The squirrel leapt up into the higher branches, and was gone. I sat down on a nearby grassy bank in an ostentatiously casual manner, just to show I wasn't going to be pushed around. The air seemed to blow distinctly colder, and there were ominous noises and movements in the darker shadows between the trees. I studiously ignored it all, and did some hard thinking. Molly kept saying she was going to introduce me to her older sister, Isabella, but something always came up. I knew Isabella's legend. Everybody did. Molly was a wild free spirit, as dedicated to having fun as fighting all forces of authority. Isabella was more cold, focused, unyielding in her determination to search out all the dark secrets in the world, and then Do Something about them. Molly was cheerful, capricious, and at war with the world in general. Isabella wanted to know everything other people didn't want her to know, and was quite ready to do terrible things to anyone who got in her way.

They know Isabella in the Nightside, and in Shadows Fall. She'd worked both with and against the Droods, and gone head to head with the London Knights on more than one occasion. But then, they've always been a bit stuffy.

Louisa, the youngest of the Metcalf sisters, was a mystery. You heard lots of stories, but never anything definite. But the stories were always scary, and so was she. There were those who said she'd been dead seven years now, and it hadn't slowed her down one bit.

Molly's dark opinion of the Droods was no secret to me. She loathed and disapproved of my family, and all it stood for. She was a free spirit, and the Droods have always been about control. She'd only agreed to fight alongside us in the past because the alternatives were so much worse. She put up with them for my sake, but we both knew that wouldn't last. I might have problems with how my family did things, but I still believed we were necessary. We fought the good fight because someone has to. Molly and I would have to find some common ground we could agree on, or our beliefs and our consciences would drive us apart.

Would I place my love for Molly before my duties, my responsibilities-my family? I hoped so. But you can never be sure about things like that. I could not love thee half so much, my dear, loved I not honour more…

I got up and activated the door again. The Merlin Glass hung before me on the air, my flat in Kensington clear and distinct beyond it. I sighed quietly, took up my burden again, and went home. Behind me, I could hear the woods slowly coming alive again, as the threat to their peace disappeared.

I shut down the Merlin Glass, thrust it back into its subspace pocket, and took a quick shower. Normally I like to soak and relax in a hot steaming bath; but needs must when the Devil pisses on your shoes. I pulled on some fresh clothes, started for my front door, and then hesitated. I slumped into my favourite chair, and looked at nothing in particular. The poltergeist sensed my mood, and thoughtfully faded the lights down. Brooding is always best accompanied by lengthening shadows.

More and more of late I'd been considering who I was, and who I'd turned out to be… as opposed to the kind of man I'd always wanted, or intended, to be. This wasn't how I thought I'd end up. How I expected my life to turn out. I'd never been happy running the family. I did it only because it was thrust upon me. The first chance I got to return to my old life as a field agent, I grabbed it with both hands and never looked back. But now… having once embraced responsibility for my family, I found it hard to let go.

I never wanted to be important, or significant. Never wanted to be responsible for anyone but myself. That was why I'd run away from the Hall to be a field agent in the first place. But now I worried about the Matriarch, and the family, because I wasn't there to keep an eye on them. It would be so easy for them to slip back into the bad old ways, one very reasonable step at a time. The terrible Heart with its awful bargain was gone, destroyed, but the Matriarch, dear Grandmother, was born with iron in her soul. If she decided that it was in the world's best interests that the Droods should rule the world again, could I stop her? Did I have the right to overrule a freely elected leader?

I needed my freedom and my privacy, and I loved my Molly, but how could I be my family's conscience at a distance?

And, could I really take the family away from the Matriarch a second time? I'd had surprise and all kinds of good luck on my side the first time. She'd have all kinds of new defences in place now, just for me. But if the Matriarch did try to return to the old ways, would Ethel allow it? I liked to think she was my friend, but who knows what an other-dimensional entity will do, or think, or decide?

I forced myself up and out of my chair, and headed for the front door. I can take only so much brooding and existential angst before I have to get up and do something. When in doubt, face your problems head on. And head butt them in the face. I called the Merlin Glass back to my hand, and had it open a particular door to Drood Hall. Bright light flared through the opening, and I stepped through. Onto the roof of Drood Hall.

I arrived a safe distance away from the various landing pads, surrounded by a wide sea of tiles, shingles, gables and antennae. We've always been ones for just adding things on, as necessary. And pulling them down again when they weren't. We're not sentimental. I was very high up, below a sky so solidly blue I felt like I could reach up and touch it. I should have made my arrival through the main door, as tradition demanded when summoned by the Matriarch, but I was in no mood to cross swords with the Sarjeant-at-Arms. He represented authority and discipline within and over the family, and I've always had problems with authority figures. Even when I was one.

Up on the Hall roof, all kinds of unusual flying objects were coming and going, heading in for textbook landings and not always making it. Half a dozen autogyros buzzed around like oversized insects, marvellous baroque creations of brass and copper, pumping black smoke and drifting cinders behind them. They'd first appeared in the 1920s, been superseded by the '40s, and then brought back again just recently by steampunk enthusiasts in the family. Beautifully intricate and scientifically suspect, the splendid art deco machines seemed to force their way through the air by sheer brute effort.

Then there were those really brave individuals who were still trying to make jetpacks work. They flew well enough, except for when they abruptly didn't. They didn't care for sudden changes in direction, and they didn't have much of a range. But there are always a few bright young things in the family with more optimism than sense, who never got over the urge to just strap on a jetpack and go rocketing up into the wild blue yonder. Just for the thrill of it. Even though the only thing jetpacks do really well is plummet.

The Armourer keeps promising to provide us with antigravity, but he's always got some excuse.

The usual cloud of hang gliders swept by overhead, circling majestically round the roof, taking their time and showing off, held up by magic feathers. And, of course, there were a few young women riding winged unicorns. (Because some girls just never get over ponies.) A few moments after I arrived, a? flying saucer came slamming into the landing pads with its arse on fire, and went skidding towards the far edge, throwing multicoloured sparks in all directions. Proof, if proof were needed, that the Armourer's lab assistants will try absolutely anything once. They know no fear. They also have trouble with fairly simple concepts like common sense, knowledge of their own limitations, and anything approaching self-preservation instincts.

I also couldn't help noticing that some members of the family were still trying to get their armour to grow big enough wings so that they could fly. I could tell this because of the great dents and holes in the lawns surrounding the Hall.