The witches and wizards congregated bore little resemblance to the spell-slinging mages of Yvette's gaming memories. These were creatures of bubbling cauldrons and pumpkin coaches - European folklore made flesh, muttering incantations over tinctures that might grant mermaids legs or trick princes into love.

Yvette trailed through the arcane bazaar, Keegan's rumble translating curiosities that defied mortal understanding.

"Drowsyberry elixir," he deciphered a vial's purpose, "keeps trivial dreams at bay - one spoonful before bed."

Yvette peered at whispering jars. "Bottled wraith-song. Hermits' lonely diversion," Keegan cautioned. "Though overuse brings vertigo."

At a cluttered stall, an iron tin no larger than a snuffbox arrested her gaze. Beneath its pewter lid swirled ointment layered with Bastet's perfume - Egyptian cat-goddess' blessing rendered in unguent form.

"Three applications for twilight sight," the merchant crooned through Keegan's translation. "But demand felid participation." The ritual's details - forehead salve, paw-press judgement for cat abusers - made Yvette's eyes shine behind her mask. A legitimate reason for kitty head-pats?

"Perfect." Her coin purse leaped open. Keegan sighed at enthusiasm outpricing haggling.

A nearby candle's perfection halted them - ivory Apollo carved in anatomical exactitude. "Burns tokens of affection," Keegan explained. "Seven days of obsessive yearning." The adjacent pink philter made him flush. "'Witch's Draught' bends wills through blood. But strong minds..." He tripped over warnings, mistaking her academic interest.

"Avert disaster," he finished gravely. Magic's failure unveiled personal history - a mother's charm-born union dissolved when spells faded, ending in woody limbs and cleansing flames.

Yvette grasped why curses crowded this gathering. Here hung fetishes to wither crops, mirrors whispering compulsions, dolls breeding night terrors - defense mechanisms for wildfolk against plough and pasture.

A dreamcatcher's feathers brushed her cheek, recalling Unwin's tortured sleep at Bloody Tower. She bartered for the web-hoop charm - tourist trinket for London's most inscrutable benefactor. Odd gifts accumulated: talismans for a mother-daughter pair, frost-proof inkwells, herb-preserving sacks, and three phials of misbegotten Flame Mantle brew that had nearly roasted their maker.

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Noticing Keegan's empty hands, she pressed until he confessed a Vow of Poverty binding all wealth to Dublin's tenement dwellers. Even train tickets came via colleagues' charity. His mother's tragedy birthed this creed - wizardkind's fumbled human entanglements required magical shortcuts, breeding sorrow.

Far from Devonshire's bonfires, London's moonlit lanes harbored darker revels. An overturned carriage sheltered gilt-haired prey. Steel flashed as a brute demanded "Fisher!" through broken French.

"Qu'est-ce que je peux faire pour vous?" The passenger's eyes widened with Gallic innocence, lace cuffs fluttering surrender. His knife-gleam smile promised anything... except truth.

The hulking marauder known as "Firewine" had arrived in Albion with purpose—to reclaim the lost Pearl Idol.

Long before the rise of Rome, seafaring clans across the Mediterranean—Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Canaanites—paid homage to Dagon, the Leviathan Lord who ruled the waves. But when imperial legions stamped out paganism under the banner of their Holy Trinity, flame consumed temple and idol alike. Few relics survived the purge. The Pearl Idol, smuggled to safety by fleeing priests, became a beacon for those who still whispered the old gods’ names.

As New World colonies bloomed, heretics plotted to spirit the artifact across the Atlantic. Pirate ships offered discreet transport; distant shores promised sanctuaries beyond the Church’s reach. But disaster struck—the vessel carrying the sacred relic vanished, swallowed by storms. Dagon’s faithful mourned their god’s wrathful judgment.

Centuries later, salvagers probing the Golden Triangle’s depths uncovered a truth written in barnacled timber. Cannon-scarred planks and shattered masts revealed the Idol’s carrier hadn’t fallen to divine will, but mortal treachery. Which meant...

The relic still existed.

Firewine’s cohort "Jolly Roger"—conspicuous with his missing eye—couldn’t risk surface inquiries. Thus the tattooed brute ventured into London’s underbelly, swapping his salt-stiffened jerkin for a Bond Street-tailored facade. Between bribing pickpockets and oily tailors’ apprentices emerged a name: Sir Ulysse Josué de Fichat, a French émigré whose servants ordered custom garments with particular attention to... intimatewear.

Firewine spat in disgust. Foppish aristocrats and their deviant appetites! No matter. Tonight, this powdered peacock would spill secrets through broken teeth.

He caught the Frenchman’s carriage near Westminster, steel-roped muscles hauling the vehicle sideways. As Sir Ulysse tumbled out babbling panicked French—(Typical coward!)—Firewine froze.

His left arm tingled. Spread numbness.

A scalpel embedded in cobblestones beside his boot.

"Slower than I estimated," came crisp Albish vowels. Not the gibbering nobleman, but the carriage’s unassuming passenger.

Snap went Firewine’s skull as realization struck—ring-adorned fingers twisting during the struggle, needle pricking his brawny forearm. Neurotoxin.

"Your idol’s guardians grew sloppy," the false fop remarked, kicking the sewer grate shut. "Now. Names. Locations."

Firewine roared curses. Let flesh slough from bones—Dagon’s true servant never broke.

His final sight: a carriage axle rising.

Ulysse worked methodically, reducing mutated tissue to gutter slurry. When constables arrived, the night held only scattered fabric scraps... and distant rush of foul waters below.