“It’s awesome. But what if someone comes?”“That’s when the fun begins. Come with me, and I’ll show you.”She put out her hand, and I took...it. Mine was sweating a bit, but her grip was firm and confident. She squeezed.“Now, put your clothing in your room and give me your key-card,” she said. I did as she told me, and she slipped the card into a small pouch on a leather cord around her neck, next (I presumed) to her own. She really had come prepared.I felt a bit giddy as we walked down the. He agreed with his friend’s words, but at the same time every fibre of his being rejected them. “Why not?” he felt his lips form the words, a whisper barely audible above the rain, the question posed before he’d even had time to consider what he was saying. Gustav had no answer and averted his eyes. A minute passed that felt like an age. The wrongness of it, they both thought to themselves. That’s why not. Gustav did not know why he wasn’t more surprised at his friend’s advance. He couldn’t. He would then leave a message in blood on her house wall. If he then killed their leader, the one they apparently called Varna, he hoped the final three would give up. He could imprison them for a time then banish them to some remote island to live out the rest of their days in peace.On the morning of Market day Minara walked into town. She liked to buy treats and fresh vegetables. She could send the servants as a normal noble woman would have done but she liked the fresh air and the solitude. “Mom asked dad that so many times, didn’t she Davey?” she said.“Yes, she did a lot – I’ll bring home some food for lunch, OK?” I replied.“Sounds good, already providing your wife with sustenance, see ya?”“See ya, Lizzie,” I said.“Lizzie – who’s Lizzie?” my best friend Alex asked, having been listening in surreptitiously.“Uh, my girlfriend from back in Brighton, I went and got her and we ... live together now, in my apartment?” I said, trying to remember what had been said so far.“You never said.