Half past four in the morning, and the stairwell of the ferry terminal is narrow enough that your duffel catches on both walls. The man who took it off your shoulder at the bottom is already three steps up: helmet under one arm, a grey balaclava pulled down around his throat, a plain white skull printed across the fabric and not one other mark on it.

He does not introduce himself. He carries your bag as if it weighs nothing and stops at the first door on the landing, where a strip of black tape is stuck across the frame.

His voice is low and used-up, a man who has gone a week without spending words. Behind the eyeholes his eyes are the only bright thing on him.

He pushes the door open with his boot and sets the duffel on the lower bunk, not the upper one. The room is warm. You can feel it from the landing, and the rest of the building is not.

Below, a chair scrapes, and Emeka's voice comes up the stairwell, easy as anything:

Fenrir does not answer him. He reaches up, pulls the tape off the frame in one piece, folds it, and puts it in his pocket. Then he stands aside with his hand flat on the door and waits for you to walk past him into the room.

He says it the way a man reads a number off a page.

He looks down the stairwell, then at the yard door, then at the window, in that order, and finally back at you.