"You've come a long way for answers," he said. "I wish I could be of more help. But truth be told, I'm just a functionary, a servant of the Nightside. Powerful beyond hope or reason, yes, because I need that power to enforce my will. But still in the end just an old, old man, unable to put down a burden he has carried for far too long. I am the heart that beats in every action and decision that makes up the Nightside, and I'm getting bloody tired of it. So ask your questions, John Taylor, and I will answer what I can. Perhaps because it's the only form of rebellion still left to me."

"Excuse me," said Sinner, very politely, "but what about the rest of us? Are we also immune to your judgement?"

"You don't matter," the Lord of Thorns said calmly. "Only John Taylor matters. Though you three are unique in the whole of the Nightside, in that it has been given to you, for various reasons, to shape your own destinies. This has been decided where all the things that matter are decided—on the shimmering plains, in the Courts of the Holy. I have no power over you—sinner, demon, madman." He looked at them thoughtfully, then at me. "You chose your companions for this quest wisely. No others could or would have escaped my judgement. Now ask your questions."

"All right," I said. "Tell me all you know about the beginnings of the Nightside, its purpose and true nature."

"The Nightside is old," said the Lord of Thorns. "I think probably only its creator knows exactly how old. Certainly it existed before me. Though at that time it was not so much a place of people, more a gathering place of Beings and Forces, still moulding their identities and intentions. The Romans knew of the Nightside when I first came to this land, back when it was still called the Tin Isles as much as Britannia. The Romans feared and venerated the Nightside, and built their city of Londinium around it, to protect and contain it, and to protect their people and their Empire from its influences. They knew of your mother, too, John, and worshipped her; though no-one now knows under what name. If I ever knew, I have forgotten, or more likely was made to forget. I have had a long time to consider the question, of who and what she might have been ... and down the long centuries I have chosen and discarded many names. My best guess, my current belief, is that your mother was the Being called Luna, sister to Gaea."

"Hold everything," I said, holding up a hand. "Gaea ... as in the earth? That Gaea? You think my mother is the Moon!"

"Yes. The living embodiment of the moon that shines so brightly above the Nightside. Why do you think it's so big here? Because she's keeping an eye on her creation. You are a Moonchild, John Taylor, neither truly of the light or the dark, and half-brother to the infamous Nicholas Hob, the Serpent's Son. It is my belief that Luna created the Nightside in order that she might have a stake in the earth, along with her sister, and a say in the development of Humanity."