Chapter Text
Audrey's POV
The world had become a landscape of gray slush and grayer faces. The initial shock of the war had given way to a grim, grinding reality. Food was the new currency, and fear was the air everyone breathed. Audrey, in her now well-worn disguise as Irine Watson, spent her days on the front lines of this new battle—the battle against starvation.
She moved through the winding, desperate streets of a district bordering the East Borough, a large, heavy cart of bread trailing behind her, paid for by the Hall family's vast fortune. Susie trotted faithfully at her side, a silent, furry guardian who kept the more desperate beggars at a respectful distance.
The distribution was exhausting, emotionally draining work. For every grateful family she fed, she saw a dozen more with hollow, accusing eyes. As a Psychiatrist, she could feel the city's collective despair, a heavy, suffocating blanket that threatened to smother all hope.
She was nearing the end of her supply for the day when she took a shortcut through a narrow alley behind a row of once-opulent manors. It was then that she heard the voices, low and tense, coming from a half-open service door.
"...I've told you, I will pay! Name your price!" The voice was strained, but instantly recognizable. It was Stelyn Sammer.
A greasy, leering male voice replied, "Pay? With what, madam? Your Loen pounds are just fancy paper in a city that's starving. The Feysac army could be at our gates in a month. Bread is king now."
Audrey froze, melting back into the shadows of the alley. She peeked around the corner. She saw Mrs. Sammer, her usual cheerful demeanor gone, replaced by a look of grim desperation. Before her stood a fat, balding man in a stained silk robe—a merchant or a minor lord, someone who had hoarded resources.
The man's lust-filled eyes roamed over Mrs. Sammer's figure, his gaze as slimy and possessive as a slug. "However," he purred, "perhaps you have... other assets. Something you could use to pay for your children's bread."
A surge of pure, cold fury, so intense it made her vision go white at the edges, ripped through Audrey. Her hand instinctively went to the concealed pocket in her dress, her fingers brushing against the cold, hard steel of the revolver Klein had given her. The urge to pull it, to march over there and put a Purification Bullet through that disgusting man's leering face, was an almost overwhelming physical force. She knew not all nobles were good people, but to see this kind of predatory sickness up close, to see a good woman being backed into such a horrifying corner... it was nauseating.
But then, her Spectator's senses caught something that broke her heart. She could see the roiling conflict in Stelyn's aura. The shame, the disgust, the terror... but beneath it all, a flicker of something else. Resignation. Consideration. The grim, steely resolve of a mother willing to do anything to feed her children. Mrs. Sammer, behind all her boasting and her fussy, motherly ways, had a core of absolute, sacrificial love. And this pig was about to exploit it.
Audrey couldn't let that happen. A public execution was not the answer. She needed a scalpel, not a cannon.
She took a deep breath, smoothed the front of her drab dress, and stepped out of the alley, a look of pleasant, mild surprise on her face.
"Mrs. Sammer!" she called out, her 'Irine Watson' voice light and cheerful. "What a coincidence to see you here! I was just finishing my route."
Both Stelyn and the fat merchant jumped, startled. The vile, predatory atmosphere shattered, replaced by a mundane, awkward social interruption.
Stelyn's face was a mess of conflicting emotions—shock, relief, and a deep, burning shame at being seen in this situation.
Audrey strode forward, beaming, pretending not to have heard a thing. She gestured to her nearly empty cart. "I have a few loaves left. You must take them! Mr. Moriarty would be furious with me if he knew his own landlady was going hungry." She didn't wait for an answer. She grabbed two large, fresh loaves of bread and pressed them into Stelyn's trembling hands.
"There," she said, her voice full of warmth. She then looped her arm through Stelyn's, turning her back on the sputtering, furious merchant. "Come, walk with me. We should have some tea back at the apartment. It's been too long."
She led the stunned, grateful, and deeply shaken Mrs. Sammer away from the dark alley, away from the monster in the silk robe, and back towards the small, fragile sanctuary of home. She had not fired a shot, but she had just won a very important battle, she feels like.