The Guiltless Aeon’s sprawling moon-city stretches out in all directions, strange curling architecture carved out of the moon-rock itself. Three flyers have flown here. One is small, winged, carried on no current of air through the inky-blankness. The others are less corporeal, even here, where nothing is corporeal, of ghostly not-substance, like the void through which they fly. Morphia, Mags and Marcus come to land on the surface of the moon.

The Aeon is a foe to all who care for others, for he has no sense of purpose beyond himself. He does not ponder if his actions have consequences. He simply is.

Mags will try persuasion, using words to offer a path through the tangled wood that separates the Aeon from others. Marcus, who sees things from two perspectives, will try to help the Aeon do so too. But, if all else fails, there is the Haunting.

Try as she might to switch off her critical thinking, let pure imagination flow, when she crafts the dream-games, Morphia finds that allusions like this keep creeping in. The reality out there in the world, the injustice, and what she’s doing to fight it (she hopes she’s fighting it? Can she fight it?).

Yet the twisting narratives, the complex rules even she only half understands, mask these cores of grown-up-ness. The games provide new insights into grand ideas, yes, but also sheer, uncritical pleasure, disbelief suspended, carried along in the sensation of the various and the new.

After wandering the moon city’s streets, they follow up on a hint and arrive at a run-down theatre owned by a family of puppets, who offer them a place to stay. This gives them a change to plan the next stage of their journey. Where will it take them? They can plan that all they want, but they can only be sure about the next step, and that to take it they need to keep on dreaming.