I woke up feeling sated and happy, and also a little sore, but in all the right places. I rolled over in my comfortable bed to see Alexei lying beside me, still asleep. But rather than increasing my good morning vibes, the sight of him set me spiraling into insecurity.

How had I let that happen? With one of my father's minions. The horrible thought occurred to me that Dolos had built these men himself - what I had taken so much pleasure in last night had been a result of my loathsome father's craftsmanship.

I checked myself, getting a grip on the panicking emotions that raged within. I was always like this with guys the morning after, all too eager to get out the door and get back to my normal life. Admittedly, the situation here was far from normal and I was well within my rights to have some second thoughts, but still, I didn't have to fall into old patterns. What had happened last night had been special, and the fact that it was with a living effigy who worked for my father did not change that.

At that moment, I had two choices; I could dress quickly and get the hell out, or I could slip my head under the covers and give Alexei the good morning he deserved before dragging him into the shower to try every setting while he took me to the heights of ecstasy over and over again.

I got dressed and hurried out, leaving Alexei to sleep.

Trying not to think about the two very different decisions I had made last night and this morning, I turned my attention back to the tasks - which was probably what I ought to be doing anyway.

It had occurred to me in the night that 'one whose heart remains' could just mean a good person. So I was looking for a 'good' centenarian. I don't know by what moral guidelines 'good' is usually judged, but old people always strike me as pretty inoffensive - as long as you don't get them onto the subject of foreigners or young people - and we're told constantly that there are more people reaching one hundred, even in a nation rife with health problems. Any given old folks' home was liable to have at least one person who would fit the bill. I still worried a little about the whole 'one whose heart remains' thing, but, to be honest, at one hundred years old, do you really have the energy or inclination to do anything badly wrong? How hard could it be?

All these ideas passed through my head as I walked to the kitchen, where Nico was seated and Christoph was making breakfast.

"I've got an idea," I said.

"Knew you would."

I started. The voice had come from Alexei, who was entering behind me, pulling his shirt on. I hadn't heard him. Had he seen me sneaking out? I did my best not to look guilty but none of the guys seemed to care.

"What's the idea?" asked Nico.

"Can we help?" asked Christoph.

"You can distract some nurses," I said.

"How?" asked Nico.

I looked at the guys, each one tall, muscular and devastatingly handsome. "I somehow don't think that's going to be a problem."

Why did I need a distraction? Because, on the face of it, there was only one difficulty in my current plan, and that was that nursing homes for the elderly do not give out patient information to anyone who comes in off the street asking for it. Security of personal details has never been a bigger deal than it is now, and even as innocuous a piece of information as which residents are over a hundred is protected. I would need to steal a look at the home's records, and to do that I would need a distraction. Fortunately, I had three excellent distractions.

The reason I said 'on the face of it' there was only one difficulty, was that in reality there was another, which ought not to have been a difficulty and which I hoped I could master. But as we arrived at the home a while later, I knew that it was going to be a problem.

I don't like care homes, hospitals or anything in that genre of building. They contain too many bad memories for me. My mom may not be in a care home for the elderly, but the difference is largely skin-deep. Care homes of any sort have a uniform look and, more importantly, a uniform smell. When we passed through the doors, I caught a whiff of disinfectant and loneliness that took me right back to the home in which my mom currently resided. It had been too long since I'd visited her - she wouldn't know, but still.

The nurse at the reception desk looked up at me. "Can I help... you." Her gaze, and indeed the whole focus of her attention, drifted from me to the three men standing behind me.

"Yeah," I said, slipping easily into grift mode - the hot guy distraction is a con Remi and I have pulled together many times in the past. "My friends here are looking for somewhere where their poor dear old mother can spend her twilight years."

"Yeah, yeah," nodded the nurse vaguely, her eyes never leaving the guys. I could have said I was there to rob the place then burn it down and she wouldn't have noticed.

"Is there someone who could give them a really thorough introduction to the place?" I suggested.

"Yeah... I mean, yeah!" The nurse suddenly snapped out of the happy daydream in which she had been. "Yeah. For definite. Me. I'll do it. Just let me get someone to cover reception."

She made a quick and garbled announcement along the lines of 'someone get their ass to reception' and hurried out from behind the desk to get a closer look at Alexei, Nico and Christoph. As she passed me, I lifted the keycard attached to her belt with a practiced hand. I'm not a pickpocket - it's important to me that I'm not a thief, I encourage money to change pockets - but I do have the skills and they occasionally come in handy.

Another nurse, who looked like she was coming to the end of a twelve-hour shift, entered, sullen and hunched.

"What the hell's..." Her whole body seemed to change as her gaze lighted on the three living effigies in front of reception; she straightened, smiled, tucked back her disordered hair, and sashayed over with hips swinging.

"Can I help at all?"

"I think I've got it covered," said Nurse One.

"Better to be safe than sorry."

They continued to smile and bicker in between flirting, with the guys good-naturedly encouraging them. I waited until their attention was well and truly elsewhere, then swiped my borrowed card to take me into the main body of the home.

As quickly as I could, I located a computer in a side room. In the old days, I might have had to guess a password - because hacking never works like it does in the movies - but in this fast-paced modern world, no one has the time to type; it's much easier to swipe a card. The keycard gave me instant access to patient records, and from there it was plain sailing to the personal information of one Gertie Mathews, one hundred and one years old, late stage Alzheimer's and located on the ground floor in room 53.

As I was about to hurry out, I noticed, hanging up behind the door, a set of scrubs. That would probably help me avoid a few questions. And any I was asked could usually be brushed off with a despairing 'It's my first day'. That had gotten me out of trouble in the past. Easing the door closed, I hastily changed, dumped my clothes in a bag and went out, strolling purposefully through the corridors as if I'd been working here for years and had every right to be here. There's a reason they call it a confidence trick.

The pleasurable zing of the con dissipated fast as I walked through the handily signposted corridors, feeling a horrid sense of having been here before. It was all nastily familiar, and I could practically hear my mom's confused voice in my head asking why we were here, telling me that she didn't like this place, while I fought to hold back childish tears. I tried to suppress the thoughts, which were making me feel nervous and sick. I needed to focus on why I was here.

Room 53. I went in.

In the bed was a woman with white hair and surprisingly smooth skin for her age. Her hands were folded in her lap and she stared out the window with a dreamy expression. She looked so small in the big bed, almost like a child. She looked at me as I came in and beamed a huge smile.

"Hello," she said brightly. Whatever reservations I might have had about places like this, it was clear that Gertie was pretty happy here.

"Hi," I said. "Just came to see how you're feeling today."

"Bright as a button," came the reply. Her voice, like her skin, seemed to have survived age remarkably well; clear, bell-like and with a sing-song intonation.

I just had to lay my hands on her and then I could get out of this sickening place. I don't know how much you can judge from just a look, but Gertie struck me as being as good-hearted a person as I was likely to find.

"How long is it until recess?"

The question kind of threw me off and my hands hovered over her without touching.

"Say what?" I asked.

"How long is it until recess? It's a beautiful day and I want to go on the swing."

My stomach was twisting itself into uncomfortable knots as I heard her speak. The Alzheimer's had done a number on her mind so that she had regressed to childhood. I wondered how much of her life she remembered. Did she have a daughter somewhere who still came to visit her mom, even though that mom did not even remember her?

I realized I was crying.

"Don't be sad," Gertie chided. "It'll be recess soon. Then... home-time! I want a pie."

"A pie?" I managed through the tears.

"My mommy." She twisted her gnarled fingers together as she spoke, like a child trying to find words in a limited vocabulary. "My Mommy has a bakery shop and she makes pies and donuts and pastries and, and, and... pies."

"What sort of pie do you want?" I knew I should be getting on with the task in hand - the whole human race depended on me. But what was the whole human race if not a collection of individuals. You had to make time for people, didn't you? Besides, I just couldn't help myself.

"I want blueberry," said Gertie with relish. "I love blueberry."

"Me, too."

"You can have one, too," said Gertie. "Or... or... or if there's only one left then you can have half of mine. My mommy says it's good to share."

Her mommy must have been dead for decades and yet, as the tears streamed down my face, I found myself envying her. She lived in a perpetual cloud of unreality, frozen in childhood. But she was happy. She would not have to know the pain of loss or the fear of death. One day, she would simply go home from school and never come back. It was her relatives who would bear the brunt of the sadness and horror.

Gertie's eyes drifted back to the window through which the sun shone. "Do you think it's recess soon?"

"I think so."

"I hope so. It's such a beautiful day. I'm going to play on the swing." She probably would later, if only in a memory.

"You like the swings?"

Gertie nodded.

"I like the slide."

"I like the small one. I don't like the tall one. I went to the top. Because my friend Benny told me to, and he didn't come up with me, and when I got to the top I couldn't go down again, and Mrs. Oakland had to come and get me down."

"As long as you were okay, that's all that matters."

Gertie nodded. "Okay. I'll try again one day." I wondered if she had.

It occurred to me that I didn't know these sorts of stories about my own mom. She presumably had them. But when you're mother and young daughter then the mother has to be a mother - a loving, authority figure more than a friend. Such stories more often wait until both are older. But for my mom and me that time had never come. She told me stories now but, if they were ever true at all, they soon degenerated into outright fantasy, and became painfully dark.

I reached out and laid my hands on top of one of Gertie's. Then took a photo on my phone - proof, if proof were needed; who knew how the gods did these things? Suddenly, I felt Gertie's other hand as she placed it on top of both of mine.

"I know we're going to be such good friends. Why are you crying?"

"I don't know," I blurted out.

"Is it your first day? I haven't see you in class before."

"Yes."

"Don't worry. I cried on my first day, because I thought my mommy had gone away, but she came back at home-time, and yours will, too."

No she fucking wouldn't.

Wishing Gertie a desperate and tearful farewell and promising to come back and see her again, I blundered out of the room, half-blinded by tears. Damn the gods, damn the humans, damn the living effigies, damn it all. This was too much, it was too hard. Physical tests I could take, but to have the walls I had built up in my mind stripped down to the raw psyche was more than I could bear.

I made it back to the side room with the computer in it and found it still empty. I changed back into my own clothes, desperately trying to get my tears to stop and my brain in order. I took a few deep breaths and then marched out of the room.

Back at reception, much had clearly been happening in my absence. There was now a gaggle of ten to fifteen nurses surrounding the guys, who seemed to be loving every minute of it. I felt a pang of jealousy that annoyed me, although the distraction was welcome. Did they just flirt with every woman who came up to them? Did it mean nothing at all? Had last night meant anything at all? Did I want it to mean something? I was the one who had walked out.

Those were all questions that could definitely wait for a later date. Or perhaps could wait indefinitely. For now, getting out of here without anyone asking questions was the priority. As I passed reception I casually tossed the keycard onto the desk - Nurse One would no doubt think that she had left it there in her haste to get up close and personal with the guys.

Peering over the heads of adoring nurses, I managed to catch Alexei's eye and he gave a barely perceptible nod.

"Right, I think that's all the information we need. Thanks very much for your help, ladies. I'm sure if you take half as good care of your patients as you have done of us, then our poor, dear old mother will be very happy here indeed."

With the guys a few steps behind me, I headed for the exit. My legs trembled beneath me as I caught the scent of fresh air beyond the doors. That was another vivid sense memory; the memory of leaving that wretched place for the first time after Mom was admitted. If I had known then that she would never leave, then I don't know if I would have had the strength to keep walking.