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early nineteenth century. Their father wanted them both to go into banking. Rupert was keen. He loved the world of banking, still does actually.
    ‘Nick, on the other hand, didn’t want that. Instead he studied archaeology, and they couldn’t see the value in that. While he was in college he fell in love with a Pagan girl called Lavendell who was studying to be a kind of Pagan pharmacist, an apothecary I think it’s called. The family never accepted the relationship, and when they got engaged their parents cut him out of their lives. Nick was so contrary that he took her name when they got married. His name is Nick Nighthawk now.’
    ‘Did Rupert talk to him at that time?’
    ‘He didn’t, no. Nick’s parents died while they were still estranged. Nick feels so bad about it that he made up with Rupert at the funeral. Rupert sees Nick regularly, but not Lavendell or Aradia. When he does see them, he’s civil, but no more than that.’
    ‘He wasn’t civil yesterday.’
    ‘Maybe not, but he was just worried about you. He doesn’t want you falling into a dangerous cult. He was only trying to protect you.’
    That night, I was researching a project on Avalonian history on the internet. History had been my favourite subject in school at in Dublin, but I had never studied Avalonia in depth. It was interesting, but learning the history of a country from scratch was still pretty daunting. Especially when everyone else in my class had been steeped in Avalonian history since they were children.
    After an hour of researching Avalonia during the interwar period I decided that I’d earned some type of distraction and went to my Facebook page to reply to some messages that friends from back home had left on my wall. I clicked onto Lindsay’s profile. She had posted some new photos, pictures of her Sam and the gang at a gig. They were all laughing and smiling for the camera, looking like they were having an absolute blast. I felt a pang of loneliness, so sharp that it took my breath away. I had decided to come here, to start my life all over again, and life was going on just as I remembered it back in Dublin. Everyone was having fun without me, while I was stuck in a crazy country with soldiers everywhere, and people seemed to hate each other for no good reason.
    An idea struck me. I typed the name Aradia Nighthawk into the search bar and clicked enter. I smiled when a hit came up. I clicked on the link and it opened up. A picture of Aradia in the upper left-hand corner confirmed that I had the right person. I clicked on a link to her photos. There weren’t many, perhaps twenty or so. There was a picture of Aradia with her dad, obviously on the site of some dig, her hair caught in the wind and both of them caked in mud, in front of lines of newly exposed masonry in a large pit. There were the usual pictures of crowds of friends, piled together at parties and pizzerias. Then there was a final picture of Aradia, with her arm around the waist of the most handsome man I’d ever seen. His hair was black, and his dark brown eyes seemed to stare out at me seemed from the picture. It took me a few seconds to realise that this was the same guy I’d met at the protest last week. Gethan Ellis.

 
CHAPTER FIVE
    Aradia and Gethan were laughing as they looked into camera. They were in the middle of a wood and Gethan was holding what looked like a large plant root in his hand.
    Strange. And stranger that the one random Pagan guy I knew happened to know Aradia.
    I clicked on the link to her friend list, and scrolled through the list hoping to find a link to Gethan’s page. I didn’t know why it was so important, but then I’d always had a nosy streak.
    Eventually I found him, Gethan Ellis. But when I clicked on the link to his page it wouldn’t come up. His profile was private, not public.
    Disappointed, I navigated back to Aradia’s page. I clicked the ‘add as friend’ link, and logged out. I wasn’t even sure that she would