Getting to her feet, the bear continued. “Before we go any further, can I just say, brother, what a joy it is to see you again! What an unexpected, accidental, magnificent DELIGHT!”

The bear hugged the raven.

And the bear and the raven began to dance, which was very sweet really, and although it was fine for the raven to dance in the air, the bear was too big for all the mess in the room. As she whirled around in galumphing circles, her bottom knocked over piles of books and her nose knocked over cauldrons, and snowcats had to scatter out of the way, and everyone had to pick everything up as it fell over.

“Will someone please tell me what is going on?” asked Bodkin, speaking for everyone. “Where are we? And why is your sister a bear?”

Caliburn the raven landed on the bear’s head.

“This bear is not only my sister, she is my twin,” said Caliburn proudly. “Meet Perdita.”

There was a big silence.

“Okay…” said Bodkin, looking to Xar for guidance. “This is weird.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Xar, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m a Wizard, but even for the Wizard world, this is weird.”

Wish blinked. She looked from the bear to the bird. “For twins, you really are not very alike,” said Wish eventually.

“Yes, I think I did mention that I wasn’t really a bear, didn’t I?” explained the bear. “It’s just a transformation. You see? Watch while I transform back again. Transformation is one of my favorites of the Wizard skills.”

And in front of Wish’s eyes, the bear transformed. It was a spectacular moment.

One moment the bear was a great, magnificent bearlike beast. The next, the outline of the bear melted and shriveled and became, smaller, smaller… until it turned into a small, very untidy-looking woman of goodness-knows-WHAT-age, rather eccentrically dressed, but with very smiley eyes.

“You’re still not very alike,” said Bodkin, looking from one to the other and shaking his head. “One of you is small and black and feathery. And the other one is a human. Not much of a family resemblance, I’d say…”

“You transform back into a human now, brother,” urged Perdita, looking up at Caliburn, who was still sitting on her head.

The raven tipped his head down and looked sadly into her eyes. “Unfortunately, I can’t,” said Caliburn. “At the moment this is a sort of temporarily permanent transformation, for this lifetime, at least.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Perdita.

“It could have been worse,” said Caliburn gloomily. “I could have been a cockroach.”