Word spreads slowly, but it does spread. The newcomer Pyotr Stamatin, who spent his first two weeks in town getting blackout drunk and then started a bar fight that ended with Erik Osborne getting stabbed, is an artist -- and he'll draw your portrait if you show him something miraculous or macabre. He has a profound interest in the magical, supernatural, and the blood-stained. His apartment on Goldleaf Street has been turned into a studio; climb the stairs to the second floor, and so long as Pyotr is home alone you'll find the door marked 'A' left unlocked.

Pinned to all four walls is already a thick layer of sketches and anatomical studies; here are Erik Osborne's fangs, the lips pulled back to expose both rows of teeth; there are Fever's hands, passing a coil of lightning back and forth as though it were a metal spring. Here is a sketch from memory of Mortanne, as she appeared in the cemetery at Mourner's Night; here is the island's wyvern in flight. In one corner a brightly-colored kite in the shape of a bird hangs suspended from the ceiling, its wings two sets of complementary hues.

At one end of the room a small stage has been shaped from a thick rug and a set of folding screens, with braziers left nearby for the comfort of anyone who wants to try modeling in the nude. The artist lounges on a settee nearby, a thick drawing pad in his lap. His hands and clothes are perpetually covered in ink and soft pastel dust these days; when he looks up to greet you, you notice that he's even managed to get a streak of it across one cheek. Yet he immediately lowers the drawing pad, offering you a small, nearly-shy smile.

"Did you want something?"