Tthor, still with a feeling of apprehension in his body, separated from Darius, on the main road and ran to the Yalfom house. The farewell was quite difficult, especially for little Lily who couldn't stop crying. Tthor hugged her several times and had to promise her that she would write to him every week.

   He came to Warghost running. He then slowed down and started walking with his hands in his pockets.

    "Where is Darius?" Tthor asked Lee-Won.

   "It's wage payment day, he's probably with the Blumbers."

   " Payday?" Tthor was surprised.

   "Yes," said Lee-Won smiling." but don't get excited, only adult servants get paid, minor ones don't."

   " We work for excellent food…"

   "And don't forget the comfortable beds..." Lee Won joked, as he watched Noel approach down a hallway. "Will you write to me?"

   " Of course and you? Do you have money for the canopus?" Tthor said worried.

   "Don't worry, my mother has shared some of her salary with me," Lee-Won whispered. "Here I have some coins."

   And when he saw them, his face changed and he ran to the stables, followed by Lee-Won and Noel.

   Without thinking too much about it, Tthor ran down the deserted hallway to the bedrooms behind the stables. There he found the blacksmith, folding a blanket and placing it in an old worn leather bag.

   " You are leaving?"

   "Yes," said Rize Fen, "I will leave Meaghdose." I will never be welcome in this place.

   Tthor then stretched out his hand, offering him the bag with the thirty silver coins.

  "This will help you start a new life. Don't ask anything. Just take it and go. "Oh, and take this too," Tthor told him, digging under his torn mattress and pulling out the sword he had found in the underground levels of Warghost.

   The blacksmith opened his eyes wide, faced with such a revelation.

   "It's the flaming sword!"

   "I need you to repair it, if possible. I'll have to prepare. Next time, Ördel Domtrov won't make it so easy for me, maybe he already knows who I am..."

   Lee-Won, Darius and Noel accompanied Tthor and his mother to the Meaghdose train station in the late afternoon. The young man made them promise that they would take care of the garden and Asmodeus until his return and that they would keep in touch by letter as often as they could. They gave each other a group hug. Noel gave him a big box of choco-spiders for the trip and Lee-Won, on impulse, gave him another hug.

   "Don't forget about me..." he implored her in a whisper.

   "Not in a thousand lives," Tthor told him, looking him straight in the eyes.

   And he climbed onto the freight train, which only had a couple of cars adapted for passengers. He still felt the sweetness of Lee-Won's words. He sat in the seat opposite his mother, who had already settled down and had opened a book, a clear sign that she had no intention of talking on the way.

   Tthor observed, through the sealed window, the entire vast landscape that opened up in front of him. The train moved slowly at first and then acquired a constant speed. He began to meander down the hill, leaving behind, at the green and red station, his new friends who were still waving with their hands from the platform, until they got lost around a sharp curve. Just when the curve seemed to end, Tthor saw the figure of a black dog, standing in the middle of a road and seemed to have its red eyes fixed on the boy. The train swayed a little and took a straight path. The boy looked again but the dog was gone.

  Tthor took a deep breath and sank into his seat, feeling all the accumulation of fatigue from the last few months on his thin body. So all he had to do was close his eyes to fall deeply asleep.

   The trip was quick and smooth. For some reason, Tthor never broke down on train rides. Although he did not like them too much, because the movement and shape of the carriages, which, according to Tthor, resembled a snake, made him quite apprehensive.

   Night had already fallen when they reached Viper Tive Rd. Tthor nervously walked the few meters to the front door, just when Wilgenyna appeared, limping with difficulty, and somewhat shy through the half-open door. Tthor let go of her trunk and ran towards her. With renewed strength, he lifted her with both arms by her waist, spun her in the air and then merged with her in an endless embrace.

   " Tthor, did you miss me?" Wilgenyna asked, completely surrendered to the warmth of the boy's embrace.

   " I always miss you...," he responded with a sweet and manly voice.

   And a soft breeze enveloped them, complicit in a long-awaited reunion.

   Suddenly, the image of both of them became disturbed and then disappeared. The banshee stirred the bowl in which he was watching the scene with her long black nail. He settled down on a dry log and breathed calmly. He looked up and stared at Warghost Abbey shining on the hilltop, its watchtowers alight, against a crimson sky that was beginning to be dotted with the first sunshine of the new day. A sound of breaking branches was heard behind him but the banshee did not startle.

   "I was waiting for you..." he said without taking his eyes off the abbey.

   A large black dog approached her and sat down next to her, barking a couple of times in greeting.

   "Next time, it won't be so easy for Tthor Prayer," said the banshee.

   "No, it won't be," Professor Evans assured, while a part of his face was still transfigured and his ears changed from dog to human. "But this time, he will be better prepared."

   "The big three of Heaven are no longer aligned," Bean declared, while he looked at the sky in all directions.

   "That means we will have a period of calm."

   "Yes, but after the calm the storm always comes. Ördel Domtrov is stronger. I can feel it."

  "Yes, but Tthor is too," said Professor Evans and quickly adopted the form of a black dog again.

   He glanced askance at the banshee and disappeared into the bushes that surrounded the old Cretan tree that, with its dry branch, shone exuberantly in the silver light of the breakingdown.

   The banshee then whispered a spell and with a swift movement of her cloak she enveloped herself in a whirlwind of gray smoke and, in a second, she disappeared...