Re: victor & irene; mariner's inn at midnight
He looked like he'd been days without sleep, Irene judged from the hollowed eyes and the oil-slicked hair. Days without sleep or he'd lost hours to something: the opium addicts looked like this, befuddled and blind in strong light, pursuing a perfect dream rather than living in the light. But he was going to lose whatever was in his pockets in a few minutes and there would be no opium without coin.
He sat. Good. Sal's perambulation around the room cut itself short, and Irene met her eyes and smiled, a flash of anger in Sal's face that curled over mouth and eyes before she staggered off in an alternative direction. The woman was perfectly sober, anyway.
"It isn't keen," she said impatiently. He just didn't see. "I simply look, sir. What brought you into such a place without learning to look?" She did not gaze at him steadily, but looked above his head, searching. The slip of paper crumpled between Irene's fingers.