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too. He felt completely at home as he travelled the underground church labyrinth towards the nurse’s office near the orphanage. With each silent step, he felt more confident that his visit would go unnoticed.
    Nurse Isabella was a stick-thin waif of a woman who was a jittery rattle of nerves. Nox always wondered if she’d been taking her own concoction of drugs to put her in that state, but if not, maybe she ought to.
    Isabella’s job had been a busy one. With more than one hundred boys in the orphanage, there was always some incident or illness that had needed tending to. Nox had had his share of bloody injuries, most at the hands of his regular tormentors. They were incidents that everyone, including Nurse Isabella, had neglected to report. Nobody had wanted to cast a shadow over the orphanage, especially after the first orphanage he went to had been shut down because of illicit activity.
    If he ran into Isabella, he’d have no qualms about smacking an apology out of her, too.
    Nox paused at the edge of a poorly lit tunnel and listened. This was one of the places that cast voices from afar. Right now though, there wasn’t even a whisper of noise. The entire establishment was holding its breath, or so it seemed. He stepped from the shadows and walked with a measured pace towards the nurse’s office. At the door, he didn’t bother knocking; he pulled down the handle and pushed. It was locked.
    â€˜Damn it.’
    Nox didn’t even contemplate breaking through the door. It would be at least three inches of solid wood.
    The nurse’s office was manned twenty-four hours a day, so that meant the nurse was out, tending to someone. All Nox had to do was wait. He thought about going back to his old bedroom, but with Linchin’s lifeless body lying inside, that wasn’t an option. Instead, he decided to head towards the Esagonale room. It was one his other favourite rooms in the ancient building.
    Nox stepped up to the door and listened. As he expected, he heard nothing, so he opened it and entered the hexagonal-shaped room, closed the door behind him, and flicked on the light switch.
    Everything was as he’d left it. Of course it would be—this room was rarely used and had probably looked the same for hundreds of years. The chunky wooden table accompanied with the just as solid and elaborately decorated wooden chairs were all centuries old, as was the wax encumbered candelabrum dangling from the ceiling. Nox tugged out one of the heavy seats and sat on the cold wood.
    He twisted his antique ring around his finger. The three red stones dominating the ring glimmered in the dim light. He took that as a sign—a glimmer of hope that he was nearing the end. Thirty years was long enough, and he was so close he could almost taste the gold on his tongue. Although he’d been closer before. He’d literally had his hands on his precious pieces. Before the bitch speared him, that was.
    Nox heard laughter and jumped up to switch off the light. Plunged into darkness, he slunk back against the wall as the laughter grew louder. A man and a woman. He couldn’t believe it when the door swung open and they stepped into the room. They shut the door, and no sooner were they in there than Nox heard them kissing. Heavy breathing mingled with lip sucking. He was disgusted.
    His brain ticked over his options. He could let them go on and hope they simply left once they were finished. Or he could attack them in the dark, and they’d have no idea what hit them.
    â€˜Oh, Isabella. You smell so beautiful tonight.’
    Isabella. The scrawny nurse . Nox couldn’t believe his ears.
    Chairs scraped back, and he was horrified that they intended to have sex on the table. His table.
    â€˜And you taste lovely,’ she whispered.
    Nox had had enough. He searched the wall in the darkness, looking for a weapon. Dozens of times he’d been in the room, and yet he couldn’t recall seeing