“There he is again,” Pearl murmured, straightening an orange silk scarf on display. “Skulking the market like a stray mutt, his coat a tatty rag and his whole life strapped to his back.”

“Who is he?”

“Nobody really knows.” Raising an eyebrow, Pearl stooped over the table. Intrigued, Flavian leaned in, too, meeting his merchant in the middle. “And if I'm being honest,” she whispered, “Everybody's too frightened to ask. They're afraid he’ll, you know—” Pearl touched a jewelled finger to her throat and swiped it all the way across.

“He doesn't look THAT bad,” Flavian said.

The two watched the stranger as he drifted between the close-knit market stalls. Never once did he look up or acknowledge another, his face hidden beneath the wide brim of his hat.

He weaved through the crowd like a practised art. With ease, surety. A man quick with his mind and confident in his intentions, free flowing, and invulnerable to the judgement of others.

He had nothing holding him down and nothing, at all, to lose. And unlike before, Flavian found himself admiring that.

“So he's a drifter,” Flavian said, “a little unorthodox perhaps,” he admitted and folded his gloved hands under his armpits, “but he doesn't look frightening.” Flavian shrugged. “Handsome, maybe.”

“Ah, but you would say that, wouldn't you“—she tapped her nose—“‘Cause you haven't heard the stories.”

Flavian quickly glanced back at the stallholder and just caught the sharp twinkle in her eyes before he turned back around. “You just said nobody knew anything about him.”

“Not personally, no,” Pearl said, “But, you know, people hear things, and... They talk.”

The stranger slipped behind a display of carpets, and Flavian briefly lost sight of the man. A moment later, he reappeared only a row of stalls away.

“Just look at him,” Pearl scoffed, and Flavian did.

Beneath the shadows of the multicoloured stall canopies, Flavian couldn't see much detail of the stranger's appearance. But as the man moved, a shaft of sunlight slipped between a crack in the overhanging awnings and fell over the stranger's shoulders and neck, and Flavian caught sight of the pink welt of a scar across the ridge of his adam's apple.

“He's practically feral,” she spat.

Flavian frowned. “And because of that, you judged him so quickly? You came to that rapid conclusion—that he's violent, a madman—based on his appearance and a rumour?”

Pearl's face soured, her rouge-painted lips puckering, and she busied herself by pulling the crease from a yellow scarf dangling above her stall. “Well, it's true.”

“And what would you say about me? What rumours would you spread? Or,” Flavian added slowly, “what about young Abigail—”

“Abigail’s death was unfortunate,” Pearl declared. She stopped fiddling with her scarves. “Wait, how—!”

“But it could have been prevented, couldn't it, Pearl.” Flavian smiled, and the woman's face reddened as he came in close and whispered, “Had you not said anything.”

“Well, I don't... I’ve never—”

“Come on, Pearl,” Flavian cooed, “the whole town knows it was you. It's always been you. You, with your scarves and that big. Gaping. Mouth!”

Flavian tugged off his glove.

His skinless, boney hand clamped around Pearl's throat. Her eyes widened. She began to claw wildly at Flavian's arm.

Nobody came to her aid, for all they saw was a merchant selling her wares to a young man—a gift probably, for his sweetheart or his sickly, ailing mother.

But that was all speculation; they all saw what they wanted to see. What they believed to be the truth.

Except for one.

The stranger, Dante, appeared at Flavian’s side. Without a word, he removed a single box from the fold of his bag. Simple in design and cut from yew, Dante opened the lid and placed the box on the table on top of one of Pearl's red scarves.

From her eye, a single tear fell. It slid down her cheek and to the exposed bone of Flavian’s hand. He felt nothing. No warmth, no bitter sting of guilt. Her tears fell, but her signs of remorse meant nothing to him; they meant nothing to her.

Flavian squeezed. His bones dug deep into her skin, squelching, cracking.

He pulled, tearing out her throat.

The woman collapsed to the floor. Blood gurgled, and Flavian placed the raw, pulsing flesh into the box.

“A scarf perhaps,” Flavian suggested, staring down over the stall. The woman squirmed, and Flavian gestured to his neck. “To hide the, you know.”

Flavian tugged his glove back on, and Dante returned the box to his bag. Together, they weaved through the crowd away from the town and onto the next one.