“First of all, his name’s not really Kai Domino,” said Jeanette, “He’s called Michael Warbeck, and he’s our brother.”

The Iridescences sat on the sofa, completely dumbstruck.  For some reason, they weren’t in their silver tree form- instead, they were five separate people in various shades of blue and purple.  The Finery family had stayed a tree.  Maybe they had to when they were at work.

“I’ve known that him and Colwyn were up to something for a while,” continued Jeanette.  Sally had never known that Jeanette was so great at lying.  She didn’t know if she was making it up as she went along, or if she’d been rehearsing it the whole journey here, but she hoped she could keep it up.

“Well,” said one of the Iridescences, a thin royal-blue woman with curly hair piled up on her head, “I suppose our only question is whether or not we can believe any allegations from such a family.”

One of her brothers turned to her.  Turned on her, Sally thought.  “We’ve known Ballantine was no good from the start.  What more do you want?”

“An explanation for how these girls decided to sell out their family so easily?”

“Some family.  They’re doing us a favour, Pin.”

Sally looked up at the ceiling.  It was flat.  The whole house was designed as one big room, with stairs and decking around the edge of the walls making up the second floor.  The room tapered up like a rocketship, but the ceiling was flat.  Even though, from the outside, there had been that little bump on the roof.

From his prison?  In, what, the Iridescence family’s attic? 

Probably, thought Sally.

“I didn’t want to sell them out,” said Jeanette, trying to look anguished, “I just saw how their behaviour was getting out of hand, and…  Well, you’d be doing us a favour by helping us stop them, to be honest.”

So, there was an attic up there, somewhere.  But how were you meant to get there?  The only stairs Sally could see led up to the decking, which was only about halfway to the ceiling.  Maybe there were more stairs behind some of those screens up there? Or… wait. There had been something weird next to the front door, hadn’t there?

Sally looked to her right, to see the door they’d come in through.  There was another one in the same wall, maybe ten metres away from it.  But Sally remembered what the front of the house looked like, and there definitely hadn’t been another door on the outside.  The only place that door could lead was inside the wall.

The man who’d spoken before turned to the Finerys and said something aggressive and triumphant in their language.  Like, I hope you’re listening to this.  The Finerys gave a skeptical hum.

Nobody was looking at Sally.  Inch by inch, she slid to the edge of the sofa they were on and dropped to the ground.  Nobody saw.  They were all focused on Jeanette, who said, “The only problem is, we don’t know where either of them are right now.”

One of the Iridescences- a thin mauve woman- made a strange honking sound.  It took Sally a few seconds to realise it had been a laugh.  “Not much use then, are you?”

Sally shuffled sideways so that a big houseplant blocked her from everyone else’s view.

“Maybe not.”  Jeanette looked down at the floor, doing her best to seem humble.  “But we could do with your help.”

Another honking sound.  “Right!  And we’ve just been sitting here doing nothing, waiting to help you!”

Jeanette rewarded this with her very best cringe.

Sally moved through the room on her knees, trying to hide behind everything she could.  Jeanette was doing a good job of commanding everyone’s attention, but she couldn’t rely just on that.  You never knew when people would get bored.

The curly-haired Iridescence sister cut across them.  “You said you could prove that Colwyn was lying.  How can you prove it?”

Sally had reached the wall.  The door was just a little way down from where she was.  And as she looked at the area around it, she saw a hook on the back of a nearby bookcase, with a small key hanging on it.

“All you need to do is point me in the direction of some of the people who think they know Kai Domino,” said Jeanette, “I bet they shut up pretty fast when I show them some of Michael’s baby pictures.”

Sally eased the key off the hook, pinched between her thumb and ring finger.  If it made a noise, Jeanette would probably drown it out, but she still didn’t want to risk it.

The curly-haired woman snorted.  “No-one knows Kai Domino.   They’ve got a lot to say about him, but they’ve never actually met him.  Funny, that!”

Sally turned the key in the lock.  She’d worried that it might make that clunking sound that old locks did sometimes, but it didn’t.  Not so loud that they could hear it over there, anyway.

“Pin, shut it.   Where are those pictures?”

“Back at the house.  Dovecote Gardens.  You can come back with me, if you like, and then you can choose which ones I bring.”

Sally opened the door and slipped inside.

(To be continued)