“Oh, you’re answering your phone now, are you?” Luke demanded.

Verity didn’t sound especially contrite. “Your text said you’d translated the restoration spell,” she replied, her words punctuated by the chomp of her teeth on her pipe. “Ergo, I reasoned that all had become clear and I no longer needed to dodge your calls.”

“All has not become clear. You sent me to stay at a cottage that doesn’t exist!”

“Now that’s unfair, Luke. It does exist. I checked the map very carefully before I chose it!”

Luke strove valiantly for patience. “You know what I mean. Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

“Well, for one thing, you wouldn’t have gone to the inn if I had,” said Verity unapologetically. “For another, it wouldn’t have been sporting.”

“ Sporting ,” Luke repeated.

With an impatient click of the tongue, Verity said, “Years ago, when Sera Swan first arrived at the Guild, Albert Grey set me the task of studying her spell. The one she cast over that house of hers. He wanted to know how it worked and how she cast it. I was never able to give him an explanation he was satisfied with, but after all that study, I think I can safely say I understand that spell better than anybody else.”

“Is there a point in there somewhere?”

“I couldn’t send you directly to the inn, could I? What if I’d been wrong about you? The spell on the inn doesn’t work on witches who are expecting it, so you’d have been able to breeze right in. And then what? What if you’d told Albert Grey that Sera Swan’s trying to get her magic back?”

Luke had no words.

“Besides,” Verity swept on, chomping on that ridiculous pipe some more, “I wanted you to choose to help her of your own accord.”

Momentarily letting that supposed gesture of generosity slide, Luke said, “It’s not like you to go out of your way for someone you barely know. What’s this really about?”

“Fifteen years ago, Albert Grey put me in the unpleasant position of having to choose between my work and a young girl’s future,” Verity snapped. “I’m not saying I made the wrong choice, exactly, but, er, it hasn’t sat well with me.”

“Then why didn’t you come here yourself and—”

“Luke, don’t be a twit. Do you think Albert just took my word for it?

Deceitful people like Albert Grey assume everybody else is just as deceitful as they are.

They don’t take people’s word for things.

He had me sign a magical contract swearing I would never communicate the contents of The Ninth Compendium to anyone. ”

“Well, in that case, why—”

“And the other reason I’m going out of my way, as you put it,” Verity went on, “is physics.”

“What?”

“Physics. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, et cetera, et cetera. And when it doesn’t, when the laws of nature are broken by way of reckless resurrection spells and petty egomaniacs, you end up where we are now. Power like Albert Grey’s must have an equal to keep it in check.”

Luke yanked his phone away from his ear and looked at it in disbelief. “In other words, you’re using me, Posy, and Sera to knock Albert Grey off his throne and didn’t actually bother to ask any of us first.”

“Luke, may I refer you back to Sera’s spell? Remember how it works? Has it not occurred to you that I did this for you and Posy too?”

With this parting salvo, Verity hung up on him.

“And she has the nerve to say she can’t abide drama,” Luke said out loud to absolutely nobody.

He returned to the living room, where he’d last seen Posy. She was curled up on one of the sofas, under a blanket, thumb in her mouth. He ruffled her hair. “You okay?”

“Sheep,” she replied, pointing to the sheep on the screen of her tablet. “Good night, sheep. Good night, Posy.”

“Good night, Posy,” Luke agreed. “Lucky you. I’d kill for a nap right now.”

She probably wouldn’t actually go to sleep, though.

It was just her way of telling him she was tired.

Between all the running around the garden she’d done that morning (many leaves were acquired, of course) and all the new people she’d met, she’d well and truly worn herself out.

She’d probably spend a quiet hour or so with the farmyard animal app and then she’d be full of beans again.

Nicholas, the knight, was on the other sofa, a bag of frozen peas on his head. He gave Luke a shy smile. “Have no fear, good sir, I shall keep an eye on your sister.”

“I’ve been told we’re supposed to be keeping an eye on you , Nicholas, but thank you.”

“I am mortified to be such a nuisance to Lady Sera,” Nicholas admitted mournfully. “Her patience in the face of my ignominy has been nothing short of saintly.”

“Is there another Sera here I don’t know about?”

“If I had my sword,” Nicholas declared, “I would challenge you to a duel for saying that.”

Luke bit back a smile. “Spoken like a true knight. Want some tea?”

Nicholas’s indignation instantly and sheepishly subsided. “Yes, please.”

There was nobody in the kitchen, but Luke could see the top of Sera’s head as she paced back and forth outside, gesturing like she was talking to somebody, which meant she and the fox were probably still thrashing out the whats and hows of the restoration spell.

The academic in Luke was a tiny, tiny bit interested in how a spell like that would manifest itself in Sera’s hands, but his desire to stay well clear of whatever shenanigans were afoot outweighed his curiosity. He’d meant what he’d said about not getting involved.

He had an unwelcome suspicion that that was going to be easier said than done, though, which was just one of many reasons he had no intention of staying long.

He was grateful for Sera’s unexpected kindness, but that didn’t change the fact that this was temporary and, frankly, far from ideal.

Apart from the fact that Posy deserved a proper, permanent home, the inn was downright incomprehensible, and Luke, to be perfectly honest, was the sort of man who needed comprehensible.

It wasn’t just about the magic, either, which was wild and fanciful and didn’t work at all the way magic was supposed to.

Undead chickens and memories materialising right before one’s eyes were only part of the weirdness he’d inadvertently stumbled into; there was, after all, also a knight presently lying on the sofa with a possible concussion, a cursed witch hiding from the Guild, the improbable theft of a priceless book that his own employer had apparently had a hand in, and who knew what else.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how things worked here, no line between guest and family, no logic to who did what and when and why.

Footsteps thudded outside and two children cannoned into the kitchen, almost tripping over each other in their haste. The taller of the two grinned at Luke. “Oh! Hi! Are you Luke?”

“Aye. You must be Theo.”

“The one and only,” said the boy cheekily. He seemed to have a smudge of dirt on his cheek. “This is Alex.”

The other child, whose sunny yellow jumper was liberally streaked in mud (had they both fallen off their bicycles and landed in a pigpen on their way here?), gave Luke a bright smile before saying, “Er, Theo?”

“Alex really needs a wee,” Theo confided in Luke.

“Theo!”

“What? Everyone has a bladder!”

Alex kicked him in the shin and dashed down the hallway without another word.

Theo started to follow but spun back to Luke at the last minute.

“Sera told me you have a sister who’s a bit younger than me.

Posy, right? Alex and I are going to play video games in my room.

Do you think Posy would like to play too? ”

Luke stared at the boy, inexplicably touched by his generosity. He cleared his throat. “That’s a kind thought, but I think she might find it overwhelming right now. Maybe you could ask her once she’s had a chance to settle in?”

“Okay,” Theo said brightly, and then he, too, was off, cheerfully shouting “Hi, Nicholas! Hi, Posy!” as he clattered past the living room.

“Like a whirlwind, isn’t he?” Sera remarked, wiping her grassy feet off on the doormat and rubbing her cold arms as she stepped into the kitchen. “THEO! Were you born in the Colosseum? Shut the door when you come in!”

Luke nodded curiously in the direction the kids had gone. “Does Alex know about you and Theo?”

“About the magic, you mean? You know, I don’t know,” Sera said thoughtfully.

“Theo says he hasn’t told them, but Alex must have noticed something’s a bit different around here by now.

Move over for a second, would you?” Luke obliged, stepping sideways, and Sera ducked behind him to rummage in one of the lower cabinets.

“Aha! I knew I still had one of these!” She emerged triumphantly, holding a dusty glass teapot aloft.

“I can’t remember the last time I used a glass teapot to cast a spell. What do you think? Will it do?”

“It won’t do much if you haven’t got anything to put in it,” Luke felt obliged to point out.

“Oh, Luke. Luke, Luke, Luke. Has anyone ever told you that you can be an uptight prig?”

“Not in those exact words, no. Has anyone ever told you that you can be a quarrelsome gargoyle?”

“I like that one,” Sera said admiringly. “I’ll add it to the list.”

Luke did not smile, but it was a close thing.

Instead of going back to her fugitive friend outside, Sera lingered, fidgeting with the teapot. Luke was quite certain this didn’t bode well for him, and was proven right when, a moment later, she said, “Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake when you translated the spell?”

He gave her his iciest look. “I don’t make mistakes.”

She bit her lip, but not, sadly, in chagrin. She was trying not to laugh. “It’s not that I’m not grateful you translated it, because I really am, but those ingredients are so patently absurd that if there’s even a tiny chance you got a part of it wrong—”

“I didn’t.” He didn’t budge. “And they’re not absurd. Complicated, but not absurd.”

“Not absurd?” Sera blinked at him in disbelief. “A phoenix feather? A strand of sunset? A thorny heart? You don’t think any of that sounds even a little absurd? Phoenixes aren’t even real!”

“The spell’s not necessarily that literal.” Luke sighed. “The Guild prefers to teach young witches how to put magic into practice rather than go into the theory, but there are—”

“Inanimates, Animates, Bindings, and Adaptables,” she interrupted.

He stared at her, taken aback. “How do you know that?”

“I know you think I spent all that time in the library doing Albert Grey’s bidding, but believe it or not, I was there to study.”

He didn’t have much choice but to believe it, considering she knew academic terminology that most witches never learned, and he wasn’t sure he liked that she kept surprising him.

She’d made it clear the previous night that she hadn’t liked his assessment of the girl he’d briefly known, but he’d dismissed that as the inevitable reaction of someone who’d thought quite a lot of herself.

Now he found himself wondering just how much he’d got wrong.

Considering her curiously, Luke said, “Then you know that there are different categories of spells. There’s a bit of overlap, obviously, but for the most part, they’re their own beasts.”

“Inanimates are spells cast on inanimate objects, like making a mop wash a floor on its own or alchemising lead to gold,” she replied, rattling the words off like he’d issued a personal challenge.

“Animates are spells cast on living things, like the resurrection spell I cast on Jasmine, and Bindings are extreme Animates, like Clemmie’s curse. ”

“She should never have messed around with that curse.” Luke still had trouble believing Howard’s story had been true. “Bindings literally bind a person. If you were to cast a revealing spell over her, she’d probably look like she’s bound up in hundreds of knotted, tangled threads.”

Sera nodded. “I know. I mean, I haven’t seen it myself, but I assumed as much. All the books I’ve ever read about it say that all you have to do to break a curse is undo the bindings.”

“Undo hundreds of bindings,” Luke reminded her. “Most witches would run out of power long before they could finish. That’s why she’s still stuck.”

A hint of uncertainty crossed her face. “Then there’s the Adaptables. The least common, least understood sort of spell. Is that what the restoration spell is?”

“I’d say so. There isn’t one way to cast an Adaptable spell. Rigid, literal thinking won’t cut it. These sorts of spells are like soft clay in the hands of the witch casting them.”

“In other words, an unmitigated nuisance,” Sera said irritably.

“On the bright side, you’ll be able to cast it without the feather of a bird that doesn’t exist.”

“That’s true.” In a flash, enthusiasm replaced her irritation.

“So if it doesn’t have to be the exact literal thing, maybe the phoenix feather the spell asks for could be a feather that’s been set on fire instead?

And the strand of sunset could be something like a leaf that’s been bathed in the glow of an evening sunset? ”

Unmoved by this extravagantly pretty picture, Luke felt obliged to remind her that she was supposed to be casting a spell, not composing an ode.

This didn’t dent Sera’s enthusiasm in the slightest. Darting for the door, she said, “I’m going to make a list! There are so many possibilities! Then I’m going to enchant this teapot, and then I’m going to find a feather and set it on fire, and after that …”

And she was gone.