Lor spent a good ten minutes explaining the situation to Colwyn.  It seemed to Rube that everything she said carried a strong undertone of “I know it was my fault, and I’m sorry, OK?”  For his part, Colwyn listened calmly.  He seemed to be in one piece- on some level, Rube had been worried that they’d find him in some kind of torture chamber.  Instead, this was just a bare, dusty attic.  It would drive you insane with boredom, if anything.

When Lor finished talking and gave him a strange, half-meek, half-defiant look, Colwyn replied, “Well….  That explains a lot.”

Lor stayed tensed, in case Colwyn was just gearing up to start screaming at her.

“I’m glad that Kai was able to escape,” he added.  He took a long breath, and said, “Lor… Radiance, did you say?”

Lor’s expression shifted a bit.  “Ye-e-es…”

“I’m glad to meet you,” said Colwyn.  And it seemed like that was the end of that.

Sally looked from one person to another, realised that nobody else was going to say anything, and decided to do it herself.  “Lor knows a way of getting you out,” she told Colwyn.

“Right.”  Lor twitched, and seemed to gather herself a bit.  “It helps that the house is empty at the moment…”

“It won’t be for long, I’m afraid,” said Colwyn, frowning, “Dol and Bo are heading home.”

Lor nodded.  “Right.  Well, it’s still doable, but we’ll have to be careful.”

Rube didn’t remember which ones Dol and Bo were.  Eg was the one who yelled all the time, she knew that.  “How do you know?” she asked Colwyn.

“Falada.”  He smiled.  “I was looking in on Dovecote Gardens just before you got here.  Jeanette got home safely, but it’s very crowded there at the moment.”

Rube relaxed a bit… but not too much, because she didn’t yet know what Colwyn meant by “crowded.”

He moved closer to her, lowering his voice.  “I’m afraid your father’s run into trouble.  He’s…  Well, he’s been arrested.”

Rube actually felt herself jump.  There’d been so much to think about, she’d almost forgotten that she had to worry about Dad turning up as well.  At least none of them had been there when it happened… but what if someone else had?  Or what if he was still at home, and Mum…?

“By the police, or someone on the paths?” asked Sally, “Or, wait, do the people on the paths have their own police?”

“Some of them do,” said Colwyn.

(“Such as they are,” muttered Lor.)

“But yes, it was someone on the paths, as you put it.  A place called Underhill Towers.  There are a pair of representatives from there at Dovecote Gardens right now, demanding that someone come and pick him up.”

Well, that explained the “crowded” remark, but Rube was still concerned.  “What was he arrested for?”

“Nothing too awful.  He caused a scene in a shopping centre.”

Rube sighed, feeling some of the tension leave her bpdy.  “Well, he’s done that before…”

“We’ll sort it out as soon as we get home.  It hardly seems fair to leave Jeanette on her own, in the middle of things.”

Rube opened her mouth to speak, hoping that Lor or Sally would interrupt and explain it before she had to.  “Um…  Lor needs help looking for this… artefact.”  She couldn’t quite meet Colwyn’s eye.  “I told her, if she helped you escape, I’d stay and help her.”

For several seconds, Colwyn just stared at her, his expression more curious than anything.  “I see,” he said eventually, which didn’t tell her anything.  Then he turned to Lor, which was a bit of a relief.  “Lor, what exactly are you hoping she’ll do?”

“There are some places down there where I’ll need backup.”

“And what do you mean by that?”  There was a crispness on that last word that was the closest Rube had ever heard to Colwyn losing his temper.

“Frankly, I’m not completely sure.  I’ve never got past Kai’s part of the cellar.”  She looked at Rube.  “But I know I don’t want to go down there on my own.”

Rube quickly squashed a stray thought that said, If she doesn’t want to go there alone, do I want to go there at all?

For a while, Colwyn just stared at Lor, constantly looking as if he was going to say something.  But when he eventually did speak, it was to Rube.  “Ruby, if you’re going to do this, I need to be able to stay in touch with you.”

Rube started again.  “Um…”

“So I’m going to transfer Falada to you.”

*

An hour later, Lor led them further up through the walls until they came to a loose panel in the attic roof.  They came out crawling, so that if Dol and Bo arrived home at that moment, they wouldn’t see them from the ground.

Lor left them behind, and slid over to the front of the house, just over the doorway.  “No sign of them right now,” she told the others when she got back, “but there’s still a lot of servants on duty.  We’ll be better off going round the back.”

Rube followed Lor to the back, and down onto the part of the wall that went just under the roof, but her mind wasn’t really on it. She was still trying to work out what had happened back in the attic. The only thing that she knew for sure had happened was that Colwyn had put his hand on her forehead, as if he was checking her temperature. For all she knew, she’d imagined the rest of it.

Rube walked along the wall, after the others. She reached the part where it backed up against the rock face of the mountain, and watched Sally and Colwyn ease themselves down in the tight corner where the two things met. They made it to the ground, and Rube and Lor waved them off. You could actually see them all the way down there, against the trees. It was nearly morning.

It had felt like a warm, pleasant feeling, travelling through her. But Rube knew that might have all been in her head. She’d felt plenty of warm, pleasant feelings in her life, and none of them had meant there was anything supernatural going on.

She hoped Colwyn had done it properly.

If he hadn’t, it was too late now.

She and Lor went back the way they came.

(To be continued)

Everyone had been squabbling and talking in circles for a bit, when, all of a sudden, the Kindling Grove knobhead marched into the middle of the circle and started yelling at the Iridescences.  Jeanette wasn’t complaining.  This way, nobody was trying to kick Falada to bits.

“A human being- a man just like me- was turned, against his will, into an insect.”  The Kindling Grove guy spat most of the words, as if they had a bad taste to them.  “Plucked from the world, mutilated, and locked away.  And by a family that dares to call itself noble.”  At this point, Jeanette was almost certain that he actually spat.  “The Iridescence family needs to answer for this, in your way or in my way.”

One of the Iridescence sisters- the one whose head looked like a big purple wheel of cheese- rolled her eyes.  “The moth told you that, did he?  And you believed him?”

Jeanette looked over at the side of the house, where the Kindling Grove guy had come from.  Was Kai still there, or had he flown off?  Should she go over and talk to him?  What would she do with Falada if she did?

The Finery family ignored this.  “Mr Tavin, is Kai Domino in Dovecote Gardens at the moment?  Could we speak to him?”

“No!” snapped Pin Iridescence, “Because he doesn’t exist!  How many times do we have to tell you that?”

Her cheese-faced sister waved a hand at Jeanette, who jumped a bit.  “Apparently he’s her brother, though!”

The guy from Kindling Grove shook his head.  “Kai Domino is as real as the moon in the sky.  And after seeing your behaviour, I consider her family to be a lot nobler than yours.”

Jeanette smiled weakly.  She didn’t know what Kai had told him to make him change his mind like that, but it must have been mind-blowing.

Inger took charge.  “Finery family, is there any chance that Dol and Bo might be a danger to Colwyn, when they reach the house?”

“Look, we still don’t know where Colwyn actually is…”

“He just told you!” snapped the dragon… and when a dragon snapped, you really paid attention.

The Finerys glanced at Falada, still held awkwardly under Jeanette’s arm.  “He’s not even speaking anymore…”

Just then, Eg Iridescence did something that was almost impressive.  He was still held tight in the dragon’s claws, and he was hoarse from screaming and thrashing about for the last quarter of an hour, but he thought quickly and said, “That wicker horse thing is just a trick!  I’ve seen it done before!”

Pin quickly took up the thread.  “We’ve all seen it before!”

“Yeah!” added their brother.

Jeanette looked down at Falada.  Colwyn still wasn’t saying anything.  She wasn’t going to be able to stop herself from imagining all the ways in which things could have gone wrong for much longer.

The Finery family shook their head, and looked up at the dragon.  “I’m sorry, but, under the circumstances, I don’t know if I can let you continue restraining an Opal Hill citizen.”

“He kicked the horse’s head!” the dragon rumbled.

“Well, we don’t actually know it was Colwyn…”

“Are you planning to find out?” asked Inger.

Eg Iridescence was still thinking quickly.  “I only kicked it because I knew it was a trick!  If you’d let me kick it, that would have proved it!”

“Yeah!” said his brother.  That seemed to be his main function.

The Finery family craned their head up at the dragon.  “I really can’t allow you to restrain him any longer.”

“I’m not asking you to allow me.”

Inger caught his eye, and made some frantic gestures along the lines of “be diplomatic.”  The dragon looked a bit put-upon, but nodded and cleared his throat.

“I have a proposal to make,” he announced, “If you’re not going to arrest Eg Iridescence, I will stay here and keep an eye on him and the house.”  He looked over at Jeanette.  “Colwyn’s niece can go to Underwood Hills with my colleague and try to talk some sense into her father.”

Everybody went quiet as they considered this.

(To be continued)