The trip to the palace would take much longer than it had taken to get to Bloody Flag. With many hours until nightfall, she decided to walk the distance like anyone else, taking a scenic route. It would save her strength in case anything went wrong, and truth be told, it might have been a year or two since she had last traveled the city like a normal person. The warm air felt nice on her skin, but not so hot that it would burn her. The bay kept the harshest heat away causing many to flock to Atrican over the years. Going for a walk in the early summer afternoon reminded Ivy of why.

She had worn a pretty, flowy light blue summer dress to the Bloody Flag, and strolling through the harbor district, might once have looked an easy target for the abundance of thieves that called the harbor their home. Such things no longer concerned her. It had been over a year since she had dodged her last pickpocket.

Her pouch of coin hung opposite her dagger on her waist in plain view, but she did not catch a single spotter marking her as a target. Not one tail followed her, and not a soul put themselves in her path. She had either grown to be a whole hell of a lot scarier than she thought, or the Prince had made it known to not bother her in his domain. Her bet was on the latter.

When she stopped to eat lunch in the seaside residential district where the most wealthy merchants and bankers lived, she confirmed the truth of the matter before she could eat a single spoonful. The first man to come bother her sat down at her table uninvited before the tavern wench asked her about drinks. It seemed that the dagger at her hip deterred just about no one anymore.

And...that was mostly okay with her. She wouldn't ever project an aura of fear as the Bloody Prince did, but that would make things a bit lonely anyway. If anything, she just wished it wasn't so much the opposite.

At first she tried brushing her would-be suitors off with a small smile, but that only made things worse. Ivy held little to no experience with men, but they couldn’t all be this irritating, right? Her mind fell back to a night several years ago, and she cringed at herself, but couldn't stop her thoughts. It had been several months since her memories pushed up the image of the boy. She wondered where he was and what he was doing as she always did whenever he came to mind. It was silly of her, of course. There was nothing between them. Wouldn't be anything.

About halfway through her soup she received her first gift. She didn't even get to look at it before the next came. No man would let himself be outdone by another, and the presents flowed freely. Her table became so crowded with flowers, artwork, and clothing that she had to move to continue her meal. Soon after, just plain promises of coin filled her ears, as though that was something she needed. It felt odd if she looked back on her childhood, but she had no use for her current stockpile of the shiny gold disks.

Did Rose have this same problem? She was at least as pretty as Ivy, taller, a bit more voluptuous with curves in all the right places. The older witch would fill out a gown to a T, if she ever chose to wear one. So how did she deal with this? Ivy’s thoughts had gone to her sister because the current insanity she was being assaulted with couldn’t be mundane. There was no way Ivy possessed such beauty that the male population lost their minds around her. She made a note to stick to dockside from now on where fear of the Bloody Prince was stronger than whatever this was.

The church never spoke about an unnatural allure of witches, but perhaps this was another reason the church persecuted them. She had meant to ask Rose about it years ago when she had first realized the changes in her appearance and had since forgotten all about it. Now, it was unlikely for her to get an answer unless she could figure out a way to get her sister to forgive her. Nevertheless, Ivy had to get out of here, soup sadly unfinished.

She popped up to her feet, throwing her chair backward and sprinted for the door before her gaggle of admirers had a chance to react. She ducked into the alley alongside the tavern and then around the first corner she found. Not expecting to find anyone there, she had to hurdle over an old beggar woman to avoid tripping. How had someone like that even made it this far out of dockside? Weird.

Ivy emerged out of the other side of the alley back into a larger street populated by Atrican's elite who weren't quite rich enough to purchase a barony. Several of her pursuers mingled amongst their peers outside of the tavern, apparently not fit to give chase. Though that wouldn't last long if they saw her dawdling.

She wheeled her back to them hoping they couldn't pick her out from behind and started to walk away casually. All she had to do was blend in with the others who were out enjoying a walk in the sun. The dagger made her stick out a little bit, but her clothes were fine enough. So why was everyone she passed still looking at her?

Her feet carried her further toward the palace but she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. It was something other than the attention she normally got. In fact, no one approached her. They were just following her with their eyes. Everyone. She kept moving, but it became unbearable, and she ducked into a new alley. There, sitting right where she had been before, was the same, dirty beggar woman.

Ivy froze midstep, and backpedaled out of the alley. To her immediate left was the tavern she had escaped maybe fifteen minutes prior. That was impossible though, so she strolled up to it and barged inside. No. it was the same. Stranger still, no one bothered her at all. She could pick out several of the men who had gifted her things, but all they did was stare at her with empty expressions.

"Uh, hello?" she asked, already one foot out the door behind her. No one answered. Were they even blinking? Their dead eyes made her think of the demon's unending vigilance and she swallowed. Was it nearby? No. It hadn't moved, ever. Still, she wanted nothing to do with this.

She sprinted as fast as possible out of there, headed east to the market. She didn't turn, didn't take any shortcuts, and ran straight down the road...right back into the alley with the beggar. Okay. What?

Ivy stomped up to the woman and gave her a once over. Her rumpled gray sack of a dress was torn in more than a few places, pocked with dirt, and hung from her sagging, frail shoulders unevenly. The woman’s hair was even worse: a tangled nest of oily curls, each finding their own direction to fall in. She barely appeared able to stand, her back hunched over with one wrinkly hand atop a gnarled cane in her lap. Her second hand she held out, and smiled a mouth full of missing or blackened teeth.

“A coin to spare, miss?” the woman asked.

Ivy didn’t hear at first, her blood pumping from the run and the nightmare loop she found herself in.

“Miss?” the woman asked again. Her voice was crackly and harsh, like nails scraping against stone. “Alms for the poor?”

“Huh?” Ivy was still a bit out of sorts. “Oh.” She shook her head. “Yeah. Of course. Sure.”

Until just that moment, Ivy had not considered giving her wealth away, but for a second time she remembered the boy who had saved her all those years ago, and thought maybe she could have the same affect on another’s life. She had just been thinking to herself in the tavern that she had no use for her coin. Why not this?

She untied the cord binding her purse shut and dug a hand in blindly, fetching out a fist full of coins. Some were gold, others silver. Ivy reached out and dropped the pile into the old woman’s hand. Strangely enough, her withered fingers managed to not lose a single coin, and she stuffed the whole lot somewhere into the rags of her mottled dress.

“Such a kind young woman,” the beggar said, and immediately Ivy thought of Rose. Ivy didn't deserve the praise.

“I’m not sure about that,” Ivy said.

The woman waved away her objection.

“Nonsense, girl.” Once more the woman’s hand entered the recesses of her dress and pulled something out this time. “A kindness, repaid.”

At the woman's final word, a cloud had been lifted over Ivy's mind, and she stumbled, reeling. She tried to center herself, but memories came back to her that conflicted with what she knew. After leaving the tavern, she remembered running in circles. But no. That hadn't happened.

The woman extended her arm out to Ivy, holding a piece of shining metal between her fingers. Ivy jumped back and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms.

"What is happening?" she asked.

Instead of getting an answer, she found herself leaning in closer to get a look at the object that the beggar was offering. It was a pair of finger-width criss-crossing circles joined at two points opposite each other. The hoops were designed to be angled just past parallel, so that the combined form made up a simple, yet elegant bracelet. More than that, the metal was silvery, though not dull by any stretch of the imagination. It caught the light in a way that sparkled, but also drank it in.

Wait. Ivy had seen this metal before. The edge of her blade reflected sunlight in the same way. And before that, she now realized, so had the archbishop’s pendant Rose had let her borrow. Oh god. What the hell was going on? Ivy knew little of the metal other than it was extremely rare, priceless, illegal to own, and controlled exclusively by the church.

“I don’t understand,” Ivy said.

“You will.”

“I can’t take this.”

“You will,” the old beggar repeated herself.

Something inside Ivy forced her to obey the woman, and she raised an arm up to meet the woman’s. The beggar pushed the bracelet over Ivy’s hand and settled it on her wrist. The thing fit…perfectly. Impossibly. The width of her hand clearly surpassed that of her wrist, yet the bracelet now sat snugly where it rested. Not tight enough to be uncomfortable, and not loose enough to produce movement when she swung her arm. How?

“Run along now, girl,” the old woman said.

“What?”

“You don’t want to get caught by the horse trader’s son, now do you? I believe he is quite enamored with you. As are others.”

“How do you…I don’t—” Ivy didn’t know what to ask.

“Off you go.”

Again, Ivy felt the need to comply with the beggar’s wishes. She made it all the way down the alleyway that opened into a larger street before she realized what she was doing. She whipped around, drawing her dagger in one motion.

"What did you do to me?" she yelled at an empty alley. The old beggar was gone. That wouldn't stop Ivy. No one could outrun her. What chance did this woman have? But then again, she had no idea what the woman looked like in the witch world. If she tried to track her down now, would there be any point?

Wait. The woman was like ninety. Ivy could just run down the alley. How far could she have possibly gotten by now? But then, was it worth it? Of course it was. Or not. Ivy shook her head. Hard. Something wasn't right. She had accepted the fact that she was not like most people, but was she already losing her mind?

No! It was that old woman! She had to be another witch. Ivy had to find her. Stop this toying with her head. But then what about the job she had to do? That was important too. She could always find the decrepit old witch later. Tomorrow. That would be easy enough.

Ivy made it halfway through the market, nearing the noble district gate before she stared down at the bracelet on her wrist. It reminded her of everything that had happened outside the tavern where she had tried to eat lunch.

Things only got worse. Ivy couldn’t take her eyes off of her new piece of jewelry. The old woman had one last surprise for Ivy that set her heart pounding. On the inner face of the bracelet which aligned with her palm sat a small engraving. This, like the metal it was made of, she had seen before. Colored strips were arranged in the shape of a winged insect. Just like the pommel of her dagger, the bracelet had been marked by the symbol of her alias: Dragonfly.

Who the hell was that old lady?