"I came through, decanted myself into the idealised body I found waiting in their minds, then disappeared, losing myself in the Nightside. Partly because I wanted to walk incognito to see how much things had changed in my absence, and partly to conceal myself from any of my old enemies who might have survived. I was still vulnerable, then. I needed to rebuild my power in peace. After some time, when I was myself again, I chose one of my unwitting summoners, who seemed to have grasped a little of the truth, and-disguised as the woman Fennella Davis-I made a child with him. The child rooted me in this reality, so that I could never be forced out again. I hadn't planned to stick around afterwards, but you were so fascinating, John ... I'd never had a human child before. Flesh of my flesh, spirit of my spirit... I was curious to see how you'd turn out. And I enjoyed playing human. Being mother. Carrying out the role I had originally been intended for ...

"And then Charles found out. Somebody told him; I never did discover who. But it meant I had to disappear again, back into the more secret depths of the Nightside, so that no-one would ever guess your true identity, your true nature and purpose. If any of the day's major players had even suspected, they would have been lining up to kill you, for any number of reasons. I knew Charles wouldn't talk. If anyone ever suspected he was responsible for bringing back Lilith, the manner of his death would have been legendary, even in the Nightside. And, of course, he still believed his research would uncover a way to banish me again. He couldn't talk to his old friend Henry, by then so highly placed in the Authorities, and he wouldn't talk to his old friend Mark, who had been the Collector, because Mark had found Fennella Davis in the first place. Charles was alone. He couldn't trust anyone any more. Not even his young son. Poor Charles.

"I never did find out who told him. But whoever it was, they never talked either. Perhaps because they knew what I would do to them, the moment they revealed themselves.

"Now my power is back. The stars have come round again, and all the most dangerous Powers and Forces in the Nightside have been nicely weakened by the angel war. I knew causing the Unholy Grail to be brought to the Nightside would shake things up. The time is right for me to remake and refashion the Nightside into what I always intended it to be. Something much ... purer in concept. A great many people will undoubtedly die in the process, yes, but you can't make an omelette without beating hell out of the eggs."

She smiled around at all of us, inviting comment. And all I could think of was the awful dead landscape I'd walked through in the Timeslip. Was that her idea of a purer concept? Or did it mean that something was going to go horribly wrong with her plans? That the Powers and the Dominations of the Nightside would go to war with her, to preserve their vision of the Nightside, and everyone would lose?