The Fjurge Brownies gently picked Archie off the ground. Their faces were beaming with joy.

‘The Wyrdie Tree is saved,’ said Jøknut. ‘And the Mirk utterly destroyed. The forest’s wounds will heal and all will be green once more. This is an Unquiet Night to be remembered!’

‘You have proved you are worthy to be Guardian,’ Dubbeljøk added. ‘We’re sorry we ever doubted you.’

‘And you’ve learned to wyrdwork,’ said Jøkchip. ‘We can help train you to be better at it. But you used reason and the common good to convince others to help you.’ He looked at Mrs Puddingham-Pye, who was picking up a Fizzfire from a number that had dropped from Archie’s bag. ‘The Mirk had to use magic to get others to do its bidding – your humanity, your care for others, is one power that it could never understand.’

‘I also had friends,’ said Archie, grinning at Billy and Fliss. Blossom snorted a contented cloud of smoke, whilst Sherbet almost wagged his tail off with happiness.

‘This is a delightful scene,’ said Mrs Puddingham-Pye, sauntering up to Archie. ‘But I must be on my way – my job here is finished.’

‘Thank you for helping us,’ said Archie. ‘Maybe we don’t have to be enemies, after all.’

Mrs Puddingham-Pye gave him a hard stare for a moment. Then, taking the Fizzfire she had picked up, she crushed it in front of his face and let its dust trickle to the ground.

‘You are unbearably, sickeningly good-hearted, Urchin,’ she said. ‘We will always be enemies, you fool. The truce is over.’

She threw the broom into the air and jumped expertly on to it as it began to soar into the sky.

‘Come, Garstigan,’ she commanded. The mobgoblin grumbled to himself, then grabbed some Fizzfires and stuffed them in his greedy mouth before following his keeper. As they flew over the treetops and out of sight, Garstigan burped a little blue flame that caught, unnoticed, on the end of the broom.

‘The broom could burn up just when she’s flying over the loch,’ observed Billy. ‘If we’re lucky.’

More lights appeared in the early evening sky, moving rapidly. Blossom gave a burst of happy fire and soared up into the air to meet them.

‘The honey dragons!’ said Fliss. ‘They’re free!’

A swarm of the little creatures, including Old Jings, landed gracefully on the grass. The brownies bowed low in greeting. The elderly dragon explained that the net trapping them in the cavern had disintegrated into black dust and blown away on the breeze.

‘We knew immediately you must have vanquished the Mirk, and flew straight here!’ said Old Jings. ‘The McBudges would be proud of you, young Guardian. Belle can rest in peace.’

‘And Corignis,’ said Archie. He told them how the Treeheart had been hidden in the statue in the painting. ‘He played his part in defeating the Mirk, too.’

‘Now we must get you home,’ said Old Jings. ‘Before the Dance of the Wyrd takes place.’

‘I want to see it!’ complained Billy. ‘And I don’t want to get in that coffin again.’

‘The wyrdie-folk are shy,’ said Jøknut, ‘and won’t be needing you humans present at their festivities. Perhaps the dragons and my brothers can provide an alternative means of transport.’

The Fjurge Brownies ran back to the Wyrdie Tree and produced a large blanket from a nook in its trunk that, like their cloaks, was made from hundreds of woven leaves. The children and Sherbet stepped on to the surprisingly soft cloth as the dragons picked up its edges, lifting it off the grass like a magic carpet.

‘We can use the coffins to grow vegetables in,’ said Dubbeljøk, scratching his beard thoughtfully, as Archie and the others were carried away over the loch. ‘As long as they don’t get up and run off with my turnips.’

The journey back to Dundoodle was much more relaxed. Archie realised how hungry he was. He’d barely eaten all day. Billy was quiet, remembering all the wyrdiness he had witnessed, so he could write about the experiences later. Fliss had dozed off in the blanket’s warmth, exhausted by everything they had been through.

Archie looked down on the town of Dundoodle below, its lights starting to appear, a mirror to the stars emerging above them. The dragons’ scales sparkled as they flew, reflecting the fire-bursts from their mouths, and surrounding the children in a warm light.

There were still questions that needed answering.

‘What is the Dance of the Wyrd?’ Archie asked Old Jings. ‘The Mirk didn’t want it to happen. Preen said he wanted the town to be quiet, with no music or singing.’

‘On Unquiet Night, the dark magic of the universe is let out to play and the Unpeople make mischief,’ said the dragon. ‘But they cannot be allowed out for long or there would be chaos. The Dance is the ceremony the good wyrdie-folk perform that locks it back in the earth for another year. If there was no Dance then the dark magic would be freed for good, food for the insatiable appetite of the Mirk. And the Dance needs music.’

‘Music,’ said Archie, ‘from Dundoodle’s festival?’

‘It is a link that binds humans to the Wyrd. They have to play their part in the magic, just like you do as a Guardian. That’s why the Mirk wanted it stopped.’

‘But the festival was stopped!’ said Billy ‘What will happen to the Dance, without music?’

The old dragon smiled to himself.

‘We’ll see,’ he said.