Elrann stood in an empty glass chamber.

The first room of the Light Temple looked exactly like it had from the other side of the entry doors. Large and bare, with other doors leading off it.

The only difference now was that her friends had vanished. No sooner had she stepped inside than they were nowhere to be seen.

"Farmboy?" she called. "Princess-girl? Music-man?"

No reply.

"Huh."

She looked round at the closed doors behind her and considered leaving, but princess-girl had said that all sorts of things might happen inside this Temple, so she decided against it. This must be some sort of test, like the tests they had faced in the Earth Temple. Perhaps they needed to make their way through it by themselves and then they would be reunited.

"Well," she said aloud, "I'm sure it's nothing ol' Elrann can't handle."

When she looked back round, standing at the far end of the chamber was a man.

He wore a long brown leather jacket with a high collar, just like Sagar's. But it wasn't Sagar. This man had a well-cropped beard with grey in it, wrinkles round his eyes, and wild brown hair under a skycaptain's hat. Two leather belts crossed his chest in an 'X', with pistols tucked into them, and a sheathed cutlass hung at his side. His face was fierce, but somehow also kindly and, she fancied, shaped a little like her own.

He looked just like she had always imagined him.

"Father…?" she said quietly.

The man put a hand to his mouth in wonder, and spoke through it. "It's really you, isn't it?"

Elrann ran forward. She wanted to embrace the man, but she stopped short, suddenly self-conscious. A feeling she was not used to experiencing.

The initial rush of hope had stalled. Suspicion slunk into her mind. "Are you really my father?"

"Are you the daughter of Linnan, a rice-farmer woman from Ostwin, in Zerlan?" the man asked back.

Elrann nodded. "How did you know it was me?"

"Of course I know!" laughed the man. "I always knew I had a daughter. Things didn't work out between me and your mother but I did get to see you for the first few years of your life at least. And even after that I sometimes used to fly over Ostwin and I often spotted you working in the fields with those big harvesting machines. The lads used to wonder why I would fly so low… You've grown, but I'd recognise you anywhere."

Tears filled up Elrann's eyes. But she wouldn't weep them. She would be strong. Show her father how strong she was. She didn't know whether to hug the man or not. She wanted to hug him. Did he want her to hug him? Did he want her to not hug him? No…skypirates probably didn't go in for that sort of thing. Silly.

"Mum never told me any of this…" she said at length. "Mum said that you just flew off and left us..."

Her father looked off to one side for a moment. "Also true, I suppose… But what she may have left out is that I used to visit you regularly until she decided that she didn't want to see me anymore and forbade me from coming back. She said that she didn't want you growing up with a skypirate for a father. Can't say I blame her, really…"

"But what are you doing here? Why are you in this glass palace at the top of Mount Tessery-whatever?"

Her father shrugged. "Easy. Last year I decided to retire from skypirating. I'd amassed plenty of booty, and seen pretty much all of the world, and this is one of the best parts of it, so me and the lads decided we would retire here!"

Elrann nodded, processing this. That fit with what Sagar had told her about his father. She had a thousand questions, but first she should probably…

"Dad…" The word was at once foreign and familiar on her lips. She was not used to saying it, but it fit too. "There's somethin' ya should know. Your son is with me as well." She thought a moment. "Your son who you flew with, I mean."

"Sagar? How did you end up travelling with that rascal? What a crazy coincidence!"

"So you are his father too! We're half-sister and -brother..." Elrann chewed her tongue, thinking hard on this. "So then you must be…"

Her father bowed low, sweeping off his captain's hat and brushing the glass floor with it in a flourish. "Captain Edbin Figaro, Scourge of the Imfisi Skies at your service, my lady."

Elrann chuckled. "So I am the daughter of a famous skypirate… That explains a lot…"

"Come!" said her father. "We have lots to catch up on! You can tell me exactly just what it explains, and more, up in the palace. A few years ago you disappeared from Ostwin, and I could no longer sight you. You must tell me what you've been doing! But come and meet my crew first—I can't wait to show you off to them! This way, Elrann!"

Without another word he turned and left the room by a door at the back. Elrann ran after him, and kept running, because now he was sprinting down the new glass corridor, laughing.

"Dad, wait!"

She had to run full tilt to keep up. He was everything that she had always suspected he would be, and more: dashing, dangerous, full of life and fun.

She followed him down the corridor, through another door, another corridor, up a set of stairs, around a curving passageway. He was still laughing like a maniac, and running so fast. She started to lag behind.

"Dad!" she called again. "Wait—I can't keep up!"

But he didn't slow his pace. She didn't want to lose him. Not again, not when she had only just found him. She ran harder. More steps. More doors. The gap between them widened, and soon she had to strain herself to make it through the next door in order to see which one he went through at the end of the next corridor in time.

"Dad! Wait!"

She saw the tail of his coat fluttering away through the right-hand door at the end of the latest corridor. She ran to the end and shoved through it—

—and fell.