<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="background-color:#050505; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><div style="background-color:#101010; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><span style="color: #FFFFBF">"I do insist, Miss Grey,"</span> Mary replied with a delicate relieved 'ah' sound. <span style="color: #FFFFBF">"Victor, dear, won't you show her to one of the guest rooms? I'm afraid our butler will be indisposed for a while, if your father wakes him up for his 'midnight feast'. On second thought, maybe I should see to that he leaves poor Jenkins alone at this hour. Goodnight."</span> She rose, nodded at them, and left down the quiet hallway, leaving Victor and Arya once more.<br/><br/>Victor folded his hands behind his back, watching Arya, trying to figure her out. The low, flickering light from the fireplace behind him cast him in shadows, rendering his own expression unreadable. He was silent for a while, thoughts of how incredibly risky it would be to have her stay here racing through his mind, none of them said aloud. She would not believe him even if he told her.<br/><br/>"You must be tired," he simply said at length. "At least, being with strangers for a while always tires me out. Please, follow me. We'll find you a bed."<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">~¨.*~:".´-*+~:".-*~¨.*-".-:´~.:`+`-*¨:~</div><br/>It <span style="font-style: italic">was</span> a big house, but evidently, much of the available space had been used for a multitude of rooms. The hallways were narrow and labyrinthine, making impossible turns and sometimes seemingly stopping abruptly, only for Victor to reach out for some almost invisible doorknob and reveal a passage, not secret, but so well disguised in the wooden panels that it might as well have been to anyone who was not familiar with the layout of the Stearkenfinn residence. He lead them up one flight of stairs, and then another, until he seemed finally satisfied with his destination. This door, thankfully, was quite apparent, having been painted a leafy green color that set it apart from the dark oak surrounding it.<br/><br/>The room behind it was beautiful. On the third floor of the house, one large, circular window offered a picturesque view of the city, all pointed roofs and thin, smoking chimneys that, together with the moonlight, gave the air a ghostly, surreal character. The bed was a four-poster with sheets the same leafy green color as the door and long, sweeping curtains.<br/><br/>"It's not much," Victor said jokingly, making his way to an armchair near the window. He sat down, steepled his fingers and rested his nose on them, just like he had done at the bar.<br/><br/>"I hope I did not get your hopes up, Miss Summers," he said. "Although my father rightly claims you won't find investigative journalism in his library, I know he keeps news cutouts somewhere. There might be something you haven't already read. A mysterious incident like the Summers massacre is sure to have made his way into that archive. However, I am ashamed to say I do not know where it is, exactly." The tips of his ears turned slightly pink. "As a young boy, after many unanswered questions about what he was doing with all those broadsheets, I attempted to follow him. Only beating I ever got, but it certainly cured me of my curiosity. At the time."<br/><br/>"Goodnight," he said, getting to his feet. He hesitated in the door, before facing Arya once more and tapping the ornate key that was stuck in the keyhole on the inside. "Lock this for the night, please. For your own safety." And with that, he left Arya alone in her moonlit room on the top floor in a house full of killers.</div><div style="background-color:#202020; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">Notes:</span> Up for some late night skulking around?</span></div></div></div>