"I don't get it." Sage hissed. Charlie marveled at her, mouth dropping open. Sage rolled her eyes. "No, that's not what I meant. I get that it's her, but I don't get why? If it was one of the rest of us, our most treasured thing would have been family or, with you, chocolate cake."

"I do love me some choccie cake." Charlie agreed.

"But why is Theo's most treasured thing Danielle? How is that even possible, he doesn't have a heart?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Well, I can't exactly ask Danielle now, can I?" Sage retorted, flapping a hand arguementatively. Charlie looked to their mortal companion. She was a few feet in front of them, strolling along, not even bothered by the weight of her backpack. Charlie was pretty sure his had a vendetta against him.

He mulled over Sage's question for a while, chewing his lip and tinkering with scraps from his many pockets. Sage plodded along beside him, cursing under her breath when Danielle stopped for the millionth time and checked her surroundings. Danielle hadn't said a word since leaving the Jackson residence, still on auto-pilot, marching along, stopping and then taking a turn or carrying straight on. Sage wanted to get a taxi, but Danielle didn't seem to hear them. "Why didn't you put that magic on her in a car? That'd be nice."

"I don't think things through, you know that."

"Next time, give me the magic."

"But you'll turn me into a frog!"

"Ah, finally something to improve that face."

"Hey! I'll have you know my face is glorious and I've been voted most likely to brighten any room with my smile for thirteen years in a row now."

"But you are thirteen."

"Exactly." Charlie grinned. Sage rolled her eyes again. "You're going to have some pretty ripped eye muscles at this rate." She made a funny face then. Charlie suspected she was trying not to smile (why?) and to not roll her eyes (again) and to not throttle him (that was always nice). Charlie stuck his tongue out, mentally flicking back to her question. He remembered something suddenly, like a switch had been thrown. "Hey, didn't one of the others say something about Theo only opening up to Danielle?"

"Yeah, I think so." Sage shrugged a shoulder.

"Well, what if he told her stuff that he didn't tell anyone else? That doesn't make her treasured... no, it does, but in a different way to us. We're treasured 'cos we're family, but it's not a unique treasured thing, whereas Danielle is. She knows stuff about Theo we don't, she's got inside information. Not only is she treasured, she knows."

"So, you're saying that because she knows all this stuff about him that we don't, she's on a higher ground than us?"

"No, not exactly. Same level, different regards. It does make sense. You know, up here." He tapped himself on the forehead and then raised his hands, palms down and level with each other. "Like, Theo has us on a high ground," he shook his left, "because, duh, we're family. And it's hard not to love me." Charlie beamed. Sage flicked him in the head and told him to not be a prat. "Anyway," Charlie mumbled, rubbing at the on-coming bruise, "Danielle's on the same ground, but away from us." He put his right hand back up, waggling his fingers. "She's not family, she's not going to be sorted into family." Again, he shifted his left hand slightly. "She's Theo's friend. Is this making sense? You're looking very confused."

"I'm confused as to why you figured this out."

"I have undiscovered intelligence."

"You're telling me."

"Of course." He smiled. "I do know things. No-one takes me seriously though."

"It's kind of hard to take you seriously."

"It would be nice sometimes though, I do have very good ideas and- oh, she's stopped." Danielle was outside a slightly beaten looking building, four storeys, sloping tall roof with missing tiles, overgrown garden and broken fences patched together with mismatched wood, boarded up windows and door. Sage frowned. Danielle blinked a few times and shook her head, looking round in bewilderment until she spotted them.

"Where are we?" She asked.

"You brought us here."

"The spell's worn off." Charlie said quietly. "That means we're here." He held out his hand and touched the fence. The air around the building rippled and contorted. Sage blinked and suddenly they were face to face with the same building, but new and clean and in no state of disrepair. The path suddenly appeared between two squares of neatly trimmed grass, the door was freshly painted a navy blue with pot plants of tulips either side, the bronze letterbox gleaming in the mid-morning sunlight. The windows were shining, enclosing curtains of black and red, the roof was fixed, a bird's nest in the gutter piping. The fence was no longer mismatched, painted a deep mahogany colour. "Huh." Charlie mused. "Quite strong Mist here."

"How did you get through it?" Sage quizzed.

"I don't know." Charlie shrugged. "Maybe 'cos we're legacies."

"Dani, can you see this?"

"Why does it look so tidy all of a sudden? And what's this mist you're on about?"

"Mist. Capital 'M', it's a thing. It's the magic veil that keeps our world hidden from the mortal world. So, we might run into a monster, say... a hellhound for example. You might see it as a really big, very happy dog maybe playing a little too aggressively with a couple of kids that might be holding baseball bats or something."

"But this isn't a monster. This is a house."

"The Mist can be used to conceal all kinds of things." Sage studied the house again.

"Our aunt Hazel," Charlie chipped in, "she can control the Mist. Say if you were in the Sage-part of hell, she could make you think you were in paradise. You could be roasting alive in reality and be enjoying a nice drink on a sandy beach in the Mist."

"Oh." Danielle said quietly. "For the record, I'm not currently roasting alive, am I?"

"No." Sage smiled. Charlie pushed open the gate. "Whoa, hey." Sage grabbed his arm. "What are you doing?"

"Theo's in there. And I'm pretty sure he's missed me."

"Like the plague." Sage pushed past him. "I'm his sister, he'd have missed me more."

"Wait." Danielle called. The two legacies looked back, halfway up the path. Danielle was examining the upper floors. "I saw something moving up there." She pointed. Charlie and Sage followed her point, squinting in the sunlight.

"I see a magpie." Charlie commented. The bird was perched on the edge of a flowerbox under a third floor window. Charlie waved at it. Sage smacked his hand down. "What? It might be Theo!"

"Let's just knock." Sage forged on, hopping up the step. She raised her hand and froze.

"Sage?" Charlie approached carefully. "What's wrong?"

"Look." Sage pointed up. Over the door was an inscription. Charlie squinted at it. His Latin was very rusty. He looked round as Danielle joined them. Sage's lips moved quietly as she deciphered the lettering. Charlie tugged on her sleeve.

"Please tell me it doesn't say 'woe-betide anyone who enters here'?"

"No."

"Does it say anything like that?"

"No."

"What does it say then?"

"It's... one of the lines from the prophecy; freedom is but the brightest of jewels."

"Ooh, creepy." Charlie grinned. Sage fixed him a withering look. "Right. Right. Sorry. Are we still going to knock?" Sage's expression hardened and Charlie figured he had to do it. "Fine. But you owe me cake." He knocked on the door. "House-keeping!"

"Charlie!"

"We come in peace?"

"Charlie, I swear to gods..." The door creaked open, shedding light on the lower half of a big man, his torso lost in shadows. They could see enough of him to determine he was built like a tank.

"You have no business here." A deep voice told them, emanating from this tank man.

"Actually, we're looking for a guy; my cousin, her brother and her potential boyfr- whoa, that's a gun, that's a gun!"