Starling/Magpie. [Set at the beginning, before she goes to fight Famfrit!]
She was near the theatres when she first heard it. Ofelia had been leaning against a guttering streetlight outside her apartment (this district was all quaint iron gaslamps) and raising her herbal cigarette for another pull when the ground rumbled. Her fingers tightened, accidentally crushing the cigarette.
The moment stretched out, and for a moment, it seemed like she must have imagined it.
And then—
Another crash, a thrumming through the bottom of her boots. Something was most certainly happening in the Mist to the west, in the adjacent district.
“Did anyone hear that? It came from the tenements.” Others in the street shot her curious looks, but Ofelia was already biting down on the memstone in her mouth and activating the broadcast. Let the bystanders think she was talking to them – the network may have been down, but certain other methods of communication still worked. She dropped the cigarette, leaving it smouldering on the cobblestones, and broke into a run.
Miss Zhou wasn't a hero, no – exaggeratedly not, since recent events taught her that she preferred a safe vantage point while the undead roiled in nearby caves. But inside the city was another matter entirely. And the tenements in particular sent an electric-hot shock of concern vibrating through her body. She had to see. All their warehouses were there, and her informants and pickpockets and apprentices... and the moment something happened inside the city walls, well, Heinlein would want to know about it.