I could get back to London before the trains stop, but Daphne asks me to stay the night. After dinner, I head to the attic to rummage through some boxes of my old things that were brought up from the house in Hampshire. Then I go hunting in the fields behind the house. (Two rabbits and a mole.)

Daphne makes a bed for me on the sofa. “You should have your own room here,” she says.

“I’m fine. The twins are already doubled up.” I’ve just taken a shower, and I’m wearing some old pyjamas I found upstairs—they’re a bit short. Daphne hands me a wool blanket, and I spread it out over the cushions.

“We could add on,” she says. “Your father could manage the spells. Or we could, you know, hire a builder.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary—”

“Or we could convert one of the barns! So you could come home for holidays. And bring a friend.”

“I…” I look over at her. Is she joking? My father would set me on fire if I brought Simon home. (Any boy, really. He’d set me on fire twice if it was Simon.) “That doesn’t seem likely.”

Daphne has just finished shaking a pillow into its case. She looks very sincere. And very cautious. Like someone who is very, very carefully stepping onto thin ice. “It’s possible, I think. Basilton.”

I nod. And take the pillow from her.

She touches my shoulder, just for a second. “Good night, darling.”

“Good night, Mum.”

I wait for her to leave, and then lie down, under the blanket. My phone is on the floor. I pick it up and open my text messages. I click on “SNOW.”

All of my unanswered messages from last week are still there. I shouldn’t reread them, it will just make me melancholy—I do read them, of course—and I definitely shouldn’t text Simon right now. Simon hates texting, even when he isn’t trying to ghost me.

“I’m staying in Oxford tonight. Did you make it home in one piece?” I send the text, then immediately set the phone on my chest, rolling my eyes at myself.

It buzzes, and I jump, knocking it to the floor.

I pick it up.

“3 pieces actually, do you know how to sew?”

I smile. And roll my eyes at myself some more. It takes nothing to please me. “Did you deliver Jamie Salisbury safely home?”

“yeah, you won’t believe what he told me—his sister dated the mage!”

Aleister Crowley. The Mage? “The actual Mage?” I text.

“THE MAGE,” Simon sends back.

“No wonder she fled the country.”

“no wonder her mum hates him!! lady ruth already called to thank us, for jamie and everything—she’s making us lunch tomorrow to celebrate, will you be back?”

“Yes,” I send.

He sends me back a thumbs-up.