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looking. The black man was dressed in a dashiki and was sitting so close to the fire as to be almost on top of it, while the other two were further away, one of them (who had a greasy little moustache) reading a newspaper, and the other (who had heavy eyebrows and a low forehead) staring intently at the television, which seemed to be showing an episode of Fair City .
    â€˜Hello,’ said Julie.
    â€˜Howaya,’ said the man with the moustache, glancing up from his newspaper briefly. The heavy-browed man grunted and gave a little wave. The black man nodded distractedly, not looking away from the fire.
    Aisling stood quite still, staring at the room and the three men. Julie rather liked the baffled look on her face. It wasn’t a look she often wore in normal circumstances – not even in class, since she was one of those irritating people who always seemed to know everything about everything and got As without having to study.
    Julie didn’t know any more about their current situation than Aisling did, but Julie hadn’t made a vocation out of knowing more than everyone around her, so it didn’t bother her as much.
    She walked up to the hearth and sat down beside the man with the moustache. ‘Mind if I join you?’ she said.
    â€˜Do as you like,’ said the man, still not looking up from his paper. Julie tried to read as much of it as she could without drawing attention to herself. It didn’t seem to be any of the papers she knew. It wasn’t the Metro Herald or the Evening Herald ; it wasn’t the Independent or the Times or the Examiner , and it didn’t look like a British paper either. She caught sight of a headline that read CURFEW EXTENDED TO DAYLIGHT HOURS – QUEEN ‘ADAMANT’, and when the man turned to a new page she saw another one that seemed to say THREE FINAL GATES TO MORTAL LANDS CLOSED. She was just on the verge of asking the man if she could read the paper when he was finished with it when he did finish and immediately tossed it into the fire.
    â€˜Same ould shite,’ he muttered, spitting into the fire as it swallowed the paper, the blue flames licking along the front page and darkening the photograph of the grim-looking woman Julie took to be the queen.
    The black man stirred, frowning. ‘There is no need to use bad language, Jo Maxi,’ he said.
    â€˜And you can go and shite yourself,’ said Jo Maxi. ‘There’s every need when the gates are closed and the streets are empty. Even if we were let go out, there’d be no point, with no fares looking for a scooch. Isn’t that right?’ he said, turning to Julie.
    â€˜Em. Isn’t what right?’ she said.
    â€˜That the streets are empty. Not a soul to be seen.’
    â€˜Oh! Yes,’ she said, wondering what a ‘scooch’ was, and why these three were so unsurprised that she and Aisling had come in, and so incurious about who they were. ‘We just came from –’
    â€˜Ssh!’ said the man with the eyebrows, lifting a finger to his mouth. ‘Two minutes, please! Is nearly over!’
    Jo Maxi and the black man exchanged long-suffering glances, and Julie looked up at the television. Now that she was up closer, she could see that the programme it was showing wasn’t Fair City after all; it had the same kind of music and some of the actors looked familiar, but there was something different about it, though she couldn’t put her finger on what until one of the characters drew a sword, kneeled down in front of another, and solemnly (and rather hammily) declared, ‘I pledge myself to you, and only you!’
    The end credits started rolling to the tune of the ‘Marino Waltz’, and the man with the eyebrows let out a long breath. ‘Good episode,’ he said to himself, then he looked around, seeming to notice where he was for the first time. ‘Beg pardon,’ he said to Julie, bowing slightly. He got up and