The door to the room splintered under repeated blows from outside. The desk in front of it slid forward an inch. A silver moon trooper mask peered through the cracks.

Fitz said several very bad words. Then he said some other words Flower didn't recognise. She shuddered when the room turned cold. With one hand on Mudface's shoulder, she watched Fitz use nothing more than his hands to draw a large rectangle in the air. Before her startled eyes, the entire shape turned black.

The Moon Troopers hacked a hole in the door. The first of them crawled through, only to be met with a swing of Nikifor's axe. A head went flying; blood spurted from the neck and splashed the wall. The head landed near Carrots, who promptly kicked it straight back through the door.

Flower swallowed a surge of nausea and collected her thoughts. She let go of Mudface, who was still transfixed by the press, and pushed the fairies towards Fitz. "Go, get out of here!"

Fitz began to shove handfuls of fairies through the cold black opening.

The Moon Troopers finally broke a big enough hole in the door to pour through it. Nikifor was swamped in seconds, but from his yelling and the amount of blood on the walls Flower knew he was just fine. She urged the fairies toward the opening with renewed urgency. She ducked a Moon Trooper who had got past Nikifor and kicked him in the shins when he made a swipe for Mudface. "Mudface we have to go now!"

Mudface broke and ran to the other end of the press.

Flower almost fell over the Lord of the Gourd sitting on the floor, arms crossed, scowling at the whole riot. She scooped her up and shoved her at Fitz, then went back for Mudface.

Nikifor had been pushed back toward the door in the air by the knot of Moon Troopers around him. Long, black-clad bodies littered the floor in his wake. Almost all the fairies were through.

"Flower there's no time!" Fitz roared.

Flower balled a fist and drove it into the face of a Moon Trooper who blocked her way to Mudface.

He caught her upraised hand and wrenched it behind her back. His breath was cold on her neck. "You're overdue for a little chat with the king, Muse."

Flower was a peacemaker, always had been. At least, she'd tried to convince herself she was for years after she was finally freed from her duties defending Shadow. She didn't want to fight all her life. She didn't even like violence, but if this creature didn't get out of her face she was going to break his head. She spoke through clenched teeth. "If you dare to utter the name of the king again, you faceless creature, I will personally remove your tongue and then feed it to you!" She stomped on his foot with the heel of her boot and elbowed him in the ribs.

"You want to act like a fairy, I'll drain your blood like a fairy, I don't care how disgusting you taste." The Moon Trooper's fingers dug into her neck.

"What are you, some kind of wannabe vampire?" Flower struggled and twisted against the grip. Her stomach churned with a cold, remembered fear. Those roars in the night echoed down the passage of twenty-five years. The Moon Trooper bent her head to expose her neck.

A meaty thwack made her very skull vibrate. The Moon Trooper's grip released; he slumped to the ground with Nikifor's axe buried in his head. Blood spurted all over Flower.

She spat the foul substance from her mouth and stared at Nikifor over the body. Her heart felt heavy and sick. "Are theseare these" she couldn't complete the sentence.

"Duck," Nikifor said.

Flower ducked, then scrambled out of the way when Nikifor's axe swung at more Moon Troopers. With no more time for thought, she ran to where Mudface was jumping up and down at the far end of the press. Steam escaped from the machine near her hands and the rumbling reached a pitch.

"Mudface we have to go!"

"My book! I want my book!"

"We can't wait!"

But even as Flower yelled the words, a slim, black-covered book fell from the machine into Mudface's waiting hands. Mudface squealed and hugged it to her ribs.

Flower grabbed her just before an avalanche of books tumbled onto the spot where the fairy had been standing.

Shazza ran to the pile, straightened them and picked them up. She chuckled at Flower and Mudface. "I wouldn't come back in a hurry if I were you, Fairy," she said, and vanished, books and all, in a puff of stale smoke.

"Flower! Nikifor now!" Fitz roared.

Flower picked Mudface up under one arm and charged through the fighting. She dodged Moon Troopers, ducked Nikifor's swinging axe and leaped through the opening into darkness so thick she could have cut it with a knife.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

The hole between the worlds sucked Nikifor right out of Shadow and into darkness. It was all he could do to keep hold of the axe, and there was nothing at all he could do when the Moon Troopers followed.

He fell onto a cold, hard surface littered with wriggling forms. One of them kicked him and said a bad word when he pinned a foot to the floor. He dragged himself free, blind, listening desperately for the sound of Moon Troopers under the babble of the fairies. "Quiet! They followed us in!" he roared into the darkness.

From somewhere high, high above, there was a loud thump, a slam and scrambling feet. Then a rush of air. Nikifor ducked. Something swiped right over where his head had been. They could see in the dark. He felt sick. The look in Flower's eyes not five minutes ago when he'd dragged a Moon Trooper off her neck had already told him what he'd known, deep down, for years.

A thud. The crack of bone. A short, sharp, high-pitched scream, just as quickly cut off.

Somewhere above them a door swung open and a shaft of light revealed a tall staircase with two figures at the top. Then a click. Light flooded from bare bulbs overhead into a big, cluttered room with no windows. Bloomin Fairies were packed into the space so tightly there was barely even room to stand. Nikifor, Flower and Fitz formed a living shield between them and fifteen Moon Troopers ranged against a wall. One Moon Trooper held a broken, lifeless form by the topknot. The body dangled, eyes staring into nothing.

The silence stretched on forever.

Then a breathless, horrified whisper from one of the fairies. "Carrots!"

The fairies began to scream. Someone at the top of the stairs screamed. The fairies stampeded, some towards the stairs, some towards the Moon Troopers, until it was all Nikifor could do to keep his footing.

But he didn't care. Rage possessed him so hard he barely knew his own name. With one swipe of his arm he pushed all the fairies around him toward the stairs, then swung his axe around his head so quickly the weapon turned to a gleam of light. On the second circle the blade sliced off the head of the Moon Trooper who had killed Carrots. Flower darted forward to rescue the frail, broken body and then herd the fairies up the stairs.

Nikifor drove his fist into a silver mask and struck out with an elbow to the neck of another. The Moon Trooper fell. He raised his axe for the next blow, but it stayed in midair. A woman stood in front of him clutching a broadsword too big for her in one hand and a dagger in the other. She stared up at him with big dark eyes. Her long, long hair, dishevelled and loosely pinned as though she'd been sleeping, was threaded with grey. The lines around her eyes jolted him. How clearly he remembered her now, a young girl of twenty, innocent, violent, desperate to escape a tyrant.

"Hello Nikifor," she said.

Nikifor couldn't make his voice work.

Your destiny is to kill the muse king.

He could hear the words, see her face as though she were saying it right now. "Hippy," he finally whispered.

She jerked her head at the stairs. "Come on. Some of them got up there. Fitz and Clockwork are holding them off, but if they're not careful they'll wake Krysta." She headed up the stairs.

Nikifor followed. "Who is Krysta?"

"My daughter. She doesn't exactly believe in any of this, and I'm not keen on her finding out tonight. I'd never hear the end of it." Hippy hurried through the door at the top of the stairs and into a big, carpeted room where Bloomin Fairies packed into every bit of floor space and furniture possible, jumping up and down while they cheered on Fitz, Flower and a Freakin Fairy: Clockwork. A man of fifty, toughened, lined, where Nikifor remembered a fresh-faced boy who had saved his life. But he remembered nothing more. The blank spaces in his mind swamped him when he looked at this man.

"Hey!" Hippy yelled. "Would you lot keep it down? There are people still asleep in this house!" She charged into the fray and dealt a savage blow with her blade to the stomach of the one Moon Trooper foolish enough to get in her way. She strode straight on through and scowled fiercely at the Bloomin Fairies, whom she towered over by at least a foot. "I said keep it down! My house, my rules, understand?"

The Bloomin Fairies stared at her in wide-eyed astonishment. Behind her, Fitz and Clockwork took down another three Moon Troopers.

Nikifor roused himself from his stupefied staring and counted the Moon Troopers. There were only two left in here fighting the others, which meant another two had slipped out.

A shrill scream echoed through the house. Nikifor bolted through the door and into a room dominated by a wide staircase. There was nobody there. He was poised to race up the stairs when he heard glass smash in the kitchen just across from him. He was there in seconds.

Two Moon Troopers advanced on a girl with bright pink hair and striped pyjamas. She stood on a big table, armed with a wooden stick that was curved at one end. It didn't look especially dangerous, but when one of the Moon Troopers leaped onto the table she came in low with a vicious blow to the knees that ended in a sickening crunch. The Moon Trooper stumbled and fell, but he grabbed onto the girl's legs and took her crashing to the floor with him.

So this was Hippy's daughter. Nikifor buried his axe in the other Moon Trooper's head and kicked him aside. He hauled the attacker off the girl by the scruff of the neck and drove the mask into the table so hard the table cracked, along with the creature's neck.

Krysta screamed, scrambled for her curved stick and brandished it at Nikifor. "Who the freaking hell are you? And who are they?"

Nikifor looked down at his hands holding the axe. Both were covered in blood. What must she think? He dropped the axe and held up his hands. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

"You'd better not you psycho! Where are my parents? What have you done with them?"

"Your parents are fighting Moon Troopers to the magnificent death!" he boomed. Then he clapped a hand to his mouth, mortified. "Sorry," he whispered. He backed up a step. Krysta's face was as fierce and determined as any Bloody Fairy going into battle and he didn't particularly want his knees broken.

Hippy burst through the doorway and raced over to her.

Krysta broke her death glare from Nikifor and dropped her wooden stick. "Mum you're okay! What's going on? Why are you covered in blood? Do we need to call the police? Who's he?" She pointed at Nikifor.

Hippy glanced around the kitchen, took in the dead Moon Troopers and the mess, gave the girl a sunny smile and patted her on the cheek. "Nothing's going on at all, sweetie, you're just having a bad dream. Why don't you go back up to bed?"

Krysta gave her an incredulous look and patted herself down. "But it feels real. Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. Look, would this happen in real life?" Hippy took a jar from the spice rack, uncorked it and sprinkled sparkling powder all over the bodies of the Moon Troopers. Smoked curled up. The bodies blackened and turned to ash.

Hippy aimed a savage kick at the nearest one, which turned him to powder. "That," she said through clenched teeth, "Is what we do with vamps." She turned back to Krysta, all sunny smiles again. "Off to bed with you, dear. And don't forget to get changed, you've got blood on your pyjamas."

"Okay. If you're sure this is a dream." Krysta picked up her wooden stick and with one last bewildered glance at Nikifor, left the room.

Nikifor watched her climb the stairs and disappear, then glanced over his shoulder at Hippy. "Will she really believe that?"

"Of course she will. She's grown up around humans. They don't believe in anything except science." Hippy made a face to show what she thought of science, picked up a broom and began to sweep Moon Trooper dust off the floor.

Nikifor watched her work. "Vamps," he said, almost under his breath.

"Yes, vamps." Hippy swept the dust into a pile and then emptied it into a bin before directing a glare at him. "You and I have fought enough of them, I should think you'd know one when you see one. What are you doing bringing vamps into my house?"

Nikifor collapsed onto the nearest chair and dropped his head in his hands. She was right. He should have admitted to himself what the Moon Troopers were years ago, but he hadn't. Nobody had. The implications sickened him, because the Moon Troopers were the strong arm of the Guild, and the Guild had been set up by the king himself.

There was a step in the doorway. Hippy uttered a squeal and launched herself into the arms of the person standing there. "Flower!"

Nikifor shifted slightly to watch Flower squeeze Hippy and then gently place her back on the floor.

"Come in, come in, sit down, I can't believe you two are really here! And look at the state of you, all covered in blood." Hippy clicked her tongue in disapproval, handed each of them a wet towel and then put a kettle on the stove.

Nikifor and Flower exchanged a glance while the Bloody Fairy rushed about the kitchen, removing blood from the walls and floor and preparing drinks. Flower looked frankly bewildered. She wiped the blood from her face and hands with the towel. "Fitz has taken the Bloomin Fairies to their new home," she said.

"Thank goodness for that." Hippy slammed several mugs onto the counter and spooned powder into them. "Horrid noisy creatures, he really should have warned me he was bringing them into my house. Why didn't you come the normal way? And what are you two doing here? Not that I'm not glad to see you both, but there's only so many times I'm going to be able to convince my dear practical daughter she's not seen anything out of the ordinary before she starts to think she's completely nuts and then I'll have to tell her it's all real and you know that'll lead to all kinds of trouble."

Before either Flower or Nikifor could respond or even get a word in edgewise, Clockwork stomped into the room, sat heavily at the head of the table and scowled. "Well, this is a complete balls up."

"Oh good, you're here." Hippy dropped a kiss on his head. "Make us all a nice coffee would you, dear? I'll be back in a moment, I want to get those nasty vamps cleaned up." She picked up her vial of sparkling powder and the broom and hurried out.

Clockwork watched her go. A grin tugged at the edges of his mouth when he looked at Nikifor. "You look better than you did last time I saw you, mate." He turned to Flower. "You I presume are Flower. Hippy said you're a friend." He got up and poured water from the whistling kettle into the cups. Then he took a bottle of amber liquid from a shelf, added a liberal splash to each cup and put them all on the table.

Nikifor wrapped his hands around the warm cup. The mildly intoxicating steam that rose from it soothed his nerves. He watched the man's heavy, deliberate gestures, hoping for some further trigger to his memory. "I remember you," he said. "Not how or why, only that I owe you everything."

Clockwork gave him a cynical look from under heavy eyebrows. "Twenty five years ago I dragged you out of Castle Arch half-dead and left you with the forest people. Wasn't easy, considering the size of you and the size of me."

"Castle Arch?" Flower's voice sharpened. "The home of the king?"

"Yeah, that Arch." Clockwork stretched, settled himself into a more comfortable position and sipped from his cup. "Nastiest place I ever went to, but it seemed appropriate for a pretender king. I hope he's still there rotting."

Flower opened her mouth to argue. Nikifor quickly motioned for her to be silent. She glared daggers at him, but didn't speak.

"Please tell me what happened there, friend," Nikifor said.

"You really don't remember?" Clockwork raked several dreadlocks out of his face.

"I have had a gap in my memory for many years now," Nikifor said. "If you can help me discover what happened-"

Clockwork shrugged. "All I know is you helped us get out through the killer roses and passed out when we were almost there. Rustam Badora was in pursuit. Hippy jumped off the cart to head him off so we could make it out. I dragged you into the forest, then went off to get help for her." A shadow crossed his face. "She saved both our lives that day, yours and mine, mate, and she nearly died for it."

"But I don't understand," Flower cut in, her voice strained. "What was Badora doing at Castle Arch? And why didn't you seek the help of the king?"

One of Clockwork's eyebrows twitched upward. "Seek his help? He was the one trying to kill us!"

Flower went white. "Surely you're mistaken! Nikifor was in his care and Hippy, he loved-" she broke off, looking bewildered.

"I wouldn't be saying things like that in this house." Clockwork's voice was even, but his eyes smouldered with hatred so intense both muses flinched.

Hippy walked in, leaned the broom against the wall and shook her vial at Clockwork. "Almost out of fairy dust," she said. "Do tell Fitz not to bring any more vamps here."

"I already did." Clockwork put his arm around Hippy's waist and drew her into the chair next to him. "Or muses."

Hippy giggled and patted his arm. "Don't mind him," she said.

Nikifor moved ever so slightly further away from her when he saw she still held the vial of fairy dust. Possibly the most toxic substance known to Shadow, and fairies had a tendency to throw it around like salt just because it sparkled and they were immune. "Youyou turned all the Moon Troopers to dust?"

"Of course I did." Hippy took a sip from her cup. "You have to. Here in Dream they ask all sorts of awkward questions and get terribly upset about bodies. It's the creepiest thing, though, those masks they were wearing" she glanced at Clockwork. "That's what Badora was wearing the day I killed him. Almost that exact same mask. What is it, some kind of vamp trend?"

"They're Moon Troopers." Flower's voice was quiet and controlled. Nikifor could give a few good guesses what she was thinking right now, and none of it was particularly comforting. "Members of the Guild's army. Nobody knows where they came from or what they are, but all Shadow fears them." She put her face in her hands.

"But they're just vamps," Hippy said. "Couldn't you tell? If it's tall and creepy and bleeds a lot when you kill it, it's a vamp. Did someone knock you on the head or something?"

Flower dropped her hands. "But after the war Pierus drove the vampires back into the Darkness where they belonged! Then he set up the Guild to maintain order. I know, I was there in Shadow City helping, how could all this have just happened around me? How could I have spent the last twenty five years not even remembering you and your clan, Hippy Ishtar, tell me that? How did I get it so wrong?"

Hippy gave her a look of mute sympathy. "I don't know. You left without ever saying goodbye. Chances are the Pretender messed with you before he left. He messed with everyone's minds, you know."