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Justice was something that could never rest. "Justice can go to hell for one night, seriously," was something her sister said, and even Irelia seemed to back her up, but Wisp Darnell knew that the cold lonely streets were something she had to patrol -- even without Rory and Christian, her job was never done! Sure, Christian looked at her like she was psychotic, but he understood deep down, didn't he? So did Aurora. They all understood! They understood that Wisp was a force for Good, and that out there there were forces of Evil.

She roamed far from her house -- unmolested, generally and slightly bizarrely, by all those who normally would have seen a preteen girl as the easiest target of their lives. She would snap her rainbow brooch, the Rainbow of Light, close to her chest and concentrate hard to manipulate it between her fingers as she walked -- jogged sometimes, or unsteadily tried to use the Rainbow to help her, but that only worked when the moon was bright and she could seep colour from everything around. She was weakest at night. The colours were all muted and toned down into greys, so she had to carry bulging packs of star sprinkles to boost her, or find she ran flat on petrol pretty quick.

It was sheer hedonism more than the fight for justice and goodness that took her winding past the city that night, over to the shore, on her pushbike most of the way. She'd tried using Jacoba's bike the first few times, but it was so heavy she could only ride it for short distances on straights, and couldn't even begin to get it up a hill without serious assistance. So Bea had eventually given in to the begging and the pleading, and for her birthday she had gotten a bright pink bike that Jace had accused her of "fagging up" with rainbow stickers and decals and ribbons and bright pink neon things you put on the wheels -- whatever, it looked rad.

She abandoned her bike behind a tree by the beach, hiding it under some scrub, before going out and hitting the streets. It was a part of town she'd never been before -- its own part of town, really, with the water whispering on the waves, so close she could smell it. The streets were absolutely deserted. No car even came by, not even one far-off.

It was a little bit disappointing.

The pumpkin, at least, had no answer for that; the bzz-bzz of bike tires ended abruptly, followed thereafter by the crunching of leaves. A little while after that, a girl appeared in the darkness like a glow-in-the-dark specter: she shoved her hands in her pockets and drummed her feet on the ground, and then she lit up like a fistful of Christmas lights when she saw the other girl by the trash can.

"Ophelia?" Wisp said, and she immediately skipped over. "Hey! Ophelia. You live here?! No way!"

They were both a little paint-stained: Wisp had smudges of pastel over her shorts. She looked at this and looked more thrilled than ever at the matchy.

Wisp had always had a soft spot for Ophelia: the least of which that the girl was, shallowly, very pretty, and sparkled. Pretty sparkles were guaranteed an automatic fondness in Wisp Darnell's world. It was depressing. She moved forward to touch her knuckles to the curly-haired brunette's, despite looking less gangsta than your average cupcake.

"I'm kind of like a superhero," she said modestly, "I was going around looking for misdoin's. There are no misdoin's tonight, though, so I guess the city is safe for now." (She seemed utterly serious.) "Oh my God, is that a real live fairy?"

Wisp was too distracted to explain the secret handshake, and so was much more interested in Tinkerbell. She was even too distracted to ask what or who Link was. "That is pretty much the coolest thing I have ever seen," she said, in hushed tones. "I want a fairy so much. My mom has, like, a rock elemental but all Thwomp does is eat candy and look, well, kind of rock-y. A fairy is wicked cool. It's like a sidekick, you know?"

Wisp had sort of half-meandered up next to Ophelia, but was hanging back. "Your dad won't mind, right?" she said, a bit hopefully. "I mean, your dad is super nice and wonderful and incredible but it is a school night and my mom doesn't know I'm out soooo, I hope he doesn't immediately telephone my mother and is all 'hey what the heck is your kid doing playing hooky,' so... I'd love to come inside, though. I've never been to your house before!"

The fact that Ophelia was home alone in their house enchanted her utterly. It was cool. It was very adult. She found the place spacious and pretty, much the same as Bea's own tastes in her own flat, and warmed up immediately to it. Wisp grinned at the curly-haired girl.

"Wow, all this space," she said enviously, "me and Mom and Jace and Irelia are crammed into like, three rooms. Does your dad paint the pictures? Do you? You live in like, an artist's house. That is so absolutely wicked cool, OMG." (Wisp pronounced 'omg' like 'omug', instead of sensibly sounding out each letter in the acronym.)

Her curly ponytail bounced as she tripped on through after Ophelia, interested in everything. It was easy to show Wisp around.

"You know, now that I'm here, I should give you some star sprinkles," she said, "only they never come out, so don't like, paint your face unless you're seeing me the next day and you're like 'hey Wisp can you make my face not orange.'"

"Yes!" said Wisp immediately, distracted from having briefly examined Ophelia's landscapes -- they might have been childlike, but they also showcased her talent, and as a budding artist herself she could look at them with a critical and an approving eye. She whirled around from looking at another picture in the corridor wall. "A real painting study? I am jealous. I am green. I wish my mom was the art teacher," she said enviously, following.

Hands behind her back as though she were a good child in a china shop, Wisp considered, and then broke into a smile. The little blue star underneath her eye crinkled a little when she did that. "It's like the mural," she said, "the mountains and everything -- we drew the rad jellyfish in the ocean and everything. And the train track would've been down there, right? You remembered it all, wow."