It was evening, which meant that Bennett had free time. It did not mean that he was allowed to leave the palace grounds, but being new, this was a fact that he was conveniently unaware of. The air was cool but not cold, and most of the market stalls were being packed up for the night. He eyed some brightly-colored scarves, wishing that he that he'd thought to bring money from home.

He wondered what would happen if he stole one. He didn't think it would be missed, but people seemed to make a fuss about things being stolen that was entirely out of proportion to the value of the thing being stolen. Besides, he doubted he'd be very good at thievery. Still, he was bored. And it being his first day as a page, it wasn't as if he had anything to do in his free time. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

But how would he go about this? He considered as he walked slightly closer to the scarf vendor. He wasn't very good at being sneaky. And while it would be fun to come up with some elaborate scheme to distract the vendor while he made off with a scarf, he didn't think he would be able to make that work to well either. Too late now to think anymore; he was too close to the stall to look like he was just walking down the street. So he grabbed the scarf nearest him --a particularly bright green one with yellow and blue threads-- and ran.

Apparently, he thought, running, it hadn't been too good of an idea. The scarf merchant, as well as several other people, were running after him, and they were considerably faster than he was. And he had no escape plan, so he simply continued to run.

Iskra was running headlong down a street leading to the market place, she had been staking out the home of the merchant she'd been contracted to murder. She had nearly been spotted by a watchman in the grounds of his house and had to flee. She cursed her bad fortune.

She was dressed raggedly for just this eventuality and her head was swathed in a scarf and hood to avoid recognition, hopefully they would think it was a chance burglar or theif and security wouldn't tighten on this man, he was prooving tricker than she'd thought.

As she rounded a corner at full pelt she was too late to stop herself colliding with a young boy running at full pelt the other way. She rolled as she went crashing down with him . She could hear the yells of whoever was persuing him pushed him out of the way and scrambled over a wall, not looking to see if he followed.