"All I`m saying is that an apology would have been nice!"

　　Barnaby sank into his armchair and took another wet slurp from a big mug of tea. A rather pleased, didn`t-that-turn-out-well?` grin danced about his face.

　　"I mean, after everything that`s happened I think it`s the very least he could do".

　　Aelgren and Izzario perched on the cushions, nursing their own steamy beverages in front of the open fire.

　　Luella sat on the floor beside them. "I don`t think he would apologise to you, whatever happened", she said.

　　"Ah yes, well a man can dream, can`t he?" purred Barnaby, waggling his slippers about happily at the thought.

　　Elizabeth, realising that she was awake, sat up, yawned, and began to unbundle herself from the pile of blankets beneath which she was currently buried.

　　"Good afternoon", said Barnaby, cheerfully.

　　Elizabeth rubbed her eyes and blinked. "Hello. What`s going on? What happened?"

　　"What happened?" Barnaby exclaimed. "You are what happened my girl!"

　　Elizabeth frowned and rubbed her head. She quickly checked her memory of events in the Great White Hall. It was all a bit fuzzy and ran aground rather abruptly at the point at which the Omnaria had gone haywire.

　　"If it wasn`t for you", Barnaby went on, "Penelope Frostheart would have control of the Free Lands and there would be nothing to stop the Dominion from doing whatever it liked".

　　Elizabeth blinked again. Her brain felt as though it was trying to put together the parts of a fiendish jigsaw. The edges were easy enough, but the picture in the middle was still a mystery.

　　"You, Elizabeth, have saved us all!"

　　That definitely sounded like something that deserved a celebration. So Elizabeth said: "Oh".

　　But for some reason she didn`t feel quite as pleased about it as she thought she ought to have done.

　　"Don`t you remember?" Luella asked.

　　"Not really".

　　Barnaby pulled a small lever on the side of his chair, which rolled squeaking into the centre of the room. "We were tricked", he said, with the closest thing to a scowl that Elizabeth had seen from him. "Penelope rigged the Omnaria to open some kind of portal. Goodness only knows what would have come through if you hadn`t have stepped in when you did".

　　Aelgren muttered something into his beard.

　　"That must have been her plan the whole time", Barnaby concluded. "It was all an elaborate ruse to get us to bring the Omnaria back to the Wyse Council".

　　Izzario toyed with his mug, turning it one way then another. "How did you know that Lord Vilchford was the traitor?"

　　"Yes, that was very clever", complemented Barnaby. "I was absolutely certain that it was Arraflax. How did you work it out?"

　　Elizabeth tiptoed back through the muddy footprints of her mind. "When I found the letter in Penelope`s office I thought that it had to be Arraflax as well, because it was signed with an A` - just like the scroll that he summoned you with when we first got here. But when he was announcing the banishment I realised that Lord Vilchford`s first name began with an A` as well".This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

　　"Albara", chorused Luella and Aelgren together.

　　"That was when I knew it had to be him. Because whoever wrote the letter to Penelope was talking about the prophecy, but Arraflax obviously didn`t believe in it. Lord Vilchford did. And that`s how I knew the trick with the feathers would work".

　　Elizabeth recalled Lord Vilchford`s transformation into a bat in the Great White Hall and wondered if some part of herself had been trying to warn her all along.

　　"You mean there`s no such thing as a Lirridian truth spell?" said Luella, with a smile.

　　Elizabeth shook her head. "I made the whole thing up".

　　Luella looked impressed. "And I suppose you got the Vo-Hallin to rescue us?"

　　"I don`t know. I`m not sure". Elizabeth squinted at a rain-smudged memory. "I can`t really explain it. I was having the strangest dream. The smoke monsters were there. And so was my dad. But he was very old. And then I saw the crash and I could remember everything that happened for the first time. But then he was gone, and it was just me and the monsters, only I wasn`t scared of them any more".

　　Elizabeth`s forehead creased and crinkled as her thoughts fell into place. "That must have been how they were getting through to my dreams. It was because I was afraid".

　　Izzario was nodding, subtly. "The Arts of Shadow", he murmured, under his breath.

　　"That was how Penelope got through to my dad as well". Elizabeth bit her lip, leaving it sore and slightly numb at the same time. Every single part of her life had been transformed by the revelation of who her dad really was. "Why didn`t you tell me about him before?"

　　Barnaby swished the last of his tea in the mug and sighed with sad blue eyes. "Would you have believed me?"

　　"Probably not".

　　Orange tongues flowed about the coal with serene, hypnotic power.

　　"How are you feeling now?" Izzario asked.

　　It was a good question. "Actually, I think I feel . . . normal". Elizabeth opened and closed her hands as if she was checking to make sure they still worked. "I can`t feel anything at all", she said. "I think the magic might have gone for good".

　　Izzario took a sip of his drink. "Perhaps you just need to rest properly for a while".

　　"And what about the Omnaria?" Elizabeth remembered everything now in super high definition. Lord Vilchford. The vortex. Penelope`s sickly voice. And the little clockwork box laying there all crushed and smashed and smouldering away.

　　Izzario, as usual, looked as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. "I`m sure Barnaby will be able to work something out", he said.

　　"But how? It`s ruined".

　　The lines of a smile returned to Barnaby`s face. "Well that . . . " he exclaimed, "might not be strictly true".

　　Elizabeth crammed several more thoughts - confused ones - into her head. "What do you mean?"

　　Barnaby climbed out of his armchair and temporarily vanished into a side room. He returned carrying a small box that looked like an inside out mechanical toy. "Because", he said, "there`s always this!"

　　"Is that an . . . Omnaria?" gawped Elizabeth, barely daring to let herself think that it might be.

　　Barnaby beamed like a torch. "Always keep a spare - it`s the first rule of inventions! Obviously it`s not as good as the one your dad made, but it`s not bad for a prototype".

　　"But you said that it would take ages to get another Omnaria working properly".

　　Barnaby began babbling like an overexcited schoolboy. "Yes, well now I think I`ve finally cracked it! The hardest part has been making sure the rift opens in the right place. The possibility cushion has been a complete nightmare, and don`t even get me started on the approximation wave . . . "

　　Elizabeth wasn`t going to.

　　"When I checked the Omnaria in Penelope`s vault I realised that I had been pointing the ocular shelf a good twenty degrees in the wrong direction - so no wonder it was off. I was starting to think there was something wrong with the calculations you gave me, but as it turns out they were spot on".

　　Elizabeth had already given up trying to follow any of this, and it was all just random noise.

　　Barnaby opened the lid of the box and held up a small, misshapen white rock with glittering black veins like streaks of molten tar.

　　"I thought none of the other Quistones were large enough to power a rift", Luella said.

　　"They`re not", Barnaby confirmed, before adding with a mischievous twinkle in his eye " - at least not technically".

　　Elizabeth peered closely at the stone. It looked just like the kind of thing that you might find laying around on a beach. Somehow its sheer ordinariness only made it seem even more special.

　　"The Omnaria gets its power from the Quistone", Barnaby went on, "and the Quistone works by . . . well let`s just say that it`s a conduit for magic - like you!"

　　Elizabeth realised that Barnaby was looking at her, and she imagined herself riddled with long invisible strands, like mouldy cosmic cheese.

　　"So while one conduit on its own might not be enough to do the job . . . "

　　Barnaby was grinning from ear to ear.

　　"We`ve got two of them".