Newt leapt in the direction of the woman, and in mere seconds he was close enough to her before it was too late. However, his sudden appearance beside her had its an undesirable effect: it startled her, and caused her to lose her balance. Newt's hand seemed to work of its own accord as it grasped the woman's sleeve, preventing her fall.

"Please, don't," Newt said, not sure if she would understand him, but trying regardless. "There is absolutely no reason for you to do so."

To Newt's joy, and, to an extent, surprise, the woman turned to him and said in a foreign English accent, "Really? You know nothing, mister. I have very good reasons to do it."

"I don't believe so," he said, still clutching her forearm, but unable to look at her. "Whatever it is you're going through, it won't last forever, and everything will be better eventually."

"Everything will be better?" The woman repeated with a scoff. "Your people have been here since eighteen eighty-two, mister, sucking the soul out of this country — my home. All those years sound like forever to me, and I don't see why my life would matter to you anyway."

She said this with indignation, yet she didn't try to free herself from Newt's grip. He took that as an indicator that she could possibly listen to him.

"This occupation is horrible," he told her, and he meant it. "Any occupation is horrible. I feel sorry for your country, and I understand your anger and disappointment. But trust me, this is not how you can solve the problem."

The woman fell silent for a moment, then Newt felt her eyes gaze into him as she said, "You know what? I am a witch. Your lot used to drown my lot because we are evil. Why don't you bring back this tradition?"

"But I'm a wizard."

Those words were uttered in perfect simplicity, so that when Newt glanced at the woman's face he saw her eyebrows raised and her mouth slightly agape.

"Look." Newt brought out his wand quickly to prove it.

"Eh—?"

"I bought it at Ollivander's. The finest wand shop we have."

"I've heard about this shop," the woman said, her tone no longer snarky.

"Would you like to tell me how you've heard about it?" Newt said. "I know that wizards and witches here perform wandless magic, so is it all right if we sit somewhere and talk about Ollivander's? Please?"

Newt wasn't comfortable around strangers, but that one needed help, and he couldn't think of any other way to distract her. However, he wasn't sure whether the woman would accept or decline his offer. It seemed reasonable to him if her answer was no; he too was a stranger after all.

But when the woman's body began to loosen up, Newt sighed in relief. They began to back away from the river, and he didn't let go of her until they were distant enough from it. Here he glanced at the woman again, allowing himself to catch a glimpse of her features. Her face was round and gaunt, with almond, greenish eyes that stood out on her olive skin. She didn't look older than Newt himself but something in her made him feel that her life was a much harder one.

"Why do you even care?" The woman asked calmly. "You don't even know me."

"Magic folk should help each other... all human beings should help each other. So if what you need is someone that will listen to you, and help you find solutions to your problems, then I could be that person. You can obliviate me afterwards if you want to, but please, give talking a try."

The woman fell silent for a moment before saying, "You are a strange man."

"I am sorry if I came off as —"

"Don't apologize," she cut him off gently. "It isn't a bad thing to be strange sometimes."

"So is it fine by you if we sit somewhere and talk?"

"Yes." The woman nodded after a dubious pause.

A sweep of relief lightened Newt's worries. His plan was actually working. "Is there a place you want to go to, then?"

"Well, I know a place. I can take you there, but we won't go on foot because it's not near. We will Apparate."

When Newt nodded, the woman caught his arm. At first, she seemed hesitant but in a second her grip tightened as she closed her eyes.

Newt had Disapparted a thousand times before, but that felt new. Normally Disapparition made him feel as if his body was being squeezed into nothingness, but this time it was as though a spiraling tornado had swallowed and spat him mercilessly. He was dizzy and nauseated, and it took his lungs a considerable number of seconds to be filled with air.

"You aren't used to Apparating, are you?" said the woman, noticing the sickened expression on Newt's face.

"Where I live, only skilled wizards and witches can Apparate without a wand," he answered, now believing that he was before a highly proficient witch. "It felt different than what I am used to."

The woman laughed humorlessly. "Don't you think I'm one of those skilled people. Fifteen year-olds here can do it, but personally, I managed to at seventeen. Now come on, that's the place."

Newt looked up to survey his surroundings. He was standing in an alleyway which was dimly-lit under the darkening sky. Apart from him and the woman, nobody was there, but he heard a distant clangor echoing in the walls and the sound of unintelligible chatter emitting from behind a wooden door. Above the door a sign was suspended, and on seeing Latin letters written on it, Newt squinted to read what they said. However, the woman interrupted him.

"I would get the wand back in my pocket if I were you."

"Why?" Newt asked.

"Let's say that the owner isn't fond of them." She indicated the wooden door, and without elaborating what this meant, she pushed it open and entered.

This vague answer caused Newt to become worried. He feared he would regret having good intentions again as he had done many times in his life. He didn't want to risk anything, so he put his wand in his pocket as the woman had told him to, yet he kept a firm grip on it there. Then he followed her into what turned out to be a pub. There weren't a lot of people inside, yet none of them seemed to notice their arrival.

"Marco," said the woman, greeting someone as she seated herself at a vacant table. He was a thin, middle-aged man, moving around the tables as briskly as a bee, with a large tray in his hand. He turned to the woman and gave her a quick, bright smile before resuming his work.

"That's the owner," the woman told Newt in a low voice. "He's Italian, and a wizard."

Newt sat opposite her and placed his suitcase next to him. The symptoms of wandless Apparition began to wear off the moment he sat down.

"Then why doesn't he like wands?" he asked. It surely would have spared the man a lot of work to use one.

"He told me that magic had caused him lots of trouble back home," the woman answered. "What sort of trouble? He didn't say. But he fled here twenty years ago, and decided he didn't want anything to do with magic and wizards anymore."

"But you're a witch and he seems to like you."

"You see, I told you that I am a witch, but I never said I was a good one," she said with a vague smile.

Newt didn't ask further questions regarding that matter, feeling that the woman didn't want to talk about it.

"So why did you come here?" the woman asked. "Do you work for your Ministry of Magic?"

"I used to," Newt said, "but I'm here because I'm writing a book about magical creatures around the world. A guide to teach my fellow wizards and witches about them." And to rescue a Thunderbird, he thought but deemed it imprudent to tell her that. After all, he had just met her. He didn't even know her name.

"That's very interesting, Mr —" she frowned at him, clearly thinking what Newt had been thinking at that moment "— Horus! You haven't told me your name, have you?"

"Newt Scamander," he mumbled. For some reason, introducing himself had always been difficult.

"Nice to meet you, Mr Newt. Do you mind if I call you Newt? Because your last name is hard to remember."

Newt shook his head. "No, I don't mind."

"That's great. I'm Farida Morad." She held out her hand for him to shake. "But call me Farida, because sometimes I'd like to forget about the Morad part."

Newt had a feeling that it might be nosy to ask why, so he remained silent despite having a flicker of curiosity. It took him a few seconds to notice Farida's outstretched hand. He drew his hand out of his pocket and made to shake Farida's, but he regretted it almost immediately, even though he didn't comprehend what had just happened. His skin had barely brushed against Farida's when she winced and drew away her hand in evident pain.

"Wha—what's wrong?" Newt stammered.

"You're hurting." She exhaled sharply. "You're in terrible pain, why is that?"

"I'm not," Newt said. It was a lie, but he didn't want to admit the truth which he was hiding from everyone, including himself. He was just astonished that a complete stranger was able to know it that easily. How did she figure it out? Either he was too bad at concealing it, or the woman before him was not an ordinary one. Maybe she was a Legilimens? But he hadn't made eye-contact with her...

At that moment, the man named Marco showed up at their table, derailing Newt's train of thought and preventing Farida from pressing on. He talked to Farida cheerfully, and although Newt didn't understand Arabic, Marco's foreign accent was distinguishable from her native one.

"Oh, hello, mister!" Marco said in English, turning to Newt at last. "You drink coffee like Farida or?"

"Coffee is fine, thank you," said Newt without paying much thought to whether he really wanted to drink it or not.

In the same lively manner, Marco left them. Newt looked down at the suitcase, and his eyes widened slightly as a specific thought arose from the depths of his mind and reached his tongue.

"You are an Empath."

The look on Farida's face made it crystal clear that she didn't understand what Newt had just said.

"A what?" she asked, more with curiosity than bewilderment.

"An Empath," said Newt. "Someone who can sense people's emotions by merely touching them. I don't know what they are called in Arabic, but we call people like that Empaths."

"I didn't know that you have a name for that," she said with a shrug. "Since I was a child, I couldn't explain it. I didn't dare tell anyone at Iunu — that's our school — because I didn't want them to think I'm crazy, so I ended up thinking that I was just sensitive."

"Well, that's another way to define it," said Newt, the engaging topic diminishing his prior unease. "Empaths are overly sensitive individuals. In fact, so sensitive that they can clearly feel and identify emotions, even if they hadn't experienced certain ones themselves."

Farida propped her elbows up on the table, her eyes shining with interest. "That has happened to me more than once, yes. But tell me, are there many people like that or only a few?"

"You're the first Empath that I've ever met," Newt answered. "It's a rare gift."

"A gift you say?" she sounded unpleasantly surprised by what Newt had called it. "Is it a gift to feel the sorrow that isn't yours in addition to the one that is, Newt?"

"I'm sorry," Newt said quickly, realizing that he had used the wrong word to describe her ability. "It's not a gift, you are right. It's more like a burden, when you come to think about it. Many Empaths isolate themselves because of it. And for others, the burden becomes so heavy that they even attempt to —"

At that moment, Marco returned, holding two cups of coffee. Newt couldn't have been more thankful for his appearance; it saved him from the fatuity of telling a suicidal person that it was likely for people like her to commit suicide. And this brought back to his memory the reason he was sitting with Farida in the first place.

"How do you feel now?" Newt asked her when Marco was out of earshot. He clutched the cup between his fingers without having any intention to drink it. He preferred tea anyway.

"Better, thanks to you," said Farida, sipping her coffee. Newt didn't need to be an Empath to know that the gratitude in her voice was genuine. "But it's always like that, you know? One moment I'm feeling better, and another I'm feeling horrible."

"If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know," Newt said.

"Let's just talk," she said. "It's been a long time since I had a proper conversation with anyone besides Marco. But even him has been too busy since the boy who assisted him quit, so it's been a long time since I had a proper conversation with anyone."

Farida fell silent after that, apparently expecting Newt to say something in return, or to bring up a new topic. But that was one of the numerous problems which Newt saw in himself: when someone asked him to talk, maintaining conversation became ten times harder for him. He considered talking about his creatures, but decided against it because people usually found that boring. But a few seconds later, a question popped up on his head.

"Where did you learn to speak English?"

"Oh, that's a long story." Farida laughed. "But to make it short, our ministry and yours had this exchange program last year. Egyptian candidates had to learn English, as well as some other things like using a wand to perform some simple spells."

"Yes, I have heard of those programs," said Newt, remembering that his brother Theseus had participated in such a thing before. "They have been doing them quite a lot lately. I've heard that they don't want the turbulent Muggle relations to affect the stability of the Wizarding ones."

Farida nodded, and silence encompassed them again. Newt fiddled with the handle of his suitcase as he searched his brain for another topic. He could find none except magical creatures. Perhaps it was about time he mentioned something about them at last. After all, it was better than being helpless in that awkward silence, where the background noise was louder than their thoughts. But just as he was on the verge of opening his mouth, Fardia spoke.

"I learned fast," she said, her voice bearing a tone of reminiscence, so calm and joyless that Newt felt she was talking to herself not him. "For the first time in my life, I was good at something. I felt like a witch, not some sort of magical misfortune that can't perform even the easiest spell without effort. And using a wand was just... I'm not sure how to describe it, but having a device that translates the magic inside you into what it should be... it was different, but great. Do you feel the same way about it?"

"I'm afraid we are so accustomed to using wands that we can't sense the difference you're talking about," said Newt. "But if you found it easier, then why didn't you keep using a wand instead?"

The corners of Farida's mouth twitched with a swift, incomplete smile. "You can't stay a candidate forever. Eventually, you'll either qualify and be one of the lucky three who get the job, or you don't qualify and get back to where you began."

Newt glanced at her and said, "But you can always start again from that point. It's not the end."

"I guess so. But the question is, how many more disappointments in my life can I take?" Then with a chuckle that marked an abrupt change of tone, she added, "That's how I heard about Ollivander's, by the way. We came here to talk about this shop but ended up talking about many things except for it."

Farida then threw a quick glance at the grandfather clock near their table and added, "It's getting late. Are you staying somewhere? It could be a bit hard to find a place at this particular time."

"Yes." Newt brought out the paper upon which the address of the inn was written, and handed it to her. "I stayed in it the last time I was here. In fact, I was on my way to book a room there when I encountered you."

Farida scanned the paper with her eyes, her brows wrinkling in a sort of concentration. "I know this inn. Tell me, when was the last time you stayed there?"

"A little over two years ago."

"So you haven't heard about it then," said Farida, handing him back the paper. "It shut down months ago because the old lady who owned it died. She had no children, and no known relatives for that matter, so I think the Ministry is still trying to figure out what to do with it."

"Is there anywhere else you recommend?" Newt folded the paper and put it back in his pocket.

"There are other places," Farida answered. "But as I told you, it could be difficult to find a place at this particular time. Especially when there's that Culture of Magic conference thing going on this week."

Newt had heard but completely forgotten about that conference. His face finally fell as the possibility of finding accommodation became more difficult.

"But don't worry," Farida went on, noticing the unease in his features, "I'll come with you and look for an empty room anywhere. If we don't find any, you can stay at my place. It's no palace but it will do for tonight. You'll have some privacy, at least, if that's what you're looking for."

The sudden disturbance in his plans did bother Newt. He was tired and needed to get some sleep, and more importantly, he needed a safe place to look after his creatures. He thought he had the matter settled, yet in the blink of an eye, he discovered he was wrong to believe so. But it could have been way worse, he thought. At least he was not alone, and someone was willing to help him.