“Be careful with that!” she called back sharply to the porter as he fumbled getting her trunk down the gangplank. Though the woman’s English was accented, her words came as clear as day—though just to be safe, she shot a warning look at the man. In another life, she might have been more sympathetic to his plight. Then again, in that same life, she would not have had nearly so heavy a trunk, given how cursed poor her family had been.

Inès took her first steps onto English soil (well, English wood, at least) and noticed three things immediately:

1. It was cold.
2. The sun seemed to have overslept and she was greeted instead by a thick blanket of cloud.
3. It was cold.

With a small shiver, she gripped the edges of her cloak more tightly about her, casting one last look at the struggling porter before charging ahead towards customs. He would keep up, or he would find that hers was an uncooperative trunk when separated from its mistress for long.

“And where are you off to?” the customs officer asked a smiling Inès as he cast a cursory glance over her papers.

“London, directly,” she replied simply, having been cautioned by her dear friend not to bandy ‘Irvingly’ about where the muggles might here. While muggles lived there in harmony with wizards—how novel!—the nonmagical community on the whole was still ignorant to the village’s existence.

Plainly, this answer was enough to satisfy the man and she stepped triumphantly past. Britain, Inès was resolved, would be a marvellous adventure.