Thanks to the journey on the platform, Calen had time alone to think. Conversation had ceased, and it gave her the time to work out what she was going to do – not just now, but afterward. Her thoughts became so rushed, loud, and confused that it gave her a headache, which made her unable to appreciate the relief of rest given how tired she had been. In deliberate attempts to distract from serious thinking, she wondered what the platform actually was. Unfortunately, she didn't really care so simply made a note to ask Serpantha – later, though, she couldn't handle conversation due to her overwhelming thoughts and emotions. One of the loudest thoughts on her mind was how uncomfortable she was in this body. It didn't feel right and it just plain frustrated her. It was useless, frail, and she was exhausted from brief exercise! Why would Serpantha's father trap her in it unless it was a personal attack on her?

Her trail of thought was only interrupted when the platform came to a jolting stop which only she seemed to be surprised by. She looked back, throwing her messed hair out her face, and felt the need to say something so asked, 'What is this?'

'It used to be a train track, underground of course – above us is a good few miles of sea,' Serpantha explained, standing up, out stretching his hand to Calen.

To his surprise, she took it and he helped her up.

She brushed herself off subtly and said lazily, 'Please tell me it isn't far from here.'

'As I said there is a good few miles of sea and where we want to go is nearer the surface.' Serpantha didn't have to explain further for Calen to realise and almost become like a sulking child.

Calen didn't need an answer but she asked anyway. 'With strictly no flying?' A thought seemed to suddenly occur to her, and she said more panicked, 'What if I fall can't I fly?'

'Don't fall.'

Sure enough, the journey in a direction that can only be described as 'up', climbing built-in pipe rungs was long and strenuous. To help her new acquired fear of heights Serpantha had let Calen go in front of him, which was surprisingly irritating due to her slow pace that she only made up for with her denial about being tired. Of course she was tired, had she not seen the state of her human body? The previous owner had clearly neglected it… Not that he planned to tell her that body had a previous owner just yet, that would be too bigger news, but it was obvious from the way her mannerisms were gradually changing that her mind was melding with the previous owner's. Luckily, for now, it was unconsciously, and hopefully it would stay that way for their journey back to Esimi and the others – if not, there was to be an awkward explanation where he couldn't judge her reactions well enough to be delicate.

However, Calen's situation could be beneficial, not only for Calen to be more co-operative and less exhausting to work with but to explain how Zina was seemingly back from the dead. All his father had done was destroy Calen's own body and somehow place her in an empty shell of an already dead one. A remarkable and baffling process, but it does require less magic and he could have achieved it on his own from all the magic he leaked. Meaning he never used Yemi's magic, which could mean if he did they would be able to detect him. But that theory still didn't explain Zina. She could potentially ruin everything and his brother didn't care.

'I really should have seen this coming,' he murmured to himself, almost unaware he was speaking at all.

'What?' Calen said, hiding her lack of breath. 'How could you anticipate this? No one could.'

Serpantha decided to engage with her yet again. 'No, I mean once I knew it was him, or even began to suspect… I should have guessed he would do this. Zina's an appeasement nothing more, he caused her death and now he's brought her back to win over Larpskendya simply because of his magic.'

'He caused her death?'

'To spare you the details the protection around a planet she should have been safe on was breached – but not all over, not enough for us to know in time, just a small gap, right where Zina was. We had no idea how it was breached or who by, but I think I can accurately put the two together.'

'It hardly holds much significance,' Calen said dismissively. 'if you want a hug and sympathy for not predicting this you're talking to the wrong person. He's using magic to bring people back to life and create chaos for the sake of chaos, and we have to stop him which, let me be the first to say, doesn't seem impossible at all.'

'You are not helping, Calen,' Serpantha said, matching her tone.

'You think I care?' She scoffed. 'You undermine how hard it is being me, in many ways you have it easier.'

'Tell me one.' Serpantha said, more amused at the idea than annoyed.

'You're a big name; people know who you are and what you've done.'

Serpantha couldn't help but laugh. 'I'm a name. I know you always wanted to be one of those names; of course you did, but… I never wanted that. Why would I want to be name? All it does is make you a target and put anyone you know in danger, my father always wanted me to make a name for myself and I did. I'd give anything to be a no one.'

'That's insanity.'

'To you, it would be.'

Conversation dwindled in and out throughout the ascent, which turned out to be a good thing for Calen as she often found hiding the exhaustion from her voice was more effort than it was worth. Still, she was in a unique position and was interesting to hear what he had to say – not much of it was surprising, but aspects were beyond her expectation to say the least. It took them a long time to reach another hatch, something she was sick of; however, she opened this one with ease on her own.

'More steps,' Calen mumbled, starting to descend into madness with exhaustion of the mind and body. She persevered anyway, not wanting to hear Serpantha's voice telling her to hurry up – not in the mood she was in. To her relief, she barely climbed three rungs before an arm extended down to her.

Esimi reached down and grabbed Calen's arm, pulling her out of the shoot, coming face-to-face with her, unable to hide her surprise – she had expected Serpantha to go first. After all, if Calen fell and she was in front, she could make them both fall. Once she took a split second to adjust to the thought, she got Calen out as soon as possible, not paying attention to her whatsoever.

The first thing Calen saw was that they were surrounded by water, which was enough information for her to kneel down and cup as much as she could into her mouth, trying not to appear too desperate even if she desperately needed it. She wiped the dripping water from her chin and slowly looked at her surroundings. For a start the water wasn't as clean as she first perceived through blurry tired eyes, it had grit settled at the bottom and was a rather odd colour – although that may have been altered by the stone beneath it, it was difficult to tell. They were in large cave and that's all about she could tell. Huge stalactites dripped from the ceiling and stalagmites pierced through the ground, although amongst this natural structure was what she was currently resting on. A catwalk like structure, a circular island with a thin path to dry stone, clearly there for comfort as the pool of water was only a few inches deep.

'Are you done sight seeing?' Serpantha asked from behind her, interrupting her trail of thought.

Calen swung around and said spitefully, 'What's the rush?'

'I know you're a bitter angry person,' Esimi said evenly, 'but could you possibly just refrain from acting like a child refused candy?'

Serpantha smirked as Calen's face fell in annoyance.

Venibilles was the first to notice Serpantha's presence, stopping mid-sentence and standing up, which caused Zina to look to him. She didn't utter a word but there seemed to be understanding between them.

'My father's back,' Venibilles said needlessly.

'We know,' Heiki said bitterly. 'with Calen.'

'Are we all just going to sit here and continue waiting then?' Venibilles urged them.

'We don't know how to get them,' Rachel said. 'What else can we do?'

'Well I'm no genius,' Venibilles said energetically, 'but I think it's lucky we have to do the one thing I'm good at: go down.' He finished it off with a quick wink, in case anyone missed the joke.

Heiki chuckled, but her smile fell when she saw Rachel's annoyed expression.

'What's up with you?' Heiki asked.

'That's not funny,' Rachel said bluntly.

'I happen to think it was quite hilarious,' Venibilles said, giving what had now become his signature smile – like a horizontal crescent moon, only his top row of teeth showing.

'I still don't want to go somewhere we shouldn't.'

'Rachel are you kidding me?' Heiki grew angry. 'There are much more deadly situations we could and have been in, but this is just uneasy in your stomach is it?'

'I'm sorry?'

Zina sighed heavily. 'Shut up all of you. I'm staying here, Rachel stay too if ya want, no one cares anyway.'

'You don't have the right to talk to me like that!' Rachel bristled.

'I can't be as'ed to 'ave this fight.'

'Rachel leave it.' Venibilles said neutrally.

'Wizards think they can tell everyone what to do, don't they?' Rachel said, beginning to lose her temper.

Venibilles laughed. 'Because you've met so many.'

A sad, but equally (and strangely) unreadable, stayed on his face long after he finished his sentence.

The four of them were still arguing when Esimi re-entered the room, along with Serpantha and Calen, and they were so engrossed in their own anger they didn't notice until Esimi cleared her throat loudly to get everyone's attention. Almost comically, everyone turned their heads and gradually moved to face them.

There was a few moments of silence in which everyone looked at each other to see who would dare speak first. Heiki's eyes darted between Serpantha and Calen – she barely knew what to do with herself, and what was worse was that she knew she wasn't subtle about how uncomfortable the situation made her.

'What are you all arguing about?' Serpantha said eventually.

'Nothing important.' Venibilles answered bitterly.

Noticing Heiki's awkwardness, he mouthed, 'Are you OK?'

Heiki smirked as a reply, which was reply enough.

He then turned his gaze to Rachel who shrugged.

Zina awaited her turn, and when it didn't come she said, 'Oh and feel free to ignore me, I only came back from the dead I ain't traumatised or anythin'.' Zina remarked. 'And ya know, I got a dead daughter – no big deal, eh?'

'Zina I mean this in the kindest way possible,' Serpantha replied plainly, 'You didn't have to deal with his reaction. When you died he always said if it wasn't for Athena he would have gone with you, so when Athena died how was I supposed to feel – what was I supposed to think? I wouldn't leave him alone for weeks.'

Zina put her hand to her heart and interrupted, 'He said that?'

'That's beside the point. And the point is you didn't have to hold him back while he was crying over her dead body screaming for her to come back to life.'

'Stop it,' Zina said, beginning to feel queasy at the thought of the image. 'I get it. It was enough trauma the first time. But what's done is done.'

'I'm still processing the idea of Larpskendya having offspring,' Calen commented absently, and rather insensitively. 'Especially with a human.'

'Not even I believe it sometimes,' Serpantha replied, surprisingly respectful to her confusion and curiousity. 'Once they died he wasn't the same. Not in the sad way he is now, I mean he was angry and bitter – and I've never seen him like that. Which is when he let everything loose in the war effort and began pushing Heebra to insanity.'

Calen silently acknowledged him while staring blankly into space.

'What pulled him out of it?'

'You.' Serpantha gave her a moment to absorb the information before continuing. 'That's how shorter time scale it was, which is perhaps something to remember next time you berate him for not telling you. The wound was still very much open.'

'Oh,' said Rachel, not knowing what else to say, feeling guilty. 'I suppose I don't have much right to…'

'No. But don't hate yourself too much – you didn't know, and we can stop pretending the two of you won't forgive each other anything.'

Heiki seized her window of opportunity and said, 'Unlike me; I still have genuine issues.'

'I haven't forgotten.' Serpantha said coolly.

Heiki looked to him and her eyes began to water.

'Oh, turn it off.' Serpantha scoffed.

To everyone's surprise, Heiki let out an annoyed sigh, wiped her eyes and said, 'Fine. How did you know?'

'I've raised enough children to recognise feigned tears, and sleep, from a mile off.'

'It works on Rachel to get what I want.' Heiki shrugged, only increasing Rachel's shock when she quickly added, 'Then again, Rachel believes a lot of things – especially my acts. Oh come on you've all been dying for an opportunity to bring it up. I just figured if I said it first no one can surprise attack me later with it. I mean really this must be Christmas for you sadist.'

Serpantha smirked approvingly.

Rachel found her behaviour more shocking than amusing. 'I trusted you! How many three am tears were just to get me to forgive you or for food?'

'Nearly all of them; who cries at three am?'

Serpantha sensed Rachel's mood and whispered to her, 'Don't take it personally, let her deal with this in her own way.'

Rachel didn't reply but she took note and reasoned he was probably right. After all, Heiki never had a normal way of dealing with things.

On Heiki's sixteenth birthday, which was spread over three days because no one knew if she was born on the twenty third or twenty sixth, she spent her time getting blind drunk and eventually showed up at Rachel's house at five am covered in her own vomit and hysterical. It took her until nine am to finally pass out, and up until then was spent throwing up in the toilet. Luckily, at the time Heiki had a crew cut so no one had to hold her hair back but everyone questioned what she had consumed – even Heiki did, but her periods of hysterical crying and laughter made it impossible to find out. It also lead to an argument between Rachel and her mother, in which her mum was saying how Heiki isn't a good influence, but Rachel just said she had been through a lot in her life. This obviously wasn't a good enough reason, especially with such lack of detail, so her mum went on to list all the awful things Heiki was doing. Heiki's drunken shouting and giggling from the bathroom about how she had done much worse didn't help, but Eric shut her up before she could go on. This was not the only incident of its kind.

'You aren't a nice person,' Rachel said, trying to come out on top.

'I don't pretend to be.' Heiki brushed off.

To try to ease the tension, Esimi sprung into life and suggested 'I say we pack up until Larpskendya returns with Lyrai, sound like a good plan?'

'Works for me,' Serpantha said emptily.

'Good,' Heiki said livelily, 'Now you can explain why you left us for six years cos you're no longer busy.'

'I believe my son already gave adequate explanation,' Serpantha calmly countered.

'No,' Heiki didn't hesitate to question how he knew that. 'I mean explain to me and tell me why, in full knowledge of what it would do to me, you left. It's not like you just left Earth, all magic went missing and we heard nothing. I've kept my cool so far and co-operated because I appreciate it's the last thing on your mind but now it's time you gave me an explanation in exchange.'

'As my son explained, I never break my word, especially when it comes to Sprites.'

Heiki instantly threw back, 'Because you're so interconnected, I get it, whatever – but what about me? Do I not matter? She would never have known Serpantha you know that!'

'Of course you mattered to me don't start that,' Serpantha said, slightly annoyed. 'I have nothing further to say, Heiki, sorry.'

'After all Lyrai has caused you listened to her over me.' Heiki said, trying to prevent her anger becoming sadness.

'Lyrai on many levels is a terrible person,' Serpantha agreed casually. 'When Toyé died she said it was her own fault, she voices every insulting opinion she has, she always believes she's right and the list goes on. She's also an old friend of mine, and has never done anything with malicious intent.'

'Her intent changes nothing, you admitted yourself she's a terrible person.'

Serpantha seemed unnaturally unaffected by the entire conversation. Not uncaring, but certainly unbothered. 'I never bought into this idea of good and bad, or even evil if you want. Nothing is that black and white, take Calen for brief example—' Calen suddenly became alert and stared blankly to him '—she has no fear of killing and certainly doesn't feel remorse or guilt, but she no longer has the urge to kill; she no longer wants to. What does that make her, good or evil?'

'Evil,' Rachel said, arms folded, while bitterly staring at a wall.

'I never thought I would be the one to say this but he has a point Rachel, you're being irrational,' Heiki said anxiously. 'Whether you believe in good and evil or not, the basic fact is not everyone fits neatly into either box.'

'And you should never trust the people that do.' Serpantha added.

Even Calen sprung back to life as all three women asked in unison, 'What?'

'People who fit into being perfectly good or evil cannot be trusted,' Serpantha explained, 'people like that aren't real. No one is entirely either way it's not possible, we all have a dark side we don't want others to know, and in Calen's case we have a good side we don't wish to show.'

Calen was offended but didn't want to justify him with a response. Not that she knew how to respond anyway.

'But you aren't evil in the slightest, at all,' Rachel said, shaking her head.

'Do you really believe that?' he asked her softly.

Rachel breathed deeply for a while before speaking. 'I'm not sure. But I refuse to believe you're malicious or cruel – you know: evil.'

'I have been in the past, I willingly admit that.'

'But you're ashamed of it, you were manipulated,' Rachel pressed.

'I was still evil. You can take my word for it because I would never make this up. We all have good and evil inside of us it merely depends on what you feed to what you become. Cliché but true.'

'Fine but I refuse to believe Larpskendya has a bad bone in his body.' Rachel said angrily.

Serpantha kept his almost eerie tranquillity. 'I certainly admire his integrity for not becoming like me but yes he has been in the past. You should have seen his reaction when Zina died. He kept it together surprisingly well, mostly because of Athena, but he vented it when it came to fighting and it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. Even more so when Athena died.'

Rachel shook her head, more assertively this time, 'but…why?'

'Even the nicest people have their limits Rachel, remember that,' Serpantha told her solemnly. 'When Zina died is when he began to push his luck and do things he regrets. When he really begun to push Heebra and effectively drive her insane. But that's not discussable because apparently it's still a sensitive subject.'

Rachel hung her head moodily. 'I hate all of this.'

'I know,' Serpantha said sympathetically, 'one of the worst things to do is to grow up and see those you hold in such high esteem as they really are: imperfect, complex beings that don't always make good choices.'

'Reality sucks.' Rachel said finally.

'It does,' Serpantha agreed.

'And you always have a way of straying from what I ask.' Heiki interrupted, not willing to leave the conversation there.

'I found it very explanatory, actually,' Serpantha replied matter-of-factly. 'I'm not perfect, I am a very selfish person who saw the opportunity to have a family I've wanted since I was your age and I took it no matter what the cost. I didn't consider anything else because I didn't want to. Although what I did was wrong I was fully justified in it, and my actions are understandable.'

'Which is why the good and evil thing is problematic, right?' Heiki jumped in.

Serpantha nodded. 'That's your explanation. I was selfish, I loved Owlola, so I prioritized her, I didn't want to taint my child's birth, and I wanted to watch my children grow up, away from war and it meant leaving you so I made myself believe you would be alright.'

'I know six years pales in comparison to two thousand with your own daughter but it still hurt.' Heiki said thoughtfully.

'And it pales in comparison but watching you go against everything I ever said also hurt,' Serpantha replied.

Heiki cast her gaze down, 'I didn't go against everything…' she looked back up to him, speaking faster this time, 'once magic was gone, I took up dancing again. I got my grade eight, you know. Magic helped me, I could take all the best classes. You are looking at the most world famous female and male dancer of the time. I created an alter ego, rich boy, black hair, tall, skinny, rich parents that tragically died when he was fifteen.'

Serpantha softly laughed, 'Very good.'

'Which also proves you wrong about bulk affecting my flexibility, you know.'

'I do, I do, but I did tell you tone not strength. I know you were just trying to drag me to Earth or endanger yourself so I would show up again. Which is far from acceptable.'

Heiki remained sturdy in her beliefs. 'I can't live without you, what else was I supposed to do?'

Serpantha remained silent before changing the subject, lightening his tone. 'It has been a while, who wants to see my daughter for the first time in two thousand years? I can update Larpskendya later, the journey usually takes a good fifteen hours but it's been so long it should take longer, so who else is willing to bet on it taking him fourteen?'

While Serpantha smiled at his own joke, Rachel remained concerned.