The Eight Districts

The seat of what remains of the Crown — marble stairs, sealed record rooms, and a council chamber with an empty chair no seal can fill.

The cathedral district on the eastern hill, home of the Temple of the Drowned God — and, lately, of the Census of Dreams and its annex that does not let go.

Counting houses, gold-lit halls, and ledgers that outlive their writers. The Guild's word is a currency here.

The city's loudest square — auction houses, silver fountains, minstrels, and pickpockets of every station.

Taverns, fences, and gambling dens strung with lanterns; where things stolen elsewhere change hands before dawn.

The harbor ward. Tide-gates, drowned cellars, and the first place the water rises — in every sense.

Crowded lanes and leaning tenements; the city's poorest and most watchful district. Its children see everything.

The flooded dark below the streets — fighting pits, old graves, older doors, and lately the dead not staying in them.