The smell was so noxious she had to fight the urge to vomit. Like bad eggs or dead unnimals, or maybe both. It had a strong smell of something dreadful that got stronger the farther down they went. It was so narrow they had to walk in single file, stepping over piles of unidentifiable rubbish and bricks that had crumbled loose from the walls. With a furtive glance over his shoulder, he ushered her down an alleyway behind the New Delphian, leaving the crowd behind. “What, this place?” Jupiter cast a scornful look up at the New Delphian. A brightly lit marquee across the top read: It was a shimmering establishment of white marble and gold Morrigan thought it looked a bit like a cathedral and a bit like a wedding cake. Morrigan at last made it to where Jupiter stood waiting for her outside the most crowded-and most beautiful-building on the street. There were restaurants so overflowing with diners that their tables spilled out onto the pavement, every seat occupied, even on this frosty Spring’s Eve, the last day of winter. Street hawkers shouted and sang, beckoning customers into rowdy pubs. People, dressed in their finest, piled out of carriages on every corner and were ushered inside grand theater doors. If she hadn’t been so worried about losing Jupiter in the crowd, she’d have been excited to see the broad streets lined with theaters and playhouses and music halls, the colorful jumble of bright lights and neon signs. She’d never seen this part of Nevermoor before. Morrigan wished she could take a moment to stop and look around. “A child!” she heard the blue-fingered woman exclaim in her wake. For a moment, she lost sight of Jupiter through the haze, but then she spotted the top of his bright copper head, bobbing up and down in the crowd, and sprinted to catch up with him. “Ugh, foul.” Morrigan coughed and waved the smoke away. Morrigan hurried after him and walked into a sickly-sweet-smelling cloud of sapphire-blue smoke, puffed right at her face by a woman holding a thin gold cigarillo in her blue-stained fingertips. Catch up.”Īnd he was gone again, running headlong through the mess of pedestrians and rickshaws and horse-drawn carriages and motorized coaches. Jupiter North turned back but didn’t stop moving.

“Wait!” she called out to him, pushing her way through a knot of women wearing satin gowns and lush velvet cloaks. She tried her best to smooth it down while hurrying to catch up with her patron, who was already yards ahead, pelting along the noisy, swarming high street of the Bohemian District.

The wind had whipped her hair into a state of extreme disarray. Morrigan Crow leapt from the Brolly Rail, teeth chattering, hands frozen around the end of her oilskin umbrella.

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