There was silence, the kind that always proceeded from this kind of dramatic speech.

Everyone was all awed, and stuff. Even Padfoot looked exactly the same as everybody else, and Laura would have bet the entire contents of her duffel bag that he didn't know the Secret Adobe from a mud hut. God, they looked annoying. With their mouths all hanging open and whispering completely obvious things to each other. Laura didn't want a part of it. It was all... wrong, somehow.

She drummed her fingers on the table and glowered.

"So, any questions?" asked the guy in the cloak after a moment. Sabbrielle nearly said something, and then thought better of it. Moony asked a question, instead.

"Where's Meg?"

Everbody looked around.

Everbyody looked around in other directions.

It was true. Meg was nowhere to be found.

"Yeah!" started Laura, glad to have something definably wrong to latch onto. "How does a benevolent spirit manage to arrange all of this for us and yet forget important people?"

"Meg is not a part of this world," said the guy in the cloak, making a peaceful gesture. "She was a moderator of your board, which is no longer needed. Here, scepters and swords are what rule."

Alarm bells were going off furiously in Laura's head, and apparently everyone else's. Most of the older residents looked profoundly disturbed, and Sabbrielle stood up in her throne and spoke.

"You're wrong," she said clearly and quietly. "Meg was so much more than that. She was our heart and soul. She was the moderator and kept the peace when the rest of us could not, and always had something interesting to say. She was a just and fair ruler and used actual powers, not a scepter. She never had a scepter. Scepters aren't real."

"They are here," the guy in the cloak said simply, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Everybody sat and blinked at each other. Then everybody but Laura dashed off in unison to explore the castle.