.
Lucid stopped at the junction. The air was thick with the sharp tang of rotting kelp, wet slate, and burnt coal dust. This was the same crossroads where he had stumbled into Port Vexis weeks ago, where white-robed cultists had backed him against a damp wall before the chaos truly broke out. Their voices back then had been rigid and chanted in unison, entirely unlike the sharp, frantic barks of the church patrolmen he had dodged earlier that morning.
He turned his head toward Ayame. She stood beside him on the slick cobblestones, her eyes fixed on the puddle between her boots. Her pale face remained as flat and unreadable as a slab of lard.
"There are plenty of white-robed acolytes posted down that road," Lucid said, gesturing toward the slums. "Though oddly enough, the ruined quarter feels a lot safer right now than the main drag."
"I know a shortcut," Ayame said.
She gave a single, tight nod toward a narrow gap between two leaning timber frames, offering nothing more.
Ayame never really argued with his decisions. Whatever direction Lucid picked, she simply fell in line, stepping behind him without complaint or useless commentary.
'Maybe that is why I prefer having her around,' Lucid thought, adjusting the collar of his jacket against the sea draft. 'She is easy to handle.'
He caught himself a second later, refining the thought with a dry edge. 'To handle. Let us be honest with ourselves, it is a transactional relationship after all.'
He took extra care to bury that sentiment deep beneath his conscious surface. Alice was always hovering at the edge of his perception, picking through his thoughts like a scavenger on a heap, and he was growing surprisingly skilled at locking her out of the private corners.
They stepped into the narrow alleyway. The air grew heavier here, humid and damp with the warmth of recent rainfall soaking into old cedar planks. Water trickled off the rusty tin gutters and splashed onto the stones. Yet the eerie silence he remembered from his first visit had completely vanished.
The lower district was alive. Doors that had been nailed shut during his previous trip now stood wide open to the damp breeze. Women leaned out of second-story windows to shake out braided rugs. Old men sat on overturned wooden crates, calling out over games of dice, while shopkeepers arranged rows of salted turnips on rickety tables.
Sunlight, which usually stayed trapped among the tall stone spires of the upper district, somehow managed to cut through the gap between rooftops, casting pale gold slashes across the wet alley pavement.
Lucid felt his mouth twitch upward. He caught himself almost smiling at the sight.
"Look, a fogged guy!" a voice yelled.
A boy of about eight stood in the middle of the alleyway, pointing a muddy finger directly at Lucid's nose.
Lucid paused, pointing his own thumb against his chest in genuine confusion.
He had briefly forgotten that his altered condition marked him as something other than human.
His time spent around the academy snobs had conditioned him to expect a specific sequence of events whenever someone noticed his face: insults, thrown trash, or at least a muttered curse about dirt-born mongrels.
He stopped walking, tensing his shoulders for the usual barrage.
It never came.
Instead, the boy kicked a worn leather ball hard across the cobblestones. The stitched sphere bounced straight toward Lucid's chest, but Ayame moved first. Her arm shot out and snagged the ball out of the air before it could touch his vest.
She held the leather ball against her hip, standing completely still.
Lucid looked at her. Ayame was not looking at the ball. Her pale eyes were fixed on a younger girl standing near a broken doorframe across the lane. The girl wore an oversized wool smock, her dark hair tied back with a scrap of blue cloth.
Lucid started to reach out his hand toward Ayame's shoulder, then pulled his fingers back midway.
"Hey," Lucid said quietly.
Ayame blinked twice, her face returning to its usual flat mask. She tossed the leather ball back to the boy with a flick of her wrist, not saying a word.
The children grabbed the ball and ran off down the alley, their laughter echoing against the wet plaster walls before fading into the background.
Ayame stayed frozen for two seconds longer. Inside Lucid's head, a familiar voice stirred like a cat waking up on a warm cushion.
'She is thinking about something,' Alice observed in a smooth, dry tone.
'Yeah. Reminiscing,' Lucid thought back.
He stepped beside Ayame and extended his bare hand forward.
"Come on. Let us go," he said aloud.
Ayame looked at his open palm briefly, then slid her cold fingers into his grip.
'So gentle,' Alice remarked inside his mind, her tone heavy with sarcasm.
Lucid did not reply.
They continued walking hand in hand down the central alleyway. The crowd parted around them without any of the nervous tension that usually filled the harbor streets.
An elderly woman stepped out from behind a vegetable stall. Lucid recognized her instantly. She was the same woman who had been dragged around by the corrupt nobleman's guards during the town square riot weeks ago.
She stopped directly in front of Lucid, holding out a woven ring of yellow wild petals and green stems.
"Young man, this is for you," she said, her voice raspy and warm.
Lucid stared at the ring of weeds, momentarily taken aback.
'Bow, you ungrateful youth!' Alice shouted inside his skull, nearly giving him a headache.
Lucid ducked his head slightly. The old woman smiled, showing a gap where her side teeth should have been, and placed the flower crown atop his messy hair. She reached up with a gnarled, calloused hand, grabbed his chin firmly, and pulled him downward.
"Ouch," Lucid muttered under his breath.
Ayame did not wait for the woman to let go. She simply tightened her grip on his other hand and kept pulling him forward, dragging Lucid past the stall. He managed a clumsy wave back at the woman as they moved down the lane.
People observed them from open windows and doorways that had previously remained shut tight. The thick mud that used to pool in the middle of the street had been swept clear into the side drains. Everything felt considerably livelier and cleaner than his previous visit to this area.
A young girl wearing a stained linen apron trotted out from a bakery doorway, carrying a brown paper bag filled with hot wheat bread and fresh pastries. Without stopping, she reached into the bag and handed a wrapped piece directly to Ayame.
"What in god's name is happening," Lucid muttered, looking around at the smiling faces.
Ayame looked sideways at him, her grip on his hand steady.
"What month is it?" she asked, addressing him directly.
Lucid slowed his pace, looking down at the wet cobblestones while he ran the numbers in his head. He had never actually wondered about the local calendar system, having only tracked individual weeks since his arrival in the Scattered Realms. By his rough calculations, somewhere around twenty-eight to thirty weeks had passed since he had first dropped into this world.
"That would make it about six months," Lucid said quietly, calculating under his breath.
Even during his time at the academy, he should have at least known the specific month, but nothing came to mind. His memory drawn on that subject was completely blank. So apparently, by his best guess, the calendar system here operated on roughly the same basis as Earth's.
'It is currently March,' Alice spoke up, her voice sounding entirely too self-satisfied.
Lucid wore a questioning expression, staring straight ahead. 'And how exactly do you know that?'
'Not telling you,' she said simply.
It irritated him considerably.
"Talk about being ego-centric."
He turned his head toward Ayame. "It is March," he said quietly.
Ayame's pale face briefly flashed with intrigue.
Then, as if reacting to something he had said that pleased her, her lips began curling slightly, settling into a delicate curve.
"Happy Saint Lucid's month," she said.
"What?" Lucid looked genuinely confused.
She looked away, continuing to walk down the center of the street with him, her hand still intertwined with his.
"But it is not my birthday," Lucid protested. "My birthday is nowhere near now."
Before he could demand a proper explanation, a group of men sitting outside a timber workshop raised their wooden mugs.
A rhythmic shouting started near the bakery and built rapidly into a loud chant across the street.
"Lucid! Lucid! Lucid!"
"There is no way... but my birthday is in October," Lucid muttered frantically. "And how would these people—"
'It seems like there is an entire month dedicated to you, Lucid,' Alice chimed in. 'Oh, wow.'
"That is ludicrous," Lucid said out loud.
Suddenly someone emerged from a nearby shed, a wooden storehouse that appeared to have been standing for a considerable time given its weathered, aged appearance. They waved cordially toward Lucid as he passed.