“So,” I said, as casually as I could manage. “How are you getting on with the family? Everyone treating you all right? What do you think of the mighty and mystical Droods, now that you’ve had a chance to see us up close and personal?”

“Hard to tell,” said Molly. The music had stopped, I’d slowed the car, and it suddenly seemed very quiet in the Bentley. Molly produced a small silver snuffbox out of midair, snorted a pinch of something green and glowing, sneezed messily, and made the box disappear again. “Most of your family aren’t talking to me. Either because they think I led you astray, or because I’ve thwarted so many of your family’s plans in the past . . . It’s not like I killed that many of your people . . . They need to get over it, and move on. That was then, this is now. All right, so I used to practice the black arts, spread insurrection, mutilate aliens, and abduct cattle; I was young! I needed to get things out of my system! That’s no reason to run screaming when I just try to talk to people.”

“They don’t know you like I do,” I said reassuringly. “Haven’t you made any friends?”

“Your uncle Jack’s okay,” Molly said reluctantly. “But he’s always busy in the Armoury. And Jacob’s good company. For a ghost. And a dirty old man. But apart from them, it’s all been cold shoulders and nasty, pointed comments just in range of my hearing. A few were really quite unpleasant.”

I took my eyes off the road just long enough to give her a really serious stare. “Please tell me you didn’t kill them.”

“Of course not! I turned them into things.”

“What sort of . . . things?”

Molly smiled sweetly. “Remember those pheasants we had last week, that you noted were out of season?”

I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white. “Oh my God. You didn’t . . .”

“Of course I didn’t! Lighten up, Eddie! You can be so gullible sometimes. I just turned them all into toads and dumped them in the rock gardens for a while, to let them think things over. They’re fine now. Except for a slight tendency to snap at passing flies.”

I sighed heavily. It seemed to me that I’d been doing that a lot more since Molly came into my life.

“If it helps, most of the family haven’t exactly warmed to me, either,” I admitted.

“They respect you,” said Molly.