The morning was heralded by the crowing of a cockatrice. A weasel scurried up a drainpipe and chased it off the roof in a flurry of scales and shrieking.

  Down the street, a woman chased a bat out of her window with a broom. The bat shouted obscenities at her before flying away in a huff, and the woman slammed the window shut behind it, muttering about vampires as she headed downstairs to begin her work.

  On the other side of the city, a steam train from Harbinger’s Well pulled into the station. The doors opened, and out spilled a mismatched crowd of people. Some were clearly tourists, who took in the sights of the city with narrowed eyes and barely-hidden sneers, clearly mentally comparing it to their own. The majority, though, were normal citizens fleeing a city that didn’t care if they lived or died. A few embraced relatives waiting for them on the platform; the rest set out into the smoggy streets of Dodge alone.

  In a small cafe in the bohemian district, two young women giggled over coffee and cheap romance novels one of them had bought on her recent trip to Rockwell. One rested her clawed hand over the other’s and smiled, baring fangs. The other woman smiled back, her cheeks slowly turning bright red.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  On the edge of the city, three siblings bid their family farewell. There wasn’t yet a train line to Eregol, so the only fast way to get there was by air. None of them were willing to scrounge up the money for that when they could borrow horses for half the cost. Their family wept like they were leaving forever, rather than just going on a few-months-long business trip. The only female sibling rolled her eyes and, once they were down the street and far enough away from her family, bumped against her brother and cracked a joke about it.

  In the tallest spire of the city’s heart, a young woman sat on the ledge of her balcony and looked out over the city. Her city. She was as inextricable from it as a human’s lungs are to their body. It belonged to her, and she belonged to it. Her heart beat in time to the chiming of clocks and the ringing of bells to signal the hour, and if she closed her eyes, she could feel the vibrations as the train to Harbinger’s Well pulled out of the station half-empty, hear the arguing going on in the city hall downstairs over some stupid bill or another, see the fire in the hearth of a bakery three miles away. She was the city, and the city was her, and every day she found herself feeling grateful that she belonged to such a magnificent place.

  The city of Dodge reigned another day.