I close my eyes and an image of Flat Rock enters my mind. The high blue skies. The trees, and the tang of crushed eucalyptus leaves. The damp earth.

I have a moment of clarity and I think, I will not let you do this. I drop to my knees and press my hands into the freezing snow. Lend me your power, great earth beneath me, web of trees that surround me, snow, wind, sun.

I begin to sizzle – not just my fingers, but my whole body. And I know that it’s a great surge of magic moving through me. I draw my feather talisman from my pocket and discover that it’s been transformed into metal. I point it at Sylvie.

She jerks a hand to her right and a pine tree comes crashing down, just missing me as it flings snow and branches into the air.

My arm shakes as I hold my talisman before me. ‘We strip you –’ I shout.

There’s a great cracking sound behind me and bits of the slate cottage roof fly through the air. One hits me in the back and I fall to the ground with a cry.

I get to my feet. ‘We strip your magic,’ I shout. ‘Your magic is gone. You are no longer a magician.’ The air around us shimmers and distorts.

Sylvie points back at me, screaming, ‘Swyn. Torra’r swyn!’

‘We strip you!’

‘Swyn. Torra’r swyn!’ But she’s shrinking to her normal size and the birds flap up and away from her, like a black cloud. I see her orange stone talisman fall from her ring and disappear into the snow. All around, there is a sound like a great sigh, and I know we have done it.

We have stripped Other Sylvie of her magic.

She roars and rushes towards me.

‘Spell, freeze!’ I say. Sylvie freezes mid-step.

Mum is at the door of the cottage, which is now missing part of its roof. She looks gobsmacked. ‘How on Earth did you do that?’ she asks. ‘You need three magicians to take away someone’s magic. They all have to decide it’s for the greater good.’

‘I’m pretty sure Eunice helped us,’ I say. Thank you, Eunice. ‘Clearly, we all wanted the same thing.’

Mum gives me a strange smile. ‘Okaaay,’ she says.

I point to Other Sylvie. ‘Spell, reverse freeze.’

She sinks to her knees. ‘Undo it,’ she says, tears tracking down her cheeks as she frantically digs in the snow for her talisman. ‘Please. This is the worst thing you could possibly do to me.’ She looks up at Mum. ‘Merry, you tell her. A magician is all I was ever meant to be. I don’t know how to be an ordinary person.’