Consciousness returned slowly. Rain blinked the crust from his eyes and gradually drifted from a murky half-remembered dream of his mother and father. The memory of the dream was already slipping through his claws and he found he couldn't recall any of it a moment later. A little annoyed he managed to focus and found himself in a room, a shadowy room with the curtains closed. He was laid out on a fluffy carpet in front of a low flickering fire in a fireplace. Strange, this was hardly what he expected to wake up to. He shifted and found Opal atop him, asleep, then, more surprising, he found Lyra was slumped against him, also asleep. A long thin line of drool hung from the sheep girl's lip and she was rather loudly snoring. Rain squinted at that, those noises did not belong on such a small

