"Good to know that whole forced honesty thing hasn't affected you much," Layla says, tone slightly teasing - but not, notably, indicating much in the way of disagreement.

"I've seen worse - I remember when one of my father's mentors passed, we helped clean out his place. There was one room, just...wall-to-wall newspapers and old magazines, dating back to the 1940s. I think some of them were even older than he was. But this place does give off a little bit of a 'prick your finger on a spinning wheel' vibe, doesn't it?"

She pauses to crouch down and peer at a little stone carving of a winged lioness - not a sphinx, but close enough to catch her attention.