Betti finally gets her meeting with Katherine and proudly shows her intended 'partner' around ""Garden World"" as an example of how people live happily and prosper in a blandished world. For a moment Katherine thinks that Betti may actually have a logical point - but she soon realises that Betti's perfect worlds come at a great cost.
Stefan and Jeremy are determined to take the initiative - and promptly lose themselves, and Tiffany, in the Parallax. They blunder into Betti relaxing in Desert World and only escape with Katherine's assistance. In the confrontation Betti finds out more about both Ben and Katherine and is on their trail.
Jeremy convinces Ben that Veronica must still be alive and that Ben can find her. Ben sets off after Spy Boy in Techno World, but is lured into a trap. Katherine arrives in time to rescue him, but it turns out Ben has also accidentally led his local Tiffany to Forest World, and she doesn't want to leave.
Veronica reveals that Betti is her twin sister, and that the Welkin and Krellicks are part of Betti's army, sent to destroy the remaining Guardians to prevent them interfering with her plans to blandish the Parallax. She also tells Ben that Stefan, not Jeremy, is his real father. An angry and disillusioned Ben refuses to follow her to the refuge in Forest World.
Katherine and Ben are sent on individual quests. Ben visits Desert World and has to use his head after his rash actions land him in strife. Katherine is sent to Forest World, where a night of singing and dancing teaches her to open up her emotions and that not everything of value has to be ""logical"".
Ben discovers that by pressing the points of the portal sign he can travel to a distant new world. He meets Mundi and is introduced to a town where people live in the treetops of a forest . Its fun until he is scratched in a Krellick attack. Veronica, in disguise as a New York art dealer, turns Stefan's exhibition into a success.
Katherine and Ben play an inter-world version of pass the parcel as they each try to off-load Francis (thief's) loot from the futuristic rubbish tip. They are almost caught and their inter-Parallax travels exposed, but Veronica saves the day. Francis (thief) discovers theTechno Town version of Werrinup and Una, the girl of his dreams.
Together, Ben and Katherine just manage to fight off a welkin attack, though Ben has yet to master the Stave which he's 'borrowed' from Veronica. They both want answers to their mother's role as Guardian and the mysteries of their separate worlds, but when Katherine confronts Veronica, her mother is evasive. In Katherine's World, Ben stops repossession of Katherine's home by smuggling in a valuable heritage artefact.
On an otherwise ordinary day in the coastal town of Werrinup, Ben discovers in quick succession that there is a portal to a parallel universe in an old drain, he has a sister, his mother is a Guardian of the Parallax, his best friend has a sneak thief double from another world and these large flying purple insect things (Welkin) want to bite him.