I’d recently communicated with Judd by letter, but it was the first time we’d met face-to-face since the battle, and I had a lot to tell him. I decided to delay that until after we’d eaten.

“How’s the hand, Judd?” I asked him. He’d lost two of his fingers at the Wardstone; they’d been bitten off by an enemy witch.

He held up his right hand and grimaced. “The soreness is gone, though the hand is still a little stiff. But we adapt, don’t we? I can’t do anything about it, so I just carry on as best I can. The truth is, I’d have given twice as many fingers if I could have Claw back. I hadn’t had her long, but I’d grown really attached to her.”

After that, we talked little as we ate, but Judd kept glancing at me and Jenny curiously; as soon as I’d cleared my plate and eased my chair away from the table, he pointed to the stairs.

“Your room is on the first floor, the second on the left, young lady,” he told Jenny. “There are fresh sheets and pillowcases in the cupboard on the landing. You look tired, so you’d best get up to bed.”

Jenny didn’t argue, as I expected her to, and with a nod to us both, she left the table and set off up the stairs. She’d been unusually quiet since we arrived at the mill; she hadn’t spoken at all during the meal. I wondered if she was sickening for something.

“So, Tom . . . ,” Judd began. “How are you coping with work as the Chipenden Spook? Have you come to ask for help? If so, I’d only be too glad. I’ve neither the skill nor the knowledge of poor John Gregory, but I’m sure I’ve plenty to contribute to your training.”

It annoyed me that Judd used the word “poor” about my master. He wasn’t to be pitied: he’d died fighting the dark and had been a champion of the light all his life. It was the way he’d have chosen to leave this life. But I realized that Judd didn’t really intend anything by the comment, so I let it pass.

“It’s been very quiet at Chipenden,” I told him. “The dark seems almost dormant.”

“It’s been the same here, too,” Judd said. “I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of a water witch for over a month. And the recent plague of skelts is well and truly over.”

At this, I remembered the night I’d faced a dangerous skelt outside this very mill; it had thrust its long bone tube into my neck and tried to drink my blood. I’d been lucky to escape with my life.

I concentrated on what Judd said next.

“It’s been almost too quiet . . . it feels as if the dark is gathering its strength.”

“That could well be the case,” I told him.

“So has anything else strange happened since you wrote—apart from the fact that you’ve taken on a girl apprentice, that is?”