The Kasimpasha District is a quarter of narrow and winding lanes that open, all at once, upon crowded bazaars, buildings worked with a fine and fretted ornament, and a life that never seems to slacken; the scent of the street-cooks' braziers hangs over the whole. It is a commercial hub above all, and a crucible of the city's many peoples, where merchants of every trade — vendors of food, tailors, keepers of the bath-house, and perfumers besides, among them Nazif — cry their wares to the passing throng. The warmth of the climate does its part to heighten the din. Mosques mark the district at intervals, one greater than the rest serving as a hub where the poor are given meals and succour. Yet for all its promise, the quarter draws a hard line between its meaner streets and its few pockets of ease, and offers, beneath the face of opportunity, a danger never far off.
Kasımpaşa has played no small part in the affairs that followed. An invitation from Osman Hamdi Bey to lodge in Constantinople carried the company here, charged to deliver a letter to the leader of the Janissaries, Ahra "the Wolf." Following their directions into a seedy alley, they came upon a plain door marked with faint Arabic letters, and passed men who seemed stupefied with opium — the district's own quarrel with such vices shown plainly enough. Within, they made their way through a Janissary stronghold and treated with Ahra "the Wolf," who sought their help in penetrating the doings of certain great figures of the underworld, Hano "the Widow" among them.
Later events have only deepened the quarter's troubles. The murder of Nazif during the Festival of Candles moved the Bostanji Imperial Guard to declare a state of emergency. In the confusion that followed, the Ghost of March and his followers melted away, whilst Gizem Faruki confirmed Nazif's death before the guards broke up the crowd. Amidst that same turmoil Sidra al-Najjar approached the Ghost to beg an audience, and was refused.
When the chaos had passed, the company regathered at a late-night café to settle their course, resolving to look into Nazif's perfumery stall in the Grand Bazaar. In that darkened shop they met Sharif the Strong Fur, a black cat in a red fez, who claimed Nazif's duties for his own and laid down a rule against all magic, the better to keep both safety and secrecy. The following day they called again upon Ahra "the Wolf," who acquainted them with the matter of the Ghost of March and set them to quieting the unquiet dead beneath the ruins of Saint Benoit Church. The district shows itself now a volatile country of shifting power and unrest, as the consequences of Nazif's murder ripple still through the Kasimpasha District.