It took the Doctor a good twenty minutes to reset the mind controller's system to factory settings and to set Blorph'g as the system's new administrator. The Vinvocci didn't ask much, but he also didn't complain about the Doctor's constant, exhaustive explanations, a circumstance the Doctor exploited to the max.

'Alright!' he finally shouted, 'World saved, I reckon! Now let's look at your fuel.'

He made Blorph'g write down the chemical reaction used to create it. He wasn't even halfway done when the Doctor stopped him. 'Rubbish! You're completely off! Didn't you have basic chemistry in Vinvocci primary school?' He took the chalk from the man's hand and wiped the board clean, only to quickly write down the proper reaction. 'There you go, that'll save you quite a bit of fuel I reckon. Tell the king he can ease off on all those donations, let the people live a little. Who knows, maybe he'll actually listen to you?'

'I certainly will tell him,' Blorph'g said, his eyes shining with gratitude. 'Is there anything I can help you with?'

The Doctor folded his arms, lips smacking, his entire body tottering back and forth. 'There is, actually. Have you been round this castle much?'

'Of course. I lived here for a good twenty years.'

'Ever been to the basement?'

Upon Blorph'g's quizzical look the Doctor pulled out his phone and showed him the pictures Rose had sent him.

'Your friend is quite the explorer,' Blorph'g said. 'The king made me fix that unit. Guardian One, quite the chatty companion. However, I have no idea what that thing is. King Miramys didn't tell me much about it, except that it had been there long before him. I think it has some religious value to the angels.'

The Doctor frowned. 'It doesn't look like it's being worshipped.'

'He didn't say it directly. It was more the way he was looking at it. But really, you'd have to ask the king yourself.'

'Ask me what?' said a sharp voice behind the Doctor. Turning around, he faced King Miramys, who had just appeared on the balcony ledge, flanked by half a dozen royal guards, all of whom brandished their halberds aggressively in the Doctor's direction.

The Doctor gave a dazzling smile. 'There you are! Came to thank me, eh?'

'Seize him!'

'Wait!' he shouted, raising his hands. 'I just saved the Dale and everyone in it!'

'It is true, my king,' said Blorph'g, appearing again as the old, wizard-hat-wearing Qu'alandari.

'Oh did he?' Miramys scoffed. 'Like he saved my son?'

The Doctor shrugged apologetically. 'To be fair, that was a weak story to begin with, not to mention he's rubbish at lying. Which makes him an honest person, I guess.'

'Get him down,' the king ordered his men. 'Send out hunting parties to search for the girl. In the meantime, I'll have a word with our dearest human ally.'


The two Royal Guards let go of the Doctor's arms while he was still in the air, letting him plunge the last two metres into the grass next to the sanctuary. He felt the impact in his human body; in every joint, muscle, and bone. He stood, adjusted his suit, and brushed off his knees while the guards quickly surrounded him, keeping him in place with their halberds.

'This will cost you dearly, human,' Brandomyr sneered. 'You know, it's been quite a while since we last executed one of your kind. Can't wait to see the two of you under the executioner's blade.'

'You found Rose, then?'

Brandomyr's posture wavered slightly. 'Only a matter of time.'

'Shame.'

The angel's halberd inched forward viciously. 'You think you have the upper hand? You doomed her, you fool! The moment you started running, you condemned yourselves to a life on the run. And should she be the fastest runner alive, should she cross all the rivers and mountains of the Dale, there is no escape for her. We will find her in the end!'

'Hiya!' Rose chimed behind a row of lightly dressed angels and feathery wings. Her face fell when she saw the small army of royal guards that were now staring back at her. She'd only spotted the Doctor's unmistakable shock of hair through the throng of onlookers, and moved right in.

'Ah, good work!' the Doctor shouted before the angels could pounce. 'Never doubted you for a second, Brandomyr, old fella. With me, Rose. It's all sorted, promise.'

The royal guards freed up a corridor, watching with slight irritation as Rose stepped warily next to the Doctor. Quickly, they closed the circle again, pointy halberds aimed at their torsos. 'You okay?' he asked.

'All hunky-dory,' she said, not letting the halberds out of her eyes.

'And look who else is here,' the Doctor cheered, watching Virgil make his way through the guards. Before long, two of the imposing figures stepped into his path, blocking him with plated arms.

'I'm the king's son!' he barked, 'I command you to let me through!'

'I can't do that, your Highness,' Brandomyr stated, taking every opportunity to put Virgil down. 'Your security is our utmost priority.'

'Virgil!' the Doctor greeted him loudly. 'Don't worry about us, eh? Saw your glider, by the way, marvellous design! Got just a few pointers to give you. Well, lots of pointers, actually.'

'He's going to cut off your head!' Virgil hissed from behind a row of guards, eyes wide with disbelief and anger.

'Is he?' the Doctor replied, glancing upward. 'I certainly hope not.'

Brandomyr scoffed. 'You ignored orders by the king and attacked the royal guard. What else do you think he's going to do?'

The Doctor raised his hands. 'Let's just hold our canaries and listen to what your boss has to say, shall we?'

'What did you do?' Rose whispered, leaning in.

'Something clever I hope,' he replied, still glancing upward, more or less confident.

'Brilliant,' she muttered under her breath, eyeing the sharp blades that surrounded them in a tight circle. Rose wouldn't have had a sliver of doubt about the Doctor – if he had indeed been the real one.

Suddenly, everyone looked upward.

The king had finished the interrogation of his first advisor and was descending, red-tipped wings spread wide as he glided gently down along the side of the tower. The guards parted to make space for him, and he touched the grassy ground right in front of Rose and the Doctor, his wide wings whirling up a gust that pulled at every hair and piece of clothing.

As the Doctor had expected, King Miramys looked absolutely furious.

'Father,' Virgil began, but the king silenced him with a quick gesture, not moving his glare from the Doctor. 'You are to leave us, Virgilius,' he said, his voice a threatening hiss. 'Right. Now.'

'Whatever they did-'

'I mean it!' he bellowed, making his entire audience falter. Virgil slumped and fell silent.

The King fixated his glare on the Doctor. 'Guards, bring these two into my chamber. I require privacy for the hour.'


Rose watched the king pace angrily around in his study, wondering what the Doctor had done to infuriate him like that, and whether making the king even angrier at them was a good strategy on his part. But the Metacrisis Doctor stood at ease with a cool expression, hands in pockets.

'I should have had you killed the moment you walked into my castle,' the king fumed. 'And I should give Virgil a beating, and have his lass beheaded!'

'Isn't that a bit harsh?' the Doctor replied, keeping a cool demeanour that told Rose he had everything under control. 'All I did was add some security to your magical machine. I thought keeping it safe was in your interest?'

He glowered at the Doctor, the arrogant tone that earlier had imbued his voice, was now replaced by a deep and unforgiving hatred that glinted in his eyes. 'You took away my power.'

The Doctor remained calm and sovereign. 'I did no such thing, your Highness. Your staff is still a vital component to the machine's activation process. Also, my input is only required every ten days, so you can do as you please for another nine days, twenty-three hours and fifty-one minutes. Then you'll need me again, alive and cooperative, to permit you another ten days, and so on, yada yada yada. You get the idea.'

Rose struggled to keep herself from grinning. He'd done it, and gotten them out of a hopeless pickle. Again, she wanted to think, and she almost felt guilty for doubting him. Even back then, with the real Doctor, they'd had setbacks every now and then. They hadn't always won every single battle. But they'd always come out on top in the end.

The king's glare darkened even more at the Doctor's use of the word "permit."

'You have made yourself my enemy.'

'Oi, don't be so dramatic!' the Doctor retorted. 'It's not like you gave me much of a choice! You decided to execute us, remember? This is just my clever way of keeping us alive, nothing personal, nothing shifty or shrewd.'

The king began pacing around, still fuming, but the Doctor wasn't finished. 'And don't forget: We're keeping you alive as well. Your cactus pal told you what I did, didn't he? You would have been forced to flee the Dale within a month. So how about showing a little gratitude, hm?'

Rose finally allowed herself to grin; the Doctor totally had him! How could she have ever doubted him?

King Miramys however refused to accept his defeat. His voice was calm, but still threatening. 'There are more tricks in the book, Doctor. What's to keep me from just imprisoning you now? Or using your companion to force your compliance?' He huffed, suddenly smiling. 'Or just letting Felgorn go unhindered for some time?'

The Doctor's gaze darkened, and for a moment Rose wasn't sure how he was going to react.

But the Doctor simply shrugged. 'True, you could probably do all that, but by now you must have realised that your circumstances aren't all that simple, are they now? With me and Rose you've got some entirely new pieces on the board, and you haven't even begun to understand who we are, where we come from, what we've been through, and what we're capable of.' He raised his eyebrows to emphasise those last words.

The Doctor began pacing around again, rambling along, 'I mean, we did escape your royal guards without any problems, and then we hijacked your beautiful machine, just like that, no trouble at all. And I promise you, I can do a lot more than that. Rose and I, we have defeated enemies between us that you couldn't even dream of, nightmares born out of the eternal shadow between the very planes of existence.' The Doctor's dark gaze broke into a wicked smile. 'And you're throwing a tantrum because we want to help.'

'And I assume I have no choice but to accept your help?'

'Oh, there's always lots of choices. But in your case, all of them are veeery bad, I'm afraid.'

The king seemed to consider whether the Doctor was bluffing. Then he shook his head, ranting on. 'You will pay for your insolence, Doctor. Mark my words, you will pay for this.'

'Fear,' the Doctor said with a sudden starkness in his voice. 'That's all I see in you. Fear of losing power. And you dare to call yourself a leader.'

Rose eyed the Doctor, not sure how this scolding of the king was supposed to help their situation. 'What now, Doctor?' she asked.

'Tea and crumpets,' he said, suddenly grinning brightly. He pulled up a chair and sat down, arms folded casually. 'Nothing goes better with a history lesson.'


'We call it the Key,' Miramys said, looking at the picture on Rose's phone. He didn't try to hide the contempt in every word he spoke. 'Our line goes back about five generations. Our lore claims that our earliest ancestors have used the key to escape a sky prison. They happened onto this world by chance when it was still uninhabited, and claimed it for themselves. At least... until the humans arrived to challenge their claim.'

'A sky prison?' Rose mouthed at the Doctor. 'The zoo?'

But the Doctor was already firing off his next question. 'What else can you tell us about your ancestors?'

The king smiled, but not in a good way. He stood and went to the many shelves that lined the walls of his chamber. 'Once we had many sacred tomes. Accounts of the sky prison that would have been about one-and-a-half centuries old by now. But they were all lost when your race drove us off this place, and tried to wipe us out completely. Now all we have left are these.' He took out what appeared to be a bundle of papers bound together by string. 'Cheap copies made by scattered survivors, with equally scattered memories of these lost accounts.' The king's look was sharp as a knife. 'Your race has erased our past.'

'I'm sorry,' said the Doctor.

The king huffed in mock-surprise. 'Oh, are you now?'

The Doctor wouldn't let himself be taunted, however. 'Has it always been here? This "Key".'

'Yes. Our ancestors created a community around it, for its protection. I believe it started off as a simple token of gratitude for the sanctuary it had provided us. But over time they began to worship it like a god.'

'And why not?' the Doctor threw in thoughtfully. 'It saved them after all.'

The king's voice grew bitter. 'The humans tried to destroy it as it fell into their hands. When they realised that it was impossible, they built this castle above it, to bury the Key. It was only when Felgorn appeared that we regained control over it.'

'That beastie really did you a lot of good, didn't it?'

'Of course,' said Miramys, all matter-of-factly, and with an air of righteousness. 'We would have gone extinct twenty years ago if it wasn't for Felgorn. Indeed, he is our saviour. Just like the Key.'

The Doctor nodded, looking grimly through the written accounts the king had presented. After a while, he placed them back on the king's desk.

'I'm sorry for everything they did to you,' he said. 'I really am. But the atrocities they committed do not excuse the ones you are committing today.'

The king scoffed, pacing around again, while the Doctor scolded him. 'There has been enough bloodshed, and it stops now. We will send the dragon back home.'

'Do that, and my people will go extinct.'

'Your wings, you mean,' Rose said.

The king frowned at her.

'Sorry, but... you're human, too, really,' she tried to explain. 'Except you've also got wings.'

'There doesn't have to be war,' the Doctor said. 'These people, these humans, they already adore you. They endure their suffering in your name. Why not just reach out to them, make them part of your family?'

The king suddenly looked at the Doctor as if he had said something utterly disgusting. 'Do you suppose we should mingle with them?'

'What's the problem with that?' asked Rose.

'Don't you know anything?' groaned King Miramys. 'If our two races were to mingle, our wings would also disappear.'

'Well, maybe they should disappear,' Rose suggested, raising her voice.

The king glared at her. 'I expected nothing less from a human.'

'No, I didn't mean it like that. Look, all I'm saying is, you wouldn't die, would you? You'd still be you, your names, your culture and everything. I mean you're not just wings, are you?'

The Doctor smiled at her admiringly.

But the king took on his most devastating look so far; a mixture of hatred and desperation. His voice was dark and filled with scorn. 'You murdered us for our wings. You slaughtered my family in front of my eyes. My dear wife and darling children.'

Rose was horrified by this. But when she looked at the Doctor, she was surprised to see there wasn't a sliver of compassion in his eyes. They were black as night, his gaze piercing the king. 'There it is, finally,' he said. 'The big excuse. The lie you tell yourself to make you feel like you're in the right. So you can sleep well at night after having murdered innocent people, thinking you did the right thing again today.'

'Innocents?' the king's gaze darkened.

'I will stop you,' the Doctor said, jabbing his finger at the king. Then he turned and stalked past Rose, the wind in his wake making her hair dance.

'Innocents?' the king bellowed after them. Rose quietly followed the Doctor, her stomach twisting with the ominous sense that this battle was far from over.