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known as Oliver.
    I checked my watch—it was only ten in the morning. Man, I had a long day ahead of me.
    Food. I needed food.

 
     
     
    Time for Breakfast
    If you ever happen to find yourself in Cardiff and are hungry, then there is only one place to go. Madge's Cafe. And that was exactly where I was headed. I think better on a full stomach as it dulls the pain and the sickness, and besides, I was ravenous.
    I pulled my suit jacket tight against my shirt, huddled against the cold, and tried not to act like people much worse than the police were after me. Sticking to the alleys, I wound my way through town out to Splott, took turn after turn deep into student accommodation territory, and finally made it to Madge's on the outskirts of a small industrial estate.
    Oliver trailed me the whole way like some kind of needy puppy, but he kept quiet, sullen and clearly unhappy about his orders for the day. I knew him though, knew he was waiting for me to slip up so he could take advantage and watch me unravel. No chance.
    "You're going in there? Seriously?" The handsome coat hanger scowled at the battered sign and the steamed-up windows, the scuffed door and the peeling paint of a place I adored.
    "Yup. You got a problem with that?"
    "You have things to do," he said, almost like an order.
    "And I'm doing them. I need to eat. We don't all live through the destruction of others, some of us just pay for our meals with cash, like normal people."
    He sniffed and sneered. "Normal people," he spat.
    "Yeah, you know, community spirit, keeping the old businesses alive, supporting the locals, all that." He stared at me blankly. "Whatever. Wait here, there's a good boy." Oliver's fists clenched and he bared his canines. I shrugged.
    Opening the door to the cafe was like coming home, except I wouldn't dream of letting my sanctuary get dirty or smelly. The greasy, warm air hit me like a smack across the head with a loaf of moldy bread and I sighed, breathing easier for the first time since I came to my senses that morning.
    Aromas of fried bread, bacon, eggs, tea and toast assaulted my nostrils and I probably gained a few pounds just inhaling the air. Aah, it's the small things in life.
    The buzz of the cafe was more welcome than you can imagine, a little normality in a sea of strangeness. I couldn't believe it was still so early, and the cafe was packed.
    As I stepped inside, a number of heads turned, and the room if not fell silent then certainly quietened down. Those that knew me stared open-mouthed, those that didn't, well, they carried on about their business, which mostly consisted of shoveling inexpensive, tasty food into their mouths, asking their eating companion how Madge managed to do it all so cheap, and groaning as their waistlines expanded and kept the city's fixer of snapped zips in brisk and regular business.
    Madge was behind the counter, scowling at customers, wiping surfaces with a cloth probably as old as her, shouting over her shoulder for her poor kids to get a move on and stop messing around. She is a grumpy one and I love her for it.
    Madge is sixty, going on four hundred, and has always looked the same. Thick spectacles, a mass of frizzy gray hair, deep frown lines, and the greasy apron I swear must be glued to her. She's a witch I guess, although she doesn't get involved in magic business or politics.
    She likes to run her cafe, scream at her kids—poor things, they're still under the thumb and not one of the three of them is under two hundred—and practice her highly evolved art of utter contempt for all things sentient on her many customers. She also knows everything that goes on in the Hidden world, and I guess she is a mother figure to many of us—if your mom is a sourpuss and mostly ignores you and you like being insulted. Hey, you take what you can get, right? I know I do.
    I squeezed past the mess of mismatched tables and chairs dotted haphazardly around the cramped room, smiled fondly at the sticky linoleum