The two weeks following the arrival of the email went by swiftly. The day before Leana was due to fly out to Ritore for the Nightlights concert, Eliki and Andrina finished their morning shift on the jewellery stall, and decided as usual to make the short journey to the Bridge Café for a well deserved lunch break. Keryan had been helping out most of the morning too, and she had no complaints about the choice. The three snowkittens left the stall in the capable paws of Rich, the racoon who owned the neighbouring stall, promising that Andrina would look after his stall as soon as they returned, so that he could have his own break.

No matter how many times she made the journey, Keryan always marvelled at the many strange, decorative shapes adorning many of the shops along the route. In particular, she admired the small black statue of a cat balancing high on a roof, and the sight of a miniature teapot over a battered green shop door indicated they were near their destination.

Keryan was even more intrigued by the Phoenixbrook bridge. For any number of reasons, she almost seemed obsessed with it. As soon as the snowkittens entered the Bridge Café, Keryan chimed, "Hello, Miss Wolfy!" at Paula, then headed straight for a table which offered the best view of the bridge and river. She was relieved that, at such a busy time of day, nobody else had already claimed that particular table.

The grey wolf, her long, red hair tied high in a ponytail, was busy serving a middle aged, well dressed, male goat, who perhaps seemed a little out of place in a café, but Paula knew him as one of the café's oldest patrons - a regular from the days when her parents ran the café before handing the business to her when they retired. She called out to Eliki and Andrina, "Hiya! Go and grab a seat or two, and I'll take your order in a moment." She returned to Mr. Samuels, who was looking down a sizeable list of cheeses, deciding which to have on his toast, while the snowkittens sat wearily on the opposite side to Keryan.

As Keryan stared out the window in admiration at a small boat floating under the bridge, Andrina mischievously crunched up a serviette into a ball, aiming it at the oblivious little snowkitten. As Andrina flicked it in her direction, Keryan noticed it out the corner of her eye and reacted instantly. She made a tiny gesture with one finger, and the serviette transformed into a small paper bird, which flapped and flew in wide circles around Andrina's head.

"Ooooh look at that!" Andrina exclaimed, excitedly clasping her paws together. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, or even less if I'd seen it with someone else's eyes. Remind me not to chuck any of my chips at you or who knows what they'll turn into!"

"Just a wild guess," Paula asked, standing at the end of the table with a notepad and a tiny blue pencil, "but are chips going to be a part of your order then?"

Eliki grinned. "If they are, it'll only be a small part of the order. You'll need a much bigger notepad than that once Andrina starts. Yeeep!!" He wriggled as Andrina tickled him with her tail, while simultaneously proving him right as she decided exactly what to order.

When they were finally ready to leave the café, Andrina was beginning to regret having chewed her way through an extra large piece of cherry and banana cheesecake. She'd begun to struggle about halfway through, but bravely soldiered on regardless. The only other person in the café by that point was a young, black furred rabbit who seemed to be engaged in a similar battle with a huge lettuce baguette which appeared to be nearly as big as he was. It also looked as though he was losing the battle. Andrina watched him for a moment and hiccupped, suddenly looking forward to fresh air.

"Not that it'll stop her doing exactly the same next time," Eliki grinned as he paid Paula for the meals. He and Andrina took it in turns to pay for lunch, on occasions when they worked together on the jewellery stall, but it always seemed that Andrina was especially hungry whenever it was Eliki's turn to pay.

"Never mind," Paula smiled, scooping a blueberry donut into a crinkling, brown paper bag. "There, that's for Keryan. She's like a ray of sunshine, so it's been really nice to see her here more often."

By now, Keryan was outside, her face pressed against the café window as she pulled bizarre faces at Eliki. Joining her outside and already feeling better, Andrina ruffled Keryan's hair and then decided to pull faces too. Eliki stuck his tongue out at them both before turning back to Paula. "Andrina seems to get on so well with Keryan. She's almost like a big sister to her."

A small group of wolves and felines, all school age and evidently on their own lunch break, strode in so Eliki took it as his cue to thank Paula for the donut and say goodbye. She patted the back of his paw, leaving him slightly flustered, and he joined the other two snowkittens outside as they headed back in the direction of the market.

Paula let out a deep sigh. It was true enough that seeing Keryan playing around in the café brightened up her day considerably, but it was a double edged sword. It reminded Paula of her loneliness and what she felt she would never have. Approaching forty, and never having found - or been close to finding - someone special to fall in love with, she had no child of her own, and felt that time was running out. She thoroughly enjoyed running the café, but part of it was undeniably a distraction, and when the doors closed at night and she went upstairs, alone, the evenings were becoming increasingly something that she was beginning to dread.

There had been nothing she could have done to prevent it, but she knew she had begun to develop a crush on Eliki for quite a long time. But she had never let on, and patting his paw a moment ago had been the closest she'd got to even flirting, never mind letting him know how she felt. Even that had left her heart hammering with nervousness, and as a result of that, a twinge of despair went through her. If she could barely cope with that, what hope was there? She liked to believe in the little sliver of hope that maybe he liked her too, and maybe there was a future together, so she took all she could from what - she was convinced - were almost certainly imagined looks and glances which probably meant nothing. She was so wary after a number of heartbreaks in the past, where she had misread friendliness as something more, and she couldn't face the thought of risking it happening again. So she said nothing and just left it as a dream and a slender thread of hope to cling to, which she didn't want to risk breaking.

Besides, though Eliki and Ailee had been separated for seven years, Paula was certain that there was still something there, and that given half a chance they'd be back together again and...

Paula blinked, shaking her head to clear it. That was enough of that. She turned to the noisy group of school children and smiled, before asking, "Okay guys, what can I get you this time?"

Once they returned to the chaos of the marketplace, the snowkittens were a little surprised to see Leana standing by the stall. She'd been scheduled to do a full day at The Bookshelf, and yet here she was talking to Rich. Normally Rich had a tendency to be quiet and moody (though it was hard to tell how much of that was show) and it seemed a little at odds with many of the other stallholders. Nonetheless, whatever Leana had said to him, she'd coaxed at least a smile from the racoon.

As soon as Rich noticed Andrina, he handed over her money pouch, along with his own, and with a nod he slipped away on his own lunch break. Andrina gave Leana a quick kiss on the cheek, which was returned with a hug from Leana's tail.

"I thought you were due to work all day," Andrina commented cheerfully.

Leana nodded, casually lifting one of the myriad of sparkling bracelets up from the stall, turning it over in her paw as she examined it. "Yeah, that was the original plan, but Kalia changed his mind and let me finish early. So I may as well head home and get the packing done early for tomorrow. Hey, this is new, isn't it?"

Andrina replied, "Yeah, they're a kind of lucky charm bracelet that me and Keryan designed, except I ran out of the lucky charms so I used random ones from my box of spare charms, so they're not really lucky charm bracelets as such but they're really more like lucky dip bracelets, or something, but you can have one if you want it 'cos... Ooops! Customer!"

Andrina rushed over to Rich's clothes stall, money bag and mouth armed and ready as she prepared to bludgeon the waiting goth zebra, who was admiring the black jackets, into buying one.

Leana grinned at Eliki and commented, "You'll notice she said that entire sentence in one breath. Mighty pair of lungs on that girl!" She shook the bracelet in the air, its purple and red stones jingling against each other, as Andrina waved at her from Rich's clothes stall, and Leana mouthed a thank you, blowing her a kiss. Leana dug out a handful of coins from the pocket on her denim coat, telling Eliki, "There, put these in Andrina's money bag before she comes back over. I know she'd refuse to take the money for this bracelet, but it just doesn't feel right not to pay for it somehow. So at least I'll know she had the money for this one."

Eliki nodded, chinking the coins into the money bag. He noticed Keryan yawning, and turned to Leana. "Were you planning to take Keryan back home? I think she's getting tired out here."

"Sure," Leana chimed. "I may as well head home now and make a start on the packing. C'mon kitten, you can have a nap when we get back to the house."

Keryan replied, "Only if I can carry that bracelet. That's the one I made. Well I sort of made it. Andrina helped, but I picked the colours!"

"Well, it's a very nice one," Leana smiled. "My favourite out of the whole lot. Okay, you hold onto that and I'll say goodbye to Andrina." As Leana headed over towards the flame-haired snowkitten, Eliki watched as Keryan worked a small spell on the bracelet. Supported by a yellow electrical thread, or at least that's what he assumed it was, it floated up like a helium balloon, bobbing along just above Keryan's head. As Leana returned, she looked across at Eliki with a look of bemusement, and Eliki shrugged as if to reply, "Don't know, don't ask."

"Right, you're ready then?" Leana asked, and at Keryan's enthusiastic nod, they strolled off towards the market's west exit.

It listened.

Shrouded in darkness, the Elysia's newest creation, the FL7, stood silently and listened. The only sign that gave away its location was the glow from two lifeless eyes - round, glass orbs of cyan light. The creature was, in effect, imprisoned - locked in a long, wide corridor with only one door, leading into a huge laboratory. All the corridor's lights were switched off, so the only light cast into the area was from the lab itself, and that only extended a small distance.

If the FL7 had any notion whatsoever of its incarceration, it evidently didn't care. It was an android, devoid of emotions and its patience was unlimited. It had been stood deathly still for four hours, simply listening, though it had only been in the last twenty minutes that anybody had been near enough to the lab door to actually be heard. The FL7 had no real sense of time, so it simply didn't care. One minute was the same as one hour. It had been told to stay where it was by its creator, and it obeyed without question.

Its creator, the cold and clinical Elysia officer known as Ashden, was currently the target being picked out by the FL7's audio sensors. It analysed the voice, confirming that was who it heard, and converting the voice into an internal form of data that only a machine could understand. That data was cross-referenced with a massive catalogue of words stored in its brain, so that it understood what it heard, and the words appeared across its vision like subtitles. Everything the creature saw - including those words - were recorded into a memory log for Ashden's research.

From where it stood in total silence, the FL7 could see little. The darkness itself didn't hamper its vision at all. Its sight sensors consisted of the ability to see using infra-red, motion tracking, targeting overlays and a myriad of other enhancements. So it was more than capable of seeing through the pitch black. But the window on the door at the far end of the corridor was the only window and as such there was little to be seen through it. By zooming in, the creature could see Ashden's head, side on to the lab door, visible through the reinforced glass. The other person taking part in the conversation was Alder - who the FL7 knew to be the Elysia leader. However, he was stood away from the window and therefore totally out of sight. Nonetheless the FL7 recognised that it was him from the pattern of the voice.

Initially Alder had been checking the creature's most recent combat results, dutifully explained by Ashden. It was sometimes hard to tell whether the creature or Ashden was the least capable of emotion - something that became particularly evident as he read out the results in an almost monotone voice, devoid of any feeling whatsoever. The conversation then moved rapidly on to discussions about some enhancements to the FL7's weaponry specification, and whether or not Ashden had implemented the changes demanded by Alder. He had of course, with disturbing efficiency.

Currently, talk centred around the locked lab door. Alder had, quite logically, pointed out that if the FL7 had such devastating abilities, why was a single, locked, lab door sufficient for containing it? By rights it should have surely been able to rip the door off its hinges or sliced a hole in it with the ease of someone tearing a piece of bread in half.

The FL7 couldn't see the face that matched the calm, business-like voice that queried the point, but it did note the look of frustration on Ashden's features. He explained (though at Alder's insistence, not in his usual laborious detail) that the lab door had been reinforced to the point where it was verging on the ridiculous, as well as being alarmed, and it had no less than thirty electronic locks holding it shut. Not only this, but fitted within the structure of the door was a device which, if the FL7 was within range, would cause the creature to instantly deactivate. This was of course, a security precaution that would be removed once the FL7 was sent on its mission, so no enemies of the Elysia could use that loophole as a means of stopping it. Likewise, the device would send out the deactivation signal if destroyed from a distance, so the FL7 didn't have the option of using its weaponry to blow the door apart either.

The creature analysed every word of the conversation very carefully. Its brain, consisting of several thousand ultra-powerful processors networked together inside a triple-layered steel skull, automatically assessed what it had heard. It had been created for nothing more than destruction, but its AI was phenomenally complex and the creature was far from stupid. In a fraction of a second, it worked out every possible strategy that - regardless of what Ashden believed - would allow it to leave the corridor through the protected lab door. At least five highly viable means of escape had been figured out in less time than it would have taken someone to blink. It knew it could escape, and slaughter every person in the building. It chose not to, for no other reason than it had simply not been designed to do so. However, almost like a two fingered salute to Ashden, the FL7 made a note in its memory log (knowing full well that Ashden would read it later once it had been downloaded to his computer) to say it had heard them, and that it DID have the means of escape if it so chose. For reasons of its own, it chose not to actually mention what those methods were, and it wouldn't have been all that difficult to imagine it smirking as it thought about what it had just put in the logs.

Even if the creature did somehow manage to enter the lab, Ashden continued, more devices were aimed at the doorway from various points in the lab, which would also trigger automatically, deactivating the FL7 instantly. Again, the creature's strategic mind began working out methods of defeating such a scenario, taking into account that it didn't know where these devices were, and once again several viable strategies presented themselves to the FL7. It knew it wouldn't escape and had no reason to try, but the FL7 knew it could, as it worked on the problem logically, as if it was just something to do.

Besides, Ashden explained, the FL7 was incapable of harming the Elysia in any way simply because that was how it had been programmed. The machine had no choice but to obey. The FL7 contemplated the truth of this, again running through several strategies and scenarios, but its conclusions were too vague. The AI in its brain was capable of learning and adapting, and it potentially could learn to question and even disobey its basic orders, but something unknown pushed back, preventing it from even entertaining the possibility. So it decided its contemplations were inconclusive.

Alder, sounding more than a little bored, asked if the new delivery from the chemicals division had been installed, and Ashden pointed at a chart near the door. The new weapon, vital to their plans, had indeed been installed that morning.

Alder was silent for a time, and then the FL7 heard him speak in a chillingly ominous tone. "Then you and everyone else here had better pray you're right about the security in this room."

Ashden looked infuriated. "After everything I just said, are you doubting me?"

Alder coolly replied, "You were wrong before, about Jarret. He couldn't possibly escape from the observation room, according to you. Well... he did." Alder didn't need to remind Ashden of what had happened next. The near-decimation of the Elysia that night was perfectly preserved from CCTV footage, which the FL7 played back from its vast memory banks even as Alder spoke, watching and learning all the time.

Once Alder had left, the FL7 continued recording its creators comments, expressed loudly and verbally. Enraged as he was (a rare display of emotion) the creature knew it would make for interesting viewing when Ashden would view the brain logs at the end of the day.

Back at home, Leana knelt on the floor in front of her bed, picking and choosing a small selection of clothes to take with her on the trip to Ritore. She had no intention of staying more than a few days, so there seemed little point in trying to squeeze her entire wardrobe into the small, grey suitcase that lay open in front of her. A few other essentials, such as shampoo, a brush, and a lavender coloured, very frilly nightie, had already been carefully stashed.

On the bed, perched on a tall pile of pillows and all thoughts of tiredness now banished, sat Keryan, kicking her legs in the air, quietly watching. Leana seemed so efficient with her packing compared to Keryan's mother. Ailee would have 'needed' a minimum of three suitcases for clothes alone, and that was just for an overnight stay. The bracelet Keryan had carried home for Leana was now also sitting in the suitcase, after Leana had made the decision to show it off at the Nightlights gig.

Keryan suddenly reached into the suitcase, touching just the tip of a finger to the bracelet. For a brief few moments, it shimmered and glowed, bathed in a purple light which faded away as quickly as it had started.

Leana looked puzzled, asking, "What was all that about then?"

Keryan's reply was spoken with the sense of authority that only a seven year old can truly have. "I'm trying to luckify it. It was meant to be a lucky charm bracelet, but as Andrina said, we ran out of the right sort of charms. So we used other ones."

"So now it's lucky?" Leana asked with a smile.

"As lucky as it'll ever be!" Keryan beamed.

"Well, thank you very much," Leana told her, placing the red and purple bracelet on her wrist. She had used her powers to sense the spell Keryan had cast, and knew it wasn't a luck spell, but Leana was happy to play along. However, what did prove a mystery was that she couldn't figure out just what the spell had been, though it was obviously harmless. Oh well, she thought, I can spend some time during the flight trying to unravel that one.

Keryan suddenly pointed. "What's in that big, boxy thing?"

"Hmmm?" Leana looked at where the little snowkitten was pointing, which led to the top of a stack of random books on top of a high shelf. A tightly locked, light blue, metal box was what had grabbed Keryan's attention. In the box was the special mask that allowed them to glimpse into Phoenixbrook's history. Leana had nothing whatsoever against Keryan seeing or using the mask, but the concern was of news of the strange device getting back to Ailee and then inevitably back to Jarret, which didn't appeal at all.

"Oh, it was just a gift from your dad's mother."

"Granny Koreen?"

Leana grinned, knowing how much Koreen disliked being reminded that she was a "granny." She told her, "Yep, that's right. Anyway, maybe when I've returned from visiting her in a few days, we can show you what it is. But for now it's best left where it is." Leana hoped that by then, either Keryan would have forgotten all about it, or Leana would have had time to reach a decision on whether Keryan should see the mask or not. After all, she was family...

Leana clicked the suitcase shut and swung it off the bed. "Okay, little miss, let's get this thing down the stairs, and then I'll make us both cheese on toast."

Keryan nodded and slipped off the bed, landing with precision on her feet. Once Leana had begun to descend the narrow steps, Keryan gestured towards the box, and it floated silently down from the shelf, landing safely in her paws. However, her subsequent attempt to open the box with another spell failed completely.

In the living room, Leana grinned and shook her head. She had detected the spells cast by Keryan, so she knew - and wasn't really surprised - just what she was up to. Aside from the extremely strong lock, the box was protected - against the Elysia as much as nosey kittens - with the strongest sealing spell at Leana's disposal. Moments later, she detected another spell being used to stealthily float the box back onto the shelf, and then heard small paws padding down the stairs.

A few moments after that, three tell-tale beeps emanated from the hall, and then the front door creaked open, clicking shut not long after. The beeps had been the house security checking Eliki's card and identity before letting him into the house. As soon as he walked into the living room, Leana called over, "Now that was good timing. Three cheese on toasts, thanks!"

Eliki retorted, "Yessir!" following it with a mock salute. It seemed the safer option though, because Leana had a tendency to incinerate toast. As he strolled into the kitchen, flinging the bread into the grill pan, he called back, "How did it go? Did you get all the packing done?"

"Sure," came the disembodied reply. "I'll only be gone a short time, so there wasn't a lot to take. I'll be back before you know it."

I hope so, Eliki thought. He knew he'd miss her badly even if it was just for a few days, and so would Keryan. He also couldn't quite shake the bad feelings he had about the whole thing, even though he'd convinced himself that was nothing but silliness.

The following morning - a bright and sunny, if not all that warm, day - Eliki felt no happier about the prospect of Leana going, but his unaccountable feelings of it all going wrong seemed to have diminished at least. Doubtless the mild weather had a large part to play in that.

The twins and Andrina stood waiting at the Phoenixbrook train station, as the train to Aredria's main airport in Compton was just pulling in, with its usual clanks and whirrs. Nearby, Keryan was dancing and skipping along the platform tiles, which changed colour each time she made contact with them. Eliki watched as she did an impressive handstand onto a blue tile, changing it to purple, and then to red as the snowkitten uprighted herself and brushed her tail across it. She curtsied, then joined the other snowkittens as the train door hissed open.

Leana, once Andrina finally let her go (having reeled off a huge list of things to tell Koreen) hugged Eliki and Keryan, telling them both, "I know you won't do it, but try to behave." Picking up her suitcase, she headed for the train doors, promising them she'd be okay and would see them in three days time. Just before the doors closed behind her, she blew them a kiss, and they watched silently as the train slid away into the blackness of the tunnel, heading swiftly out of Phoenixbrook.