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Meg.
    ‘I don’t know for certain, except for what I see.’ She wiped her cheek and stared at Chase. ‘You are just like my husband, Button. The eyes. The face.’ She turned to Swift. ‘And you. And Passion. It’s grey and white now, but I had red hair. Beautiful red hair. And my eyes are green like yours. And it’s too coincidental that your father was named Treasure and you don’t know much about him. You’ve never met your grandparentsbecause they were never around. There are too many coincidences not to make sense.’
    ‘So why tell us now? Why didn’t you say something earlier?’
    ‘I did,’ Meg protested. ‘You just didn’t want to listen.’
    ‘Because it was crazy,’ said Swift.
    ‘But it makes sense now,’ said Chase.
    ‘I nearly lost you,’ Meg went on. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ She maintained her gaze on the young woman. ‘What happens after this will be more dangerous than what we’ve been through so far. I don’t expect you to stay involved, but I don’t want to go from here without knowing the truth and without you knowing the truth. Look around you. This is a place made entirely of magic. You’ve seen what I can do. You’ve seen who I am. I carry the amber in me, a legacy I have tried to escape all my life until now. I’ve lost people I love, family, because of it and because of who I am. Now you’re caught up in it as well and I know you are my grandchildren. Whatever fate or destiny has drawn us together, we are together and I’m grateful that I have found you. I couldn’t leave here without you knowing that.’
    Swift kept staring. Then she said, ‘I found you,’ and smiled.
    The unexpected comment touched Meg’s heart. She smiled. The moment of meeting on the rooftop and in the window of her bookshop was a strange moment, one she hadn’t encountered in her dreams. Who really had found who in that moment? ‘Yes, you did,’ she replied and chuckled contentedly. The warmth in Chase’s hand on her arm contrasted sharply with the distance between herself and Swift, but the link was there. She felt in the moment that it was strong, and it was all she could ask.
    The portal glowed in the doorway, its blue light throwing shadows across the chamber’s endless bookshelves. Megfaced the tiny assembly, her frizzy grey-white hair refusing to be constrained by the rough ponytail she had improvised. Swift, a little more feminine with her longer red hair, looked back at the old woman, her green eyes sharp and observant, the harsh angles of her face reflecting the bitterness of her life. Her lithe body, the province of her deadly assassin skills, was covered with a black shirt Erin had given her and a pair of tan pants that barely reached her ankles. Her own tunic and trousers had been destroyed during her brush with death. She adjusted her knife in her belt, preparing herself to step back into the world above. Chase stood beside her, rake thin, his cream tunic dirty, his black trousers ripped, his hair tousled, looking more like a street urchin than ever. The possibility that Swift and Chase were her grandchildren excited Meg; it gave her hope that her long-standing family tragedy could be corrected.
    Towering over Swift and Chase was the Shesskar and former brothel guard Wahim, muscled, dark-skinned, his toothy smile an ever-present reminder of the gift of happiness that came to everyone. That all three had chosen to undertake the journey with her to Chuekwer still surprised her as much as it made her glad, and she wondered if they regretted their decision in the light of all that had unfolded. The journey to find the canvas bag that Seer Sunlight had stolen from his peers and entrusted to Chase to pass to the Kerwyn princes was only the beginning. Preventing the Seers from releasing the Demon Horsemen was a much greater challenge with even greater risk; she could not ask them to go further with her on that quest.
    ‘The portal is connected to the village where we left