The city's Midwinter festivities for the rest of the week are hushed and fretful. A few taverns are open, with jangling music and quarreling patrons spilling out to have fistfights in the street. Party invitations are issued, and then, in many cases, withdrawn without much explanation.
It's easy to miss any hint of holiday cheer. Instead, what you hear is increasingly wild talk about the curse. A horse bolted and overturned a cart, crushing someone's ankle. A pack of dogs attacked it, the driver insists, though others say they saw no dogs. Houses are found with their doors standing open in the morning, the occupants emerging from deep and nightmarish sleep to find nothing stolen, but the walls smudged with dark marks like smoke. Livestock are found dead in their pens, and the dull orange glow of fire breaks out more than once, subsiding to stinking smoke as neighbors pour water on the flames.
The holiday week is supposed to end with the Raven's traditional address to the city. Not content to stand safely on a balcony, the Raven has traditionally made this address in the lower city, from the back of a victory chariot, a gilded thing that has probably never seen a battlefield. It's as neat a bit of set dressing as any in the theater.
You have an uneasy feeling, and yet you still find yourself dressing to go out.