"What's funny?" her pere said.

"Nothing. Who were your friends at school?" she said, eager to shift the discussion away from herself.

"I didn't have many friends. A couple of mates I went fishing with, that kind of thing. And hanging out with girls wasn't the done thing when I was your age. Growing up with your aunts kind of had me girled out anyway."

She let out a snort of laughter. She tried to imagine her father as a boy, his two older sisters alternately lavishing him with attention and using him as a weapon in their legendary disputes.

"Did you have a best friend?" Carmen was curious about this matter of best friends, because she couldn't work out if she had one herself. Surely Slops, as her cousin, didn't count. And it seemed to her that best friends should be equal to each other. Slops was always – and she sometimes felt guilty for the part she played in this – so subservient.

Her pere seemed about to say something, then simply nodded and turned back to his work.

Carmen considered pressing him for a moment, then decided not to. She was here to learn about the dice. If she annoyed him she wouldn't learn anything. She got up and began to wander in what she hoped looked like a casual way around the room. She glanced at her pere from time to time, but he was once more absorbed in his work.

Thump-chock.

She stopped at the shelf that had once held the dice. Swallowed. Took a breath. "What happened to the dice?"

A pause. "What dice honey?" He didn't look up.

"The dice that -"

"- oh those dice. You've got a good memory. Why do you ask?" He looked up at her without removing the point of the chisel from the surface of the timber.

Carmen shrugged.

Her pere turned away again. He sighted down the chisel with one eye, closing the other. "Let me think now. Maybe your Aunt Sara took them?"

"I never found them at the Sloopers."

"It would be a wonder if you could find anything at the Sloopers."

They both smiled, and the peculiar tension in the room, which had been floating between them like a cloud, dissipated.

"Wait," he said. "I remember now. I gave them to your Grandmere."

"What did she do with them?"

"You'd have to ask her."

"Oh."

"You can try, you know. It's good for her." And for you, was the unspoken end of that sentence.

"Okay. I'll try."

"That's my girl. Now you'd better head off to -"

"Who gave them to you?"

"Funny you should ask that," he said.

She waited. And waited.

"Why is it funny?" she said.

He put the chisel and mallet down and turned to face her. "I can see I'm not going to get any work done until I tell you everything."

Carmen gazed innocently back at him.

"It's funny because – well, because we were only just talking about him."

She thought back. "Your best friend?"

"Ahuh."

"Where did he get them from?"

"Now that is interesting," he said. But he suddenly looked tired. Old. Carmen almost felt guilty for pressing him. Almost. "He stole them from the Arcane Vault."

"How?"

"I have no idea. He was only eleven. We were best friends coming up in school," he went on. "When his parents were executed he came and lived with us. He was -" Joe shook his head. "I had a fel in those days. Her name was Kefira."

This was the first Carmen had heard of this fel. She wondered why he had never mentioned it before.

"I came home from school one day and went to my friend's room looking for him, but he wasn't there. The door was open a crack and Kefira went inside. I could hear her in there scratching at something and yowling, which was odd, because she was a quiet thing usually. When I got inside I found her staring at one of the desk drawers, with her back arched and her hair standing on end. I figured there was a snokey or something in there. When I opened the drawer she shot out of the room. Very strange. There was no snokey in the drawer, and I couldn't see anything chewed, and no droppings. I was about to close the drawer again when I saw it. An old leather pouch, buried in the junk in the drawer. I took it out and opened it. That was when my friend came into the room."

"Was he angry?"

Her pere nodded at the chisel. "I tried to explain what had happened, but he wouldn't listen. I knew he'd already been inside the Arcane Vault, and I had no reason not to believe him – he wasn't the type to boast. So I began to wonder if he'd found the dice there. Later, after he'd settled down, he admitted that he had."

"But why did he give them to you?"

"Hmmm? Oh, I don't remember. I guess he must have got bored with them." Her pere sighted down the chisel as he spoke, and Carmen got the sense he wasn't being entirely truthful with her.

Thump-chock.

"What happened to your fel?"

"Oh she died." He glanced at Grim. "Unfortunately they don't live as long as we do." He seemed to look through the back wall of the attic for a moment. Then he turned to her. "Thanks for the blackleaf, honey. Sleep tight."

"Night," she said, and went over and kissed him on the cheek. Then she went downstairs to bed.

Night my lovely readers. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. Not that you'll be able to stop them if they really want to.