Alicia moves gingerly, eyeing the simple pants and shirt draped on the edge of the bed, a woolen coat folded neatly on the chair against the wall. She touches the coat, the fabric expensive, something she would never have worn in the slums if she didn't want to get robbed.

She turns to the other clothes before she gets sucked into memories of the life she left behind.

The under-bust corset with them is a dark brown, the leather supple and the edges frayed, but she'll need it if she has any hope of making the clothes fit. She stands and begins the painful process of getting dressed in clothes too big for her, but she can't complain because at least she isn't being forced into a dress.

She takes this time to prepare herself for what awaits her as she dresses. She's in the Commons, and her aunt trusted this place and these people. They saved her life, having enough supplies to spare some for a stranger.

If anything, it says something hopeful about this place that they were willing to help her.

She finishes dressing, feet also bandaged as she pulls on her black boots. She rests for a long moment, hand clenching the frame of the bed as her head swirls and her throat aches.

Alicia pulls her satchel to herself and digs through the contents until she finds what she's looking for. The crimson scarf is dirty and darkened with her blood, but it offers her a morsel of comfort.

It shouldn't. She spent two years with this scarf wrapped around her face, drenching it in blood, wearing it like a token to all those who looked into her eyes as they drew their last breath. But the familiarity of it eases some of her burdens, like a salve to a burn.

Thumb rubbing against the crusted blood on the material, Alicia decides she needs to clean it. The goal plants itself in the forefront of her mind and she clings to it, hoping it'll keep her sane and out of the memories that claw and thrash like the walking corpses beyond those walls.

She lets out a breath and faces the door that'll take her from this room she's stayed hauled in for the past day, too terrified to see what waits for her beyond. It can't be any worse than the land she found when she left the capital.

She moves for the door with stiff limbs, pushing it open as she wishes for whiskey in her belly to help dull her delicate nerves. She's made it through worse with less.

As Alicia wanders through the house, uncertainty begins breathing down her neck, following her into a large sitting room of old, worn sofas and a rug that was perhaps once clustered with vibrant colours, but has now been dulled to a lackluster brown.

Her fingers twist in her scarf as she continues walking, passing through a set of open double doors and into a dining area. The table is covered in dust, the six chairs around it too, and the flowers in the vase have been dead for a long time, their petals littered amongst the dust.

"Hello?" she calls out, but the house seems to be holding its breath, like it's empty apart from the ghosts that call this place home.

The space adjacent to the dining area is occupied by a kitchen, the place dwarfed by a bench in the middle, this one not covered by dust. Hope lurches through her as she spies a sink and she rushes over to it, turning the iron tap to watch water spurt from it.

It's a small thing, seeing water flow from the pipe before her, but such a small thing warms her stomach. For two months she's been living in a cabin in the woods, hauling buckets of water from the stream nearby, being careful of her water intake. To see such a privileged thing such as water so easily accessible before her makes her feel how she did when she first shrugged on one of her ma's expensive coats in the slums.

Alicia wets the scarf and begins to scrub before she can think any more about the past. The red swirls down the sink and she's glad to be rid of the physical reminder of what those men did.

Four years ago, she wouldn't have run. Four years ago, a man trying to take advantage of her would have had his fingers cut off.

She's worked hard to no longer be that woman.

Turning off the water, Alicia wrings out her scarf before taking it to her room to hang it over the bed frame. That task done, she has to decide what to do next to occupy her mind.

She supposes she should explore the Commons, acquaint herself with her new home and try not to run into Samantha and her scathing stare.

Grabbing the thick, black coat, Alicia shrugs into it. The coat falls to her knees, the cut of it making her feel small but safe. It's a man's coat, the scent of pine and smoke embedded in the material. She slings her satchel across her chest, loathe to leave it lying around with the damning journal hidden within. She needs to find a place to bury it and there's only one place she can think of; alongside the map that lead her to the Ghuls.

Feeling more prepared, she leaves the house to brave the outside world.

Alicia grips the coat at the base of her throat as she steps outside into the brisk air, drawing into her lungs the smell of wood smoke mingling with the scent of food and animals. She swallows and walks down the broad road, eyes shifting from one structure to the next, some dark and quiet, others with flickering light within curtained windows.

The Commons is a town in the middle of a land plagued with the ghosts of war and monsters. She wonders how many in this place are immune. She wonders how so many people came to be here. She wonders if the grand duke knows how many exiles have survived out here. She wonders if that thought keeps him up at night.

She hopes it does.

A door bangs open beside her, and she stumbles, halting as a man is tossed to her feet with a groan and sluggish movements.

"Sam told you to fuck off, so fuck off." Alicia looks up at the gruff voice that spoke, the man wiping his hands on his trousers. Silver eyes look at Alicia, finding her in the light of the moon, trembling with her arms wrapped around herself. They watch each other, the man taking a cigarette from his case and running it over his lower lip before setting it in place in the corner of his mouth.

Oliver, the man who she thought was dead these past six years, who's saved her life so many times now she doesn't know how she can repay him.

The silence between them is broken as the man at Alicia's feet hurls onto the dirt, retching whatever liquid he's consumed. Alicia winces, shuffling back.

"Are you coming inside, or would you rather catch your death in the cold?" Oliver asks, smoke clouding the air before his face. Alicia looks behind her, back the way she had come, back to the relative safety in that house of ghosts.

She doesn't know whether she's foolish or simply exhausted as she steps towards the man who saved her the night she hoped the Reaper would take her. Her steps echo in the night on the wooden stairs to his side.

She has no one to follow anymore, no one that her trembling hands can cling to. She'd grown too used to being the instrument other people wielded.

"Come on." Oliver inclines his head before turning, leading her into the brightly lit building, the laughter and singing within something she thought she'd never hear again.

She was six when she first stumbled into a tavern, feet bare and clothes dirty. People had raised brows at her as she'd pushed through the crowd, in search of one lone figure amongst the haze of smoke and stench of alcohol. It was her pa's favourite place to sit and wallow, the loom of debt and misfortune hanging over him like a black cloud. She had never wanted to step foot in such a place again after that night of crying for her father to come home.

Oliver pushes the door open for her, watching her as she steps inside and assesses her surroundings like a skittish rabbit in the wolf's den. Oliver enters after her, smoke following him like a ghost. He shoves his hands into his pockets, eyes narrowing as she freezes.

Men and women fill the space, young and old, wearing layers of worn clothing, well into their cups at this late hour.

Alicia's bruised lips part with the sight. So many people in one place, and exiles no less. Her cabin in the woods was so secluded, hidden from starving eyes. She could never have known that there are so many exiles.

People dance with sloppy movements, arm in arm, skirts flaring with motion, feet stomping on the wood as people play instruments to a whimsical beat. Singing bounces off the walls, filling Alicia's chest with a sense of... perhaps hope, hope that life goes on.

There's a gentle hand on her back, urging her forward. She moves with Oliver, casting him a look from the corner of her eye. People move from his path, tipping their hats to him or avoiding his eye.

Someone stumbles before her and Alicia halts as the stench of ale from the man's lips wafts over her.

"Dance with me," the man orders, slurring his words, eyes squinting at her. She jumps as his hand grips her upper arm, memories screaming to the surface and suddenly she can't move, can't breathe as those hands wrap around her throat again, emerald eyes grinning with the promise of suffering and death.

The hand is torn from her arm, and she stumbles back, bumping into Oliver as he clasps the drunkard's wrist.

"Leave," is all he says, voice placid but beneath resides a note of brutality. The shadow of fear descends upon the drunken man's face. He scrambles away, and the attention they had garnered is quickly placed elsewhere as the man at her side tilts his head, as though daring anyone else to approach.

Alicia swallows, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself, not knowing who she's meant to fear more; the drunks with their wandering hands, or the man with the eyes of death.

She doesn't know Oliver. All she knows is he's capable of violence.

"Where are you taking me?" Alicia questions in a small voice.

"Sam wants to speak to you," he answers in his low tones, the rasp of his voice unsettling, but almost soothing.

The mention of Samantha doesn't ease the rapid gallop of her heart.

Alicia doesn't know what to feel. Terrified or comforted. It's as though the world tilts on its axis constantly as she keeps walking through the crowd parting for her.

She hasn't been approached like that in so long, hasn't been in a place like this for even longer.

The men left for war, and the women began to get the Zalanas on their feet, making sure their bellies were no longer empty, and the clothes on their backs weren't stitched with numb hands. They left, and Alicia wasn't sure what to do with herself, only her ma's drive saving them. She finds that this knot in her stomach feels like those first months without her brothers pushing her through the streets of Muovea on a cart made from the rotted wood washed up from the canals.

The people of Muovea forgot that the Zalanas came from the slums of the south side when they opened the racetracks of the capital. They forgot that the Zalanas once had family beyond the walls working the fields with callused hands when they were introduced into the royal family. They forgot, treating the Zalanas with the utmost respect while still spitting on those in the slums. They forgot, and so did Alicia, she needed to forget for her own sanity.

Her name means nothing as an exile. It can't mean anything. She may as well be a barefoot and hungry child in the slums once again.

Oliver pushes through a door at the back of the tavern, his eyes beckoning her within. She grips her coat, studying his chiseled jaw and cheekbones, looking for any signs of malice. But he simply watches her with a closed expression, lips puckered around his cigarette.

Alicia moves into the room, hoping that the exiled princess doesn't ask of her what she's no longer willing to give.