Then finally with one last long unhappy look around theempty room full of Christmas wrappers, streamers and empty wine bottlesheaded straight for the ...earest pub.I seem to remember leaving sometime after 11 definitely very drunk andsoon soaked to the skin in the driving rain, too content to just wanderthe cold dark streets alone which only made things worse.Suddenly I felt a warm draft of air coming out of a small brightly litshopping arcade and instinctively drawn I suppose like a moth to. "She's real, by the way," he says."Who?" as I take a closer look at the story. "Ananya?" It's my big secret to you," he says. "It's easy to make a good story when you've lived out the real deal."I sit there, befuddled to say the least. Another glance out the window and the Seal is drying the same dish he started on 30 minutes ago. At least a little progress...I sigh and tell him that it's hard to believe. He starts to pack up his things again and insists that he didn't make it up."You could. " I've been wondering, where does the mana go when it's taken?" It feeds into a receiver for storage, a sort of battery that we call a'mana bank'. Almost every member of the People has an account. We arenot paid in money. We are paid in mana." When you do magic, you're tapping into your bank account?" I'm my own credit card. The mana I've expended in convincing you tobelieve in magic can be chocked off as a business expense." Fascinating, I suppose. This isn't the last talk we're going to. He saw she was pleading with him to forgive her, to take her back into the fold even though she had strayed sinfully."Mark... ?" her small, trembling lips began, hesitantly."Give me time to think," Mark said quickly, swinging his hairy legs off the edge of the bunk, and lowering his face into his hands.Lynn sat with her eyes fixed on the broad expanse of his muscular back, her eyes trying to bore into his thoughts, to read what was written there. But she could not. She was aware only that she.