“Where did that come from?” said Molly.

“I don’t know. I just need to hear you say it. Say it for me, Molly.”

“I will never leave you, Eddie. I’ll always be with you, forever and ever and ever. Now you say it.”

“I will love you every day of my life, Molly Metcalf, and after I die, if you’re not there in Heaven with me, I will go down to Hell to join you. Because Heaven wouldn’t be Heaven without you.”

“You smooth-talking devil, Eddie Drood.”

Some time later, when I’d got my second wind, I got dressed again and opened the bag I’d brought back from my London flat. I set about distributing my few possessions around the room. It didn’t take long. A row of CDs on one shelf, my favourite books lined up on another. In alphabetical order, of course. I’m very strict about things like that. And some favourite clothes that didn’t even come close to filling the massive mahogany wardrobe. I looked at Molly, who was attacking her tousled hair in the mirror.

“Don’t you have any clothes you want to hang up? Women always have clothes. And shoes . . . and things.”

She shrugged easily. “Whenever I get bored, I just magic up a new outfit. I only have to see something I like, and I can duplicate it with a thought. I never paid for a new outfit in my life, and they always fit perfectly. I’ve been recycling the same material for years.”

I hope you take time out to wash it now and again, I thought, but had enough sense not to say out loud.

I stepped back and looked at my possessions scattered around the room. They looked . . . sort of lost. They were present-day, transitory things, in a room that had been here before I was born and would still be here after I was gone. There weren’t any of my parents’ old possessions still here. They would have been thrown out or redistributed long ago, when the next occupant moved in. The family has never encouraged sentiment. We aren’t supposed to care about possessions, because only the family is important. Look forward, never back. And never get too attached to anything or anyone, because the enemy will use that against you.

They don’t tell you the enemy sometimes includes the family.

“Don’t you want to bring anything here from your old place?” I said to Molly.

She shrugged lazily. “I have my magical iPod, full of my favourite music. Endless capacity, no batteries to run down, and it can pick up any tune from any period. It can even sing harmonies with me on karaoke nights. But that’s it, really. I’ve never cared much about things . . . You can always get more things . . . With my magic I’ve raised beg, borrow, and steal to an art form.”