Tyrell jabbed the red button on the TV remote, switching off the television. "Well, it looks like the weather isn't improving any time soon," he commented to Koreen.

Until a week ago, much of Aredria had been covered with a thick layer of snow, which had ruined Tyrell's plans to take the snowkitten twins somewhere special for their second birthday. Since then however, it had rained almost non-stop and the past week had been literally a washout. It had washed away every trace of the snow, but even so it was still hardly pleasant to travel in. And the rain was due to continue for at least the rest of the day and tomorrow.

"Never mind," Koreen told him. "At least it'll pass eventually. Now if I were you, I'd get going. The last thing you need is to be late on your first day!"

He nodded, heading into the hall and grabbing his dark green winter coat off the rack. He'd been promoted. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but as of today Tyrell was in charge of the team who cleaned the Phoenixbrook train station. Tyrell hoped to make a good impression on his team, and being late on the first day wasn't a good way to go about it. The pay increase wasn't going to be vast, but it was enough to make a decent difference.

Tyrell slipped the coat on, but decided against buttoning it up for such a short journey down to the garage. He looked through the door at Koreen, who had just finished feeding the twins with some sludgy brown gloop that she'd received free in the post. Yesterday they'd had a blazing row, when Koreen had been less than happy that Tyrell invited his parents to stay over the weekend, without consulting her. Truth be told, she simply didn't get on with them, and he knew he should have asked really, but it had been ages since he'd seen his parents, and he'd become carried away with his enthusiasm.

Luckily Tyrell and Koreen had slept on it, and woken early enough to talk it through. Koreen had agreed to his parents staying after all, albeit begrudgingly, but the main thing was that at least she was in a much better mood now. They didn't have many arguments, so the few they did have tended to have a much more upsetting impact, and Tyrell was glad this one had been resolved relatively quickly.

Koreen had decided to continue teaching the twins some basic spells - something she'd been doing for the last month or so. Tyrell wasn't sure they should be learning magic at such a young age, but Koreen had decided it was never too soon to learn some of the basic skills.

Leana had made very rapid progress, learning to float one of the wooden spelling blocks in the air and spinning it round like a top. Koreen had never expected her to learn so swiftly. But Eliki just didn't seem to be able to make his snowkitten powers work, even for what should have been a fairly simple levitation spell. At the moment, as occasionally happened, Eliki did seem to have made the spell work, but it didn't last long before it abruptly stopped again, and the wooden block he'd been floating clattered to the floor.

Eliki didn't seem to mind too much, but it was a concern to his parents. Tyrell stepped back into the room, telling Koreen, "Perhaps it'll just take longer than usual, and his powers will kick in when he's older."

"I hope so, I really do," Koreen had replied. "Those powers are our natural defence. And you've seen what the papers have been saying. I dismissed it at first, but there's no denying that all those Elysia reports are starting to get unnerving now..."

Tyrell gave Koreen a kiss on the cheek as he always did before leaving. "I'm sure he'll be okay, and in a few years we'll be wondering what all the worry was about." He picked up each of the twins, giving them an extra long hug, and then headed down the outside stairs to the garage. As he reversed the battered red car down the drive, Koreen waved to him and he blew her a kiss.

He suddenly shivered involuntarily as he drove away from the house. Some inner voice echoed through his mind, telling him he should make the most of that last glimpse of his family. He told himself not to be so stupid.

Koreen watched the red car disappear round the corner, and she turned back to the twins with a smile on her face.

Tyrell didn't return home that night. Three months passed before Koreen was told, by private investigators, that he was last seen in Mosternal, many miles away. She never found out why, and never saw him alive again.