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Avin

He relaxed. They were all talking to someone else now. He glanced around the room. There wasn’t much to see; just a cave, with a chandelier in it. He frowned. That didn’t make sense, but nothing here did.

He caught sight of a movement along the wall: there was a girl there, barely old enough to be called a woman. She clung to the shadows, every angle of her body tense and ready to bolt, like a cornered animal.

He tried to reason himself out of it: cornered animals want to be left alone. But sometimes they need to be led out of the corner, came the answer.

He moved away from the group of people without their noticing, and walked slowly toward the girl. He’d approached enough wild animals to have ease and openness in all his movements. He stopped too far away from her for her to think he was a threat. “Hello,” he said, loud enough for her to hear, but not for the group behind him. Certainly not loud enough for those two women to hear.

“My name is Avin. You look as though you didn’t want to be here.” He smiled.