Several of the molekind stood on the far side of the street, leaning against the wall by the vibrant purple door. The protective wards stamped all over it emanated with power, though the color of the wood had nothing to do with magic, just the local habit of painting doors, which had amused me ever since I moved to Ireland. Red, blue, purple, gray… Each door different, even though the red-brick townhouses formed a line of uniform buildings along the street. Of course, now some of them bore the marks of curse-started fires or lay in ruins demolished by mindless giants’ clubs, but I still remembered how they looked before the war. At the same time, I hardly remembered the people who used to live there as they came and went wrapped up in their own lives.

The molekind’s crooked talons pointed at me as I passed by, and more than one evil eye inspected me. Gosh, I hated them. All the mythborn looked eerie, but those, short and hairy with their noses perking up like rodents’, seemed more inhuman than most, though they adapted better than others of their kin. Dressed in tracksuits and jumpers like proper Irish knackers, they loitered in the rundown streets looking for trouble… or for victims.

Judging from the scraps of Irish language I had picked up over the years, they were discussing one at that very moment, and since there was no other living soul within sight, I had a pretty good idea of who that victim might be. Oh, the Liberties, the shittiest area of Southern City Center—but hey, it was home.

The molekind kept whispering, and at first I avoided eye contact, but then I caught a glimpse of a familiar brown-skinned humanoid amongst them. I made sure that one caught my warning glare before I passed them. Insults in Irish chased me down the street, but I also picked out words like “the Court” and “Kaja.”

Right, you little shrimps, that would be me: Kaja, the humanborn female who sometimes spoke with the mythborn at the Court. It didn’t matter that they would only meet me when they saw fit and that we rarely got past insult-infused pleasantries—I’d been to the Court at the other side of the river, and that was what counted. I only hoped I’d make it to the corner before they remembered that I was also a frequent guest to the human-only Trinity College.

The aroma of freshly baked bread enveloped me. Before the war I used to buy scones for breakfast in the local bakery. The owners died in the first months of the conflict, and a mythborn girl seamlessly took over. Her sleek face and bright eyes contrasted with the sharp teeth jutting from her lower jaw, and her hands were as big as Guinness pints, but she looked mesmerizing, not grotesque. We exchanged polite greetings, but I couldn’t bring myself to shop there. Who knew what she’d been putting in the dough? The last thing I wanted was a nasty magic poisoning or allergic reaction to some mythborn spice.

As I turned the corner, I weaved my way through the makeshift stalls selling food, war memorabilia, and both magic and plastic junk, shouting out their sales to the mixed crowd of humanborn and mythborn customers. In the beauty salon further up the street, a female bridge dweller was getting her claws done and chatting cheerfully with a humanborn beautician who didn’t seem bothered that her client had green skin and bulgy eyes and hardly fit into a chair. Kids ran through the crowd ignoring the divisions imposed by the adult world, and as I listened to mythborn and humanborn drunkards arguing over last night’s match, the Liberties didn’t seem as bad anymore: at least we’d learned to coexist, which wasn’t necessarily the case up in the North Side or over in Dublin West. I took another turn onto Thomas Street, the nicest one in the area, though still shabby in comparison to the former city center.

The tall tower of John’s Lane Church proudly reached for the gray sky, but a thorn bush crawled along its walls, and I doubted it’d be long before the majestic building would finally give in. In front of the church, a bunch of humanborn shook their charity buckets, so the meager coins inside rang in the rhythm of donation pleas. The priests did their best to protect the church, but their private war against the magical influence wasn’t going too well. I knew they’d lose, and the magic thorn bush, a remnant of the war, would consume the building just like it consumed the nearby St. Catharine’s. Unless, of course, the priests finally gave in and got some good amulets and offensive curses. With the dwindling flock of believers and magic still warping everything it touched, their holy water couldn’t hold out forever.

I doubted their efforts would bear fruit, but I crossed the street and threw a coin into the ever-hungry donation bucket. I ignored the “God bless you!” that followed as I walked away. I was never one of strong faith, and the war had made me even less of a believer, but I did remember the countless times priests would let my squad in through the side door. They never asked questions, and they always had food and water waiting, as well as a prayer for those that didn’t make it back. And for that, they’d have my coin until that bloody thorn bush finally claimed its victory, or until they’d ask me to find the best charm-crafter for them, so they could treat that thorny insult to architecture with the finest of magic.

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