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A bitter lesson, a terrible lesson. Perhaps the most difficult one to accept, and
I'm sorry that you are only just now learning it. I wish for your sake that
someone kinder and more daring than I had lead you to believe just how
powerless and small you are. The world would have you believe otherwise,
wanting you to kindle hope and faith, for the stronger you believe in such
distracting notions, the easier it is for them to do their jobs. You could stop
reading if you were wiser, but that will only postpone the inevitable lessons you
will learn about yourself: as significant as a single fleck of gold in an infinite
universe. You are precious and beautiful. We all are. But you are as but a
single golden fleck of sand in an infinite universe which will carry on exactly as
it always has done, with or without you, from Alpha to Omega, world without
end. You're welcome.) guessed the objects hadn’t actually transformed at all,
but that the Gold Demon had performed some sort of sleight-of-hand and
merely substituted gold objects for the real ones. Which, of course, would
make no economic sense.

The sixth well-read daughter thought perhaps Diavolo used some sort of
secret combination of sulphur and mercury in an enclosed cucurbit. But that
answer is, was, and always will be, the stuff of magical fantasy.

The seventh child was the first-born son and he guessed perhaps gold's
transformation had something to do with bacon. He was not a bright boy. But
he made for a very bright pillar, so there's that at least.

The eighth child was the second born son. He also thought perhaps the
transformation had to do with bacon. The two brothers, you see, had decided
to compare their answers before the first headed into the palace. And when
they each discovered they had reasoned out the same answer, they knew they
must be correct! As you see, it didn't occur to the eighth child that if his elder
brother hadn't returned, it was because bacon was not the correct answer and
he should not try it himself. He was, perhaps, of all the children, the most

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