Epilogue: Threads

Summary

The story has come full circle - we are returned to the house, storyteller and young guests from the beginning of the story, only now we know we have been listening to Lady Alvane in the House of All Worlds. Her guests thank her for the story, though they want to hear how the Balance ended during Gordon Halloway's reign as Guardian and what futher happened to April. But Lady Alvane tells them it's getting late and she wants to save that story for some other time.

The guests bid her goodbye and leave, and Lady Alvane is left musing by the fire when hoppling in comes...Crow, noticeably older but still the same as he always was. From the way they talk, it sounds as if Lady Alvane is actually April, living in a world where magic and science have been reunited, but as to whether she really is April, and how that Reunification came about, are questions left unanswered.

The two dicuss the fact that none of them are spry as they used to be and too old for new adventures, but Lady Alvane notices they still have their stories. This prompts Crow to ask her about the story of the "young, beautiful warrior princess" who single-handly won the War of the Balance. Lady Alvane corrects him, telling him that she doesn't remember the story quite like that, and starts telling how it actually happened...

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Themes & References

Presumably the title refers to threads in a figurative sense, as in 'threads of narrative'. This may be a check in favour of Lady Alvane being April, as her fate after she left the Guardian's Realm was the loosest thread in TLJ.