These were Chainbreaker's final instructions to Boyscout, her youngest son, and Petalwalker, her daughter, before her departure to meet with the former Lady Cornelia:

Sue! Abe! Listen close! I am going now to fetch the girl. Go wake up your brother and tell him that we will have an important visitor soon and that I have gone to fetch them. Then go to the kitchen, where I have already made preparations, and set out the food and table settings for the dinner to come. When all the arrangements are finished, change into your best clothes. Put on masks and wigs and coats and gloves and shoes. And even if he asks, do not let Kai know that I have gone behind his word. I know both he and the girl will thank me later.

Not likely. Hasn't this girl suffered enough? She has spent nearly a whole night with the mess that is our brother. Now she's escaped and you want to drag her back in?

I would be so fortunate to have such an option of escape.

Bold words- as if he had not saved both your rears ten times over.

We are soldiers. Another quest or two and we will have repaid the favour.

Yes, a thousand times over!

(to Abe) Not quite. (to her mother) And besides, you used that excuse for the Eve and he wasn't exactly grateful then. Actually, he's been more miserable since then!

The storm is fiercest just before its end, my darling girl. Watch and see. When they meet, all will be well.

So you say...

And consider this: The sooner he is in her fellowship, the sooner he will no longer be your problem but hers.

At once, Abe and Susan rushed away to get their brother ready for the girl's arrival while their mother set off- up and away -in a carriage with Lucian as her driver and assistant for the day. The task itself was both daunting and irksome. In all the days since the Madame Joanne Smith made him give his word, the Guardian had been, almost on principle, very moody, very bored and ever-so-slightly peeved. It did not help matters that when they arrived in his room, after receiving their orders, he was in the midst of a very untimely nap. And you will know that the state of just-woke-up is one which gives even the nicest of men the hardest time of being polite.

At the behest of his siblings, he took on- albeit, in as miserable a fashion as he could conjure -his wig and his coat and his gloves and slippers and his mask. And the hardest part was his mask since brother and sister had to struggle to convince the Guardian that it would be worth his while to wear one of his blessed masks of rose-tinted lenses. Fortunately he did just so. Unfortunately, he did so kicking and screaming. But all these only motivated his siblings even further since his having a fellowship- even of two -meant that they would not need to babysit him as much. Although they would deny it tooth-and-nail, and although they despised his company, they did consider him dearly and they did often feel guilty for leaving him out of things. Their hearts were always more merry when he was merry and, that being the case, they were delighted when, at last, they saw his reaction to her arrival.

Smith!

He knew her at once, though she wore a scarf instead of a fiery wig, and dark lenses over her eyes- which were no longer even blue. Ignoring such things, and the smug faces of his mother, his brother and his sister, Malachi rushed right up to Cindy and wrapped his arms around her, embracing her even tighter than the wind had done. In a single motion with the embrace, he lifted her up off the ground and quickly spun her about as she laughed. And, of course, he could hear her laughing and the sound of it made him that much happier. And as they spun, his own wig fell off since he had worn them half-heartedly and rushed to the girl whole-heartedly. And Cindy's slippers (Chainbreaker was very particular about keeping shoes out of the house so she made a point of keeping pairs of slippers in reserve for guests) also flew this way and that since they were wrongly-worn slippers and their wearer was being swung about.

By the pinky, it is you! Oh how sweet it is to see you again!

But, however fun she may have found it at the start, the embrace soon turned a little sour on Cindy's part; the hold had been made in hurried excitement, and that meant discomfort.

Too tight...

Oh! (Letting go) Sorry!

Of course, she could very well have realised, then and there, that his wig and her slippers had been cast away, but he had just replied to her at once and, at that, she might've ignored a singing treasure chest filled with gold and jewels that tasted of chocolate. The feel of the wind, the rush of the climb, the allure of the misty forest and even the majesty of Stallon's Rest; all of these seemed as stars and candles, dim and shy, in the presence of a midday sun. She was wonderstruck. Cutting through the subsequent pause, Cindy made her own move and wrapped her own arms round his neck as he stood a little ashamed. And when the Guardian returned the embrace, his embarrassment giving way to relief, she found, for herself, the soothing aroma of his wild locks and the feel of his heart drumming in time with her own. And so she became fully enchanted by him, and he by her.

The Chainbreaker and her co-conspirators had looked away the instant the boy's wig had come off. And it was only Lucian noticed the slippers being flung about since they landed close by him. That said, none of them could bring themselves to interrupt so the Lady of Stallion's Rest simply sent a silent gesture to Lucian and her two other children to follow her away. But, as they left, they themselves were interrupted by a happy shout.

Mother! Sister! Brother! Uncle Lucky! Thank you!

Have fun little brother! Just don't be a pig!

Deciding that they had nothing to add, the others simply laughed at Sue's remark and remained otherwise silent in their departure.

When the embrace came to its- albeit awkward -end, Cindy noticed, properly, the wig's disappearance. And, from such a sight, she made a sharp look-away on account of being quite embarrassed and feeling herself naturally turn rosey as the boy's own lenses. Looking decidedly elsewhere, the girl came upon the discarded wig and so went to fetch it. And the Guardian too, his own cheeks tinted by rushing blood, turned away. And, at once, he left to fetch for the Lady Lyrical, her borrowed slippers.

And so the two reunited in the middle, but when the boy was still hassling with his wig, she- believing his attention to be elsewhere -turned to steal a good, longer look at his strands, each one shadow-black as the cloak he had shared. Of course, he caught her doing this and so became much more confident than she. The girl's awkwardness was obvious. Even as the wig found its proper place, she made another sharp look-away, and it did not even occur to her to make use of the footwear just beside her own feet.

: This ought to be fun. (pulling up a stool) My Lady.

And she could not help but be gigglish and begin biting the nail of her thumb as he sat her down and, himself, knelt down and, gently, slipped the slippers back o'er her feet- one after the other -fastening them properly to avoid their falling off again. He visibly delighted in watching her squirm and (according to her, though he denied as much until his dying day) he even tickled her little as he went.

There we are.

Thank you. I- uh...

Itchy from the wig, the Guardian raised his arm for a scratch. But when he smelled the scent of the gloves he had just been handling, all sense of severity left him and he loudly let out an instinctive "eww" as he dragged his palms against his trousers. And so the spell of anticipation was broken and the two resumed their back-and-forth with ear-to-ear smiles.

When was the last time you washed those?

About the last time you cut your hair!

Excuse me, don't think I didn't catch you peeking just then. You like it as much as I, just admit it.

I admit that it astounds me! Honestly, I'm a girl and my hair has never been so- fluffy! pretty! dreamy! -wild. It is a wonder you hold onto your wigs as long as you do. Actually, it is a wonder you ever get them on in the first place.

And the sniff?

I'm not sure I know what you are talking about?

Oh please! I felt you take in a whiff of my wigless locks, you pervert.

Me? And what was your whiff of my gloves?

A very unfortunate accident.

What a bully, you are. Though I should sooner call you a pig for daring to lift up a good madame like myself in such an unseemly fashion. Honestly, have you no religion?

Says the girl who stole my cloak. And... (pausing and giving a bewildered look to the cloak round the girl's shoulders) What's this I hear.... Oh by the pinky! (laughing) Surely not! Have you been cuddling it to sleep?

No...

You didn't even wash it first?

It didn't need washi- I mean...

Since they were, once again, properly dressed, Cindy proceeded to shove her new fellow aside, in playful avoidance of his question, and as soon as she had done so, she made a run for the closest staircase. It should come as no surprise that Guardian, with an eager grin, ran after her and the whole thing quickly became a makeshift race. It is, after all, a sovereign law of nature that when two children are running towards the same place, it is already a race.

Although she was ahead of him all along the stairs, she quickly realised that she knew very little about where to go afterwards and so she let him get a little ahead. From there, she saw him sprint down a fairly long hallway where what seemed like a painting of balloons was hanging at the endwall. Then, she saw him leap inside the painting in a single swift motion. Having gone through much stranger less than an hour beforehand, Cindy leapt after him without hesitation and found herself in a round hall filled with paintings.

What is this place?

What does it look like? It's the bifrost room.

Of course, Cindy had absolutely no clue what a bifrost room was supposed to look like, but she still put a good deal of effort into taking in the room she was then standing in. It was like the inside of a sort of cylinder. Only there were many rings of floors and on each floor were columns stretching from roof to floor. The walls themselves were made of white stone on the top half and a strange black stone on the bottom half. And just as the white stone had made up the pavements outside the palace, the black stone too made up the entirety of all the columns. From the first glance, it looked as though the columns were made to suggest the pouring of a sort of black water which struck the bottom floor and splashed and pushed and pulled against the walls like little tides in a flooded room.

All of the floors, except the highest roof and the lowest floor, were rings and thus empty in the middle. Taking up that space was what looked, from the other side of the painting, like balloons. However, upon closer inspection, they looked a little more like glowing bubbles of stained glass and the whole bunch of them seemed to form a sort of spiral from the bottom where a heart-shaped pool of glowing water rested. Looking up from the pool, you could see another heart-shaped pool, also of glowing water, at the very top in an exact mirror of the one at the bottom although it wasn't quite clear why the waves of the upper pool were not splashing down.

The main difference between the two hearts was the outline of the pools. The heart at the top had a distinctly silver outline while the one at the bottom had an outline of gold. Looking over the edge and towards the fall, Cindy got the impression that if she were to jump from any height and land in the bottom pool, she would still be perfectly safe, and if she were to jump from bubble to bubble and reached the top-most heart, she could jump straight up into the ceiling's swimming pool from below.

Come on! This way!

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you were- like I would be -very scared at the prospect of jumping), it turned out that their journey had no demand for another ring and so they had no need to jump. All they did need to do was run round until they came upon a certain painting of a blood-red door. Then and there, the Guardian stretched out his right arm, revealing a bracer of steel-grey beneath his sleeve. And on the bracer was a jewel, and the jewel began to glow, and the painting itself began to glow in a reflective fashion- like the shimmering sea beneath a full moon or perhaps like the moon in certain angles round the sun. The painting looked as though it were a mirror of stained glass reflecting a boy fully luminous- even though Cindy could only see light coming from the jewel. Then- when the shimmer had ceased -the painted doorknob did the very unnatural thing (to Cindy) and turned and made a clicking sound. And with that done, the Guardian offered Cindy his hand and when she had grabbed hold of it, he pulled her by it through the painting and into the room beyond.

Welcome!

The Guardian's room was about twice the size of Darius' and yet it felt more cosy than grand. There were no statues or paintings or books and the whole thing was clothed in muted colours. On the western wall was a crackling fireplace and a good distance in front of it was a rather short coffee table and then next to that, a very nice-looking sofa. The chairs, in general, were so soft that Cindy feared she might sink into them. Indeed, she felt sleepy simply running her hand across the headrests. The carpets too seemed astoundingly soft but she couldn't quite feel them through the slippers.

The light of the room was a golden light which came only when called upon to replace the light of the sun. It came from a great lamp at the centre of a dome which was the ceiling. The dome itself had markings of the north, east, west and south directions so that it resembled a compass and upon the lamp at its centre was the image of a dove bursting from a sunlit gap in the painted clouds as they moved.

His bed formed the horizon of the eastern wall and looked (to Cindy) to be big enough for three and soft enough for even the most spoiled of Lordlings. Actually, to that point, hearing the Guardian mention off-hand that he often did not prefer to sleep on such a bed did renew a little of Cindy's old dislike of him. In fact, a lot of the way he behaved in his own house- which seemed blessed to her -had that effect since his casual disregard for the glory of the Rest made him appear quite snobbish to her. The opposite was true for the boy. Even in his room- and he usually hated having other people in his room -as she walked about adoring every piece of his room, he was wonderstruck at her, adoring her look of adoration- all her odd comments about this or that and all her laughs and groans and squeals and shouts.

Oh it is so very wonderful Guardia-

I am glad you think so. This room and all the others are yours to enjoy until you choose to leave.

Honestly?

You are the only person who gets a say in the matter. I'll fight anyone who tries to force you out. And when you do leave, you will have an Overseer escorting you home.

An Overseer of my choosing?

Definitely.

Then I am content. (looking around) To live in such a heaven day after day, you are truly blessed.

I am now that you are here.

Cheap. Try again.

I will be once you are gone?

Rude!

Having made her way fairly close to his bed, she quickly stole a pillow from its head and lobbed it freely at his face. Being an Overseer, he managed to catch the weapon as it was still in flight. With an outstretched hand, he caught the pillow out of the air and when he had secured it firmly in his grip he paced towards his guest and lightly whacked her on the head with it before casually tossing it back onto his bed.

Honestly, your pillows are so soft. Preventing yourself from being struck by one is more your own loss.

Thank you for coming.

I'm not sure...

: After the other night, I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that I didn't want it to be the end.

Me neither. Is that why you left me the cloak?

No. Tha- That was umm.. I just forgot. It was late and I was fairly mad when I left.

Fair enough. But isn't it blessed? Couldn't you have summoned it or something?

I could have but when I realised that I had left it behind, I thought back and decided it looked far nicer on you.

You flatter me.

Since when do I flatter people? I am Master of Nastiness, remember?

That you are. Well, in any case, I imagine the people of Tolemac will be terribly heartbroken when they hear the search for it ended.

It? You mean my shadow? Why would the Tolemacans care about that?

Remembering that the Chainbreaker had conducted the search in secret, Cindy explained the contest and its consequences to her fellow, though she made a point of leaving out certain details in order to spare his worries. As she spoke, she sat herself down on the bed which had the effect of a cool release like the sighing of red hot metal dipped in cool water, making her ever sleepier with every passing moment.

She did what?