Kalia Wenstone parked his battered, but beloved, blue Ettra V2000 smoothly in one of the few remaining spaces, opposite Phoenixbrook South Primary School. Jabbing two illuminated buttons on the control panel, just to the side of the steering wheel, he listened in satisfaction as the electric motor deactivated with a gentle, slowing hum and the door hissed open, allowing him to step out on the smooth tarmac.

The snowleopard strolled casually to the back of the car, running his key card through a slot above the lock, and the car boot gently opened to reveal its precious cargo. Kalia heaved the large cardboard box full of books out the boot, using his elbow to shut it again, and headed towards the main gates of the school. He muttered under his breath when he realised they were still locked, and there were at least another ten minutes until the caretaker would arrive to do the honours of unlocking them.

It was a pleasantly warm morning and, following the roasting summer that year, Kalia was somewhat glad of the more bearable weather. Last year he'd finally made the move, shifting his business from a book stall on the market, to a large shop in a street not too far from there. After an initially shaky start at the market in 1999, Kalia had been lucky enough to have a book among his stock that was desperately needed by one of the Phoenixbrook Mirror's journalists. This little discovery had earned him a week of free advertising in the paper, giving him the chance to hype his stall and book finding skills. Fortunately his claims were accurate - where tracking down old books and magazines was concerned, nobody could rival him.

From there, things had progressed steadily but surely, and he'd finally been able to buy the old shop that he'd fallen in love with, moving all his stock there in the autumn of last year. The shop had been everything he'd hoped for, with its antiquity providing the perfect atmosphere, and the location in Elmbrook Street was ideal for customers. And in the winter, it had been a wonderfully cosy place to be.

However, Kalia had discovered that in the recent summer, the lack of any air conditioning had made the shop well and truly stifling. He hadn't even considered the issue when purchasing the property, but it was certainly a priority now - he'd have the best air conditioning he could afford and that was that. He didn't especially fancy repeating the experience next year.

Kalia had no children of his own, though he knew it was only a matter of time. Not only had the stall - and now the shop - provided him with a comfortable living, but he'd also been lucky enough to meet a wonderfully friendly, intelligent snowleopard girl called Serenade Patterson. It was love at first sight, and marriage in less than six months, and they couldn't have been happier. She was a mathematical genius, teaching part time at Ferrington University, and handling Kalia's accounts as well.

The weather may have been decent, and Kalia's mood was undeniably lifted by it, but he knew others here would be less pleased. Today marked the first day back at school for the children after the summer holidays, and many of the youngsters gathering on the small field by the gates looked as if they'd much rather be anywhere but here. It was also doubtless a time of nerves and excitement for some of the children, here for their very first day at school. Kalia shuddered at the memory.

He jumped when he heard rummaging, and looked down to see a little, black eared, feline girl - at a guess around five years old - burrowing inside the open box that Kalia had placed down. He couldn't help grinning as she lifted out a storybook and held it up like a trophy.

"Leana Snowkitten, you cheeky thing! Put that book back," snapped a voice from behind. Kalia looked round to see the girl's mother approaching, dragging a hapless male kitten with her, who also appeared to be about five years old. The woman told Kalia, "Oh goddess... I'm so sorry about that! She's a right little imp, this one. Leana loves books and it's all I can do to keep her from buying up every book she finds."

Kalia grinned even more. "Is that so? A kindred spirit then. Oh she can keep that one. These are old stock I needed to clear out, so I was just donating them to the school library."

Leana, looking wide eyed with excitement, grabbed the snowleopard's leg and hugged it, while he tried to keep his balance. "Thank you!" she exclaimed, promptly sitting down and looking feverishly through the book of Aredria fairy tales that she'd claimed. The other young snowkitten, clutching a small, white, cuddly toy cat, knelt next to her.

Kalia stuck his paw out, offering it to the snowkitten lady. "I'm Kalia. I used to own a book stall at the market."

"Koreen," she replied shaking his paw. "Yeah, I remember the stall well. I can even remember the day it opened. You've got the shop in Elmbrook Street now?"

"That's the one. Bloody great oven in the summer. I thought I knew you. You brought a few books back in the early days of the stall. And then you stopped being a loyal customer and abandoned me to my fate."

"I..." Koreen faltered. "There were a lot of things going on at the time. Books weren't exactly a priority at the time."

Kalia winced. "Sorry, I was only joking. I didn't mean to cause any upset."

Koreen shook her head and brushed a blue-tinted strand of hair out her eyes. "Forget it, it's old news." She had no intention of telling a stranger that it wasn't every day your boyfriend of four years, and father of your twins, suddenly does a vanishing act, putting you through hell with worry. Koreen had coped because there was no choice but to do so, with two children to look after, but it had been painfully difficult. She eventually tried taking her mind off things by burying herself in the creative process of writing music. It hadn't helped all the time, but it took the edge off the situation if nothing else.

"So, got any kids of your own?" Koreen asked, keen to change the subject and noting the lack of snowleopard children nearby.

Kalia shook his head. "Not yet, but there's a little bundle of trouble due to arrive in December." As they both watched the school caretaker strolling calmly towards the school gates, key armed and ready to unleash the full force of learning on the gathered children, Kalia told Koreen about his wife, Serenade. They knew their unborn child was a girl, so they'd decided to call her Elyria.

"Isn't that a bit close to 'Elysia' though?" Koreen commented, realising it was rather tactless just seconds after saying it.

Kalia smiled as he replied. "Yeah... but they're history now. We talked it over carefully and both agreed we wanted that name. I guess it's our way of claiming a small victory over the Elysia for stealing our words."

Koreen nodded, biting back her increasing doubts as to just how much the Elysia were really history. She knew what Kalia meant though. The word 'Elysia' was an ancient Aredrian word meaning paradise, and 'Elyria' translated to happiness. They were among five such words with similar meanings, and the Elysia had taken the most important of those words for their twisted organisation's name. Kalia intended to take back one of the words and return it to something good.

"At last!" Kalia said as the gates opened with a metallic clang. The aura of disappointment from the crowds of kids was almost tangible. Kalia hefted the box of books up, just in case they got kicked in the not-exactly-headlong rush of children filing into the main playground. A considerably more nervous group - the 'new kids' - hung back. Eliki was looking decidedly nervous now, but Leana simply carried on reading her book, not in the slightest concerned about the pending doom.

The 'new children' finally made their way into the playground and Koreen watched - feeling suddenly very lonely - as her twins headed through the gates, Eliki looking like he'd been condemned, and Leana holding his paw with a look of excitement on her face. They both waved back at their mother, and Koreen smiled, before they turned their attention to the headmistress - a rather round owl with long brown hair - who was warmly welcoming everyone to the school.

Kalia grabbed the box firmly with one paw, holding the other out to Koreen again, who shook it tightly. "Well, I'd better dump this lot and haul myself back to the shop."

Koreen grinned, gesturing, and her powers lifted the box suddenly from Kalia, leaving it floating in front of him. "Go on, the box will follow you till you get through the door."

Kalia blinked. "You know, I'll never get used to you lot and your spells. Thank you though!"

Koreen shooed him towards the school path. "Believe me, you should make the most of it. You'll need every scrap of energy once Elyria is born."

As he headed off with the levitated box trailing behind him looking decidedly surreal, he called back, "See you around then. Hopefully at the shop. There are loads of books you'd love."

Koreen thought to herself, no wonder that stall had been such a success, since he evidently never missed a chance to push for a few extra sales. She sighed as her twins disappeared into the school, and headed for the bus stop. She'd secured a few hours work a day at the Bridge Café, so that was her new destination, and with money being more of an issue since Tyrell had vanished, she was keen to make a start on that new job as soon as possible. Besides, she really didn't enjoy the thought of returning to an empty, silent house at that particular moment.

Jarret was not a happy kitten.

Despite the odds, he had actually been looking forward to starting school. He and Ailee, unlike Leana and Eliki who had been sent to Phoenixbrook's southern school, had ended up in the city's eastern school. It was more convenient because of where they lived, but also their mother, Levriana, regarded the east school to be "of a considerably higher calibre than that grotty school in the south."

Jarret had wondered why he needed to go to school, and it had been explained to him that he would learn all sorts of important things there. So Jarret had somehow convinced himself that he would be taught all manner of new things to improve his magic and spell casting skills.

Like Leana, Jarret and Ailee - but especially Jarret - had seemed to possess a natural talent for magic. And it hadn't escaped Levriana's notice that their magic seemed considerably stronger than would normally be expected of such young snowkittens.

Snowkitten magic, typically, was not unlike programming a computer. To create a spell, its caster had to mentally picture the relevant combination of symbols, in the correct order, and that would determine exactly what the spell would do. The final step, giving the chance to cancel the spell, was to picture the correct symbol that would activate and launch the magic. The more a snowkitten practised, the faster they could run through the sequence of symbols in their mind, so that a spell could take just a split second to create, if a snowkitten was experienced enough.

Things weren't quite that straightforward though, because although a snowkitten could learn any number of different spell symbols, it was no guarantee that they would have sufficient power to actually use all of them. This was why Eliki struggled to cast even simple spells - he had learned the symbols just as quickly as Leana, but his attempts to connect them to the actual spell casting power that all snowkittens had, to differing degrees, was met with little or no result. Also, this was why some snowkittens appeared to have strengths in certain areas. They often found that some sets of symbols worked far better for them than others. Koreen, for example, excelled in spells of a telekinetic nature, but she had little control over spells that involved creating or controlling water, and no power whatsoever over fire or the weather.

Equally so, the potency of the spell could be amplified with further symbols, though again these could only be used if the snowkitten had the sufficient power to wield the magnified spell. In time, as the years would go by, Jarret - and to a lesser extent, Ailee - would find that the range of symbols they could use in their spells were hugely varied, and far more of them were available to the twins than a snowkitten would normally have. Additionally, the amplification symbols they would eventually have access to would be far beyond the range of most snowkittens. In Leana's case however, she would discover that every spell symbol she wanted to use was available to her with no limit or constraint, and unique as that was, there would also be no apparent limit to the amount she could amplify her spells.

Or at least that was the theory. There were, in fact, limits set in stone by "the old rules" but it would be many years before Leana would find that out.

For now though, the five year old Jarret was somewhat annoyed at the discovery that the learning he was expected to participate in at school had nothing at all to do with spell casting, and considerably more to do with reading and writing, and making bizarre creatures using boxes and toilet rolls. His subsequent outburst had cost him dearly - he was sent to the corner of the classroom, while the rest of the class coloured pictures. Jarret had been sorely tempted to get at least a bit of practice in by casting a spell at the teacher, a wolf by the name of Ms Terry, but the look in his eye had given the game away, and the threat of a visit to the headmaster's office stopped him in his tracks.

The black furred snowkitten had been more than a bit surprised to find that in his class, there was another snowkitten. He had very vague memories of meeting another set of snowkitten twins a while ago, but this was a totally different cat. She had vivid red hair, apart from the fringe which was a bright yellow, and she seemed to have an unlimited supply of excitement and enthusiasm for everything she did or saw.

Jarret had watched her with a mixture of fascination and bemusement most of the morning, and now he sneaked a look at what she was doing from his 'incarceration' in the class corner. The red haired snowkitten was kneeling, enthusiastically using a crayon to colour a picture of a grinning sun, an ear-to-ear smile on her face.

The smile faded rapidly when one of the other children, a black and white furred dog by the name of Ben, decided he wanted that particular crayon. When the snowkitten didn't hand the crayon over that instant, he decided asking wasn't getting results quickly enough, so he grabbed her by the hair and pulled hard. As she let out a squeal and dropped the crayon, Ben grabbed it, crushing her picture. Ms Terry immediately stood up from her desk, demanding to know why "Andrina" (at last, Jarret heard her referred to by her name) was making a noise, and Ben managed to convince the teacher that Andrina had tried to claw his arm in an attempt to steal the yellow crayon from him. As a result, Andrina was the one who received a telling off, while Ben sat back looking far too smug.

Jarret decided he would get some practice in after all. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the seven symbols, in just the right order, that created a specific levitation spell, targeting it to a particular place, and he added a further three symbols to indicate exactly what would happen to the levitated item. A typical snowkitten his age would have struggled with such a complex spell. But the symbols came easily to Jarret's mind. When he unleashed the spell, the entire contents of the nearby sandpit lifted as one from their blue plastic container, floating like a light brown cloud over to Ben, and when Jarret concluded the spell with a quick hand gesture, the sand landed on Ben, covering him from head to toe. His yell of protest was matched by the teacher when some of the sand - perhaps intentionally - sprayed across her books. She knew exactly who the culprit was, and this time Jarret didn't escape from being sent to the headmaster's office, except that this time he felt he had earned it. Andrina, meanwhile, watched him leaving the class with a certain level of fascination, not to mention gratitude.

Jarret tutted loudly when he noticed that his twin sister, Ailee, was already waiting outside the office, having also been sent there for causing trouble by her own teacher, Mr Jenkins.

Not bad for a first day's work, Jarret thought proudly.