Ivy had possessed no expectation of ever returning to Atrican city when she had left over two years ago. Looking at the gates now after a few of months travel made her heart flutter for more than one reason. The underworld had killed her friends here. She had never properly grieved for them. Everything had happened so fast. On the road she had only thought of survival. On the farm, she had settled into a busy routine. In the witch hunter's prison, well...she had had the time to be sad, but only for herself. And now here she was, going back to the very place that had spit her out.

Yet at the same time, Atrican was her home. Despite it all, she couldn't think of it any other way. And who knew, maybe the place would be good for her. After experiencing hell in the countryside, it should be easier to blend in amongst the many. That had been what she had kept telling herself all the way here, anyway. Besides, it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go. At least she knew Atrican.

Passing through the south gate at noon brought familiar sights to her eyes. Though she had lived harbor-side while she had been in the city, the markets of south Atrican had been her second home. Living as a small time thief, she had spent more time here than on the docks.

In the packed cobble streets she’d be one in a million. Horse drawn carriages carrying the wealthy rattled on by, their occupants occasionally peering out of curtained windows to peruse a stall or shop display. There were thousands of vendors out even in the freezing cold of winter, but the current spring air brought out the masses. A sea of multi-colored fabrics spread out before her, some booths amounting to little more than four sticks holding up a patchwork quilt above as a crude defense against the afternoon sun.

However it was the smells most of all that came back to her. Occasionally she’d catch a whiff of something pleasant like fresh baked bread or the rare scent of grilled meat. But mostly the stench of humanity reminded her of her old life. Too many people packed too close together made the vile smell inevitable. Whether it be the musk of unwashed men in the crowd, diseased vermin roaming unchecked, or the countless buckets of filth discarded into gutters, the stink was unavoidable.

Someone less acquainted with the city might assume there would be no way she could stand out amongst all this chaos, but Ivy knew better. She might be able to hide as a witch, but not as a target for thieves and opportunists. There were probably already a dozen potential cutpurses that had marked her as a naive newcomer, clutching her sack to her chest like a frightened animal. She wasn’t worried about looking silly for now. Wearing her coins tied around her waist simply wasn’t an option. Burying them before entering would have been ideal, but she hadn’t located a spot yet. Moreover, an inexplicable pull had drawn her to enter before making time to locate a new hideout outside the city walls.

She fought her way through the throngs, hugging her purse painfully tight to her chest when she started to notice that she was actually getting way more attention than she expected. Pickpockets were one thing, sure, but the vendors gazes were lingering on her as well, some ignoring paying customers.

They couldn’t know about her. She told herself over and over again that she was safe. That no one knew what she was. How could they? The witch hunters from the countryside had no clue to her whereabouts. The thugs from the city might have offered up her description to the paladins, but she doubted they possessed any civic duty to do so. And she had grown—or at least aged—since then. So…

“Hey!” a male voice shouted. “Hey! My lady!”

Ivy scanned the crowd, looking for a noble woman so she could avoid the trouble she would bring. A rough hand clasped her bare shoulder from behind and she jumped, prepared to defend her possessions at all costs. The hand spun her to face its owner, and Ivy tightened her iron grip on her purse. A man perhaps in his twenties, a full head taller than her, leered down at her.

“My lady,” he said, “would you perhaps—”

She stopped listening, again searching for a noblewoman. Maybe she had impeded her ladyship’s shopping trip by deigning to be in her path. But still there was no sign of this mysterious lady. The man was still blabbering on.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

“Oh!” he said. The man was probably a dock worker or something, a couple of days grime coating his loosely spun gray tunic and shoulder length oily hair. More than a couple of days of facial hair covered his chin and cheeks. Ivy winced at the fishy smell of his breath.

“What is it?” she asked again.

He smiled wide.

“I was just wondering if I could buy you lunch, my lady.”

What?

“I’m not hungry,” she said, and turned away, continuing her traversal through the crowds. Laughter echoed from behind her, but she ignored it, needing to get to a respectable place to stay for the day that had sturdy locks on the doors. It would cost more than she wanted, but worth it for now until she found something more permanent.

Of course, the people of the market would not let her go easy. Twice since the first man approached she had caught thieves trying to snatch at her sack, and she had avoided them with a well timed turn to a vendor each time. But what hindered her most of all, were more occurrences like the man who had spoken to her.

Men of seemingly all ages and walks of life kept approaching her, asking to buy her things. If this had happened when she had lived here before, she would have never needed to become a thief. It was like the one God had changed his opinion of her and blessed her with an enchantment that made the men around her go stupid. Or maybe that was the reason God hated witches in the first place.

After what felt like the one hundredth proposition, Ivy paused, taking a moment to consider herself. What could it possibly be? She wore a cute shoulderless blue dress that draped down just past her knees that she had picked up last month on her journey back north. Running a hand through her long black straight hair, she admired the freshly bathed locks shining in the spring sunlight.

Oh. Right. She was starting to understand, now. The last time she had been in the city she had been a little peanut of a girl, hardly worth consideration other than to stop her from cutting a purse. While she had actually grown little or not at all in her small frame, she had gone through a bit of maturing since her days on the streets. Not to mention her considerable supply of coin had afforded her luxuries she had never had in the past. She had become…attractive to men.

Ugh. She covered her face with her hands. This was not something she needed right now. The feeling evoked too many things in her head. On some level it made her giddy to be desired, but most of the men had been gross anyway. And extra attention was the absolute last thing any witch wanted.

“Hello beautiful,” a husky voice reached her ears.

Oh, god. Please be talking to someone else. Please. She removed her hands from her face and found a group of four men staring right at her. Really? Four altogether? What was their plan here?

“My carriage is just around the corner,” one said, stepping in front of the others, “why don’t you come and have some fun with us?”

“No thanks,” she said and tried to step around them, but the leader lunged and grabbed her wrist, tearing her arm from her sack. Her pouch dropped to the cobbles with an audible clink and Ivy sprung to retrieve it with her free hand.

She tugged against his grip, shouting, “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

“Oh come on,” the man said, “we’re not a scary bunch. My father owns half of the storefronts on this street.”

“Is that supposed to be impressive?” she asked, looking around for some level of support. Unlike most of the harbor where she had lived before, the market did have patrolmen, and she also figured a casual assault without any subterfuge in the plain daylight would not go unnoticed by other city folk. But any nearby seemed to be averting their eyes. This ass must be more important than she realized.

“You’ll be impressed soon enough,” he said to the laughter of his friends.

He yanked her closer to him and Ivy stomped her heel onto his toes. The rich ass yelped and released her, giving her a moment to scoop up her coins and retreat. If she could slip back into the crowd…

“You bitch!” he yelled, springing with surprising speed and force at her. Uh oh. If she just had a burst of her witch power now she could deal with this, but—

Just before he collided with her, a new pair of hands tugged her in another direction.

“Sister!” a woman called out. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Huh?

“What do you think you’re doing, woman?” the leader of Ivy’s harassers asked.

The woman linked her arm with Ivy and glared at the men.

“Just what is it you think you were trying to do with my cute baby sister?”

The man scoffed.

“Can't a couple have a bit of fun? It’s such a nice day, ya know?”

Beside Ivy, her strange savior fished something out of her pant pocket and flashed it to the men. Their eyes grew at the sight of whatever was in the woman’s palm, and she grinned.

“Is that what you call what just happened? Because I saw different.”

Ivy’s assaulter changed his demeanor instantly. He rose a hand and backed off.

“Look,” he said, “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, alright? Your sister was asking for it, yeah?”

The woman waved him off with one hand, and returned the object she had pulled out back to her person.

“Off you go now.”

He took the time to give Ivy one last scowl before turning on his heel and strutting away, his friends close behind.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked.

“Uhm, yeah,” Ivy said, returning both hands to grip her sack, “thanks.”

“Of course,” she said, “we wouldn’t want anything bad happening, right?” She winked at Ivy, dropping the arm that she had linked with her.

“R-right,” Ivy said, giving the woman a quick look over.

She had a round face that exuded a sense of authority and confidence that made Ivy believe her to be much older than herself, but she could find little signs of aging otherwise on the woman’s face. Her chestnut hair fell down to her shoulders in silky curls, and below that she wore clean tailored clothes more suited to a man than a woman. Her outfit resembled Ivy’s old ruined sneaking outfit, except not pitch black. This woman felt like she was asking to stand out, with bright yellows and reds.

“Who are you?” Ivy asked.

“Name’s Rose,” she said, “you?”

“Ivy.”

“Cute.”

Ivy stood mute for a moment, scratching her head.

“So uhm, well,” she said, “I appreciate the help and all, but I gotta—”

“You hungry?” Rose asked.

This again?

“No, not really. So well, bye.”

“Hey,” Rose eyed Ivy’s sack, and she clutched it tighter, causing Rose to giggle. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look to be new here.”

“Yeah, kinda.”

Rose put a finger to her chin.

“Hm. Let me help you.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I get the feeling that if I let you go on by yourself you’re just going to get into more trouble. And my big sister conscious just couldn’t take it!”

She ended her reasoning with a big smile and Ivy thought her to be more problematic than all the thieves and thirsty men combined.

“Is there something you want from me?” Ivy asked.

“Not at all.”

“Then—”

Rose rolled her eyes and huffed.

“Look,” she said, “you need a place to stay, right? I can provide that.”

A million possibilities swirled in Ivy’s head. Rose—if that was even her real name—had far more reasons to harm Ivy than help her. She could be literally anyone. The little show just now could have simply been to gain Ivy’s confidence. But then to what end? Ivy was just as unknown to Rose as Rose was to Ivy.

“You are a careful little thing aren’t you?” Rose asked. “I suppose it makes sense though. Perhaps you should exercise as much caution with horny idiots as you do with me.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I get it. I know how it is to feel like it’s hard to trust anyone. You can use some of that coin you are holding on to so dearly to get a place a few streets down that’s nice.”

Rose seemed to deflate, losing some of that cheery nonsense that Ivy had come to know about the woman in the short time that they had known each other. She turned to leave, and something cracked inside of Ivy. She didn’t want to admit it, but in just a brief moment, Rose had given her a sense of comfort that she had missed since leaving the farm. It felt like she had actually cared about what Ivy was up to.

“Wait,” Ivy said. Rose spun, an eyebrow raised. “I’m not saying I trust you, but…I-I’ll let you help me.”

It sounded stupid—and was stupid—but came out of her mouth anyway. A bit of heat blossomed on Ivy’s cheeks, and she looked away.

“Well, then!” Rose said, and before Ivy knew it, she had linked their arms again. “Let’s go my adorable little sister!”

Rose led her through the market streets with an assuredness that offered no opportunity for interruption, and that alone had been worth accepting the woman’s help in Ivy’s mind. An hour or so of walking later, Rose pulled her into one of the central middling neighborhoods of Atrican where small houses and multi unit living structures pocked the streets.

A far cry from the slums where Ivy had lived in the past, they strolled up to a three story brick building, and Rose entered it like she owned the place. Did she? Who was this woman? Ivy followed her up a set of stairs to the the top level, and then through another locked door set into a long hallway that spanned the length of the building.

Rose through out her arms wide once they were inside and the door closed.

“Home sweet home!” she said.

The interior of Rose’s dwelling had a fire pit on one wall with a couch and some chairs circling it where the room broke off into a quaint kitchen area that sported yet another stove for cooking and several filled wash basins. The wood plank floors showed signs of use but not of disrepair, and the walls were also of solid wood. Down another hall looked to be a couple of closed doors.

“I have an extra room you can have,” Rose was going on, “the door locks too, if you continue to be paranoid. The key’s around here somewhere. I’ll find it for you. Oh and you can of course—”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Ivy asked.

Rose gave her a smile that could light up the night.

“Because you’re a witch,” she said.