"Thanks," Lana said, and braced herself against the pain to sit down gracefully rather than just falling into the chair. "It's not serious, but the staff are as stubborn at night as they are in the daytime." With rather different results, but the tenacity was...remarkable.

"I'm Lana," she added. There weren't that many people here she hadn't spoken to before today, but this young man was another of them. Seen, yes; spoken to, no.