Mum wakes as the truck driver pulls up outside some kind of factory. ‘This is as far as I go,’ he says. ‘Your best bet is to get a cab.’

It’s ten past four. We have fifty minutes to get there. There’s a steady stream of traffic, but no cabs. After five minutes, I wave a car over. ‘Will you please drive us to Waterloo?’ I ask the driver. ‘We’ll pay you.’

She looks at the money in my hand. ‘Double that and I will.’

‘Okay.’ We climb into the back seat. The fading light outside gives me a feeling of doom. ‘What if we don’t get there in time?’ I ask Mum.

Her voice is thin. ‘Then we’ll live here.’ She turns to me. ‘We can make a life here. In the country. Near Carys and Efa.’

‘But what about Dad?’ I say, my throat aching with tears.

Mum shakes her head slowly, eyes glistening, and looks away.

I remember Dad hugging me before I left and saying, ‘I will always love you, here or there, wherever you may be.’ I will always love you, Dad. Always. Always. I wish I’d told him.

I try not to watch every minute tick over on the driver’s clock; try not to focus on the stop-start traffic.

‘Mum, your voice came through to me, three weeks ago,’ I say. The driver’s got the radio up loud but I talk quietly anyway. ‘You sounded really scared.’

Mum lays a hand on my leg. ‘Maybe it was the moment I realised there was absolutely no way home, that I wouldn’t see you and Dad again. If you could hear me … well, you must be very powerful. I was wrong not to teach you magic. Clearly you were ready. I’m sorry.’

‘Why wouldn’t you teach me?’ I ask. ‘You just made up that rule, didn’t you?’

She nods. ‘I didn’t want your childhood to end too soon. Once you learn magic, you have to manage the power and make choices about how to use it. Plus, I was worried about what would happen when Sylvie came back – I didn’t want you to have power she could steal.’

Well, you were right about that, I think.

‘Is that why this version of Sylvie is so awful – because her childhood ended too soon?’ I ask. ‘Sylvie back home told me that when she was little they had to live in a car for a while.’