#third paragraph onward is an alternate history of my own devising

[letheology]

Shortly before Yvette Solal was born, the Crémieux Decree granted French citizenship to Jews in French Algeria, including Yvette's family. As an effort at assimilation, it was a massive success. Within a generation, most Algerian Jews spoke French over Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Spanish. Of course, antisemitism was still rampant. French colonists were not so eager to accept Algerian Jews as fellow citizens. But Yvette's family still believed that becoming French was the key to their future, and so that was the way they were raised.

Growing up, Yvette didn't speak French. They didn't speak any language. But they came to understand it, slowly, and found other ways to communicate - gestures, pictures, and eventually writing. For all their struggle with words, they were good with numbers and patterns. They were quick to point out errors in their family's ledgers, and even quicker to make recommendations for the business. More importantly, they had tremendously good luck. Their market predictions were uncannily accurate. They could always guess if a new customer was a good omen or a bad one. As they got older, their family relied on them more and more to run the business. But they never truly stopped seeing Yvette as a child. She was their baby, their good luck charm, to be protected above all else.

And the time would come for them to be protected. In early 1903, when it seemed like France was on the verge of completing their conquest, the powers suddenly shifted. Revolutions sprung up all over North Africa. Yvette and their family found that many of their Jewish neighbors joined in alongside their Muslim ones. The Solal family did not do so. When France withdrew from Algeria, Yvette's family fled, too. But they did not flee to France.

Fearing that the fighting would follow them to Europe, and following the promise of aid from a certain wealthy Moroccan Jew in London, Yvette's family went down to the Neath, and dragged Yvette down with them.

Yvette had protested. They wrote out their reasoning in hurried script, with their most proper French. They did not want to flee and abandon all they'd worked for. They did not trust the word of this stranger from a world away. Snake eyes. Bad luck. But this time, they were ignored.

And though all the freedoms of Fallen London were a welcome surprise, this was not their choice. Years of built-up resentment spilled over in an instant. They would not be leaving, no. Here, they will come into their power.