‘It could have done. You are unteachable, and we should stop this at once before you come to harm.’

‘But it didn’t hurt me, Crows. It was nothing in the end. I’m fine.’

‘You did not do what I told you to.’ He was adamant. ‘How else will you learn if you do not pay attention to your lessons?’

She took a step back and held her hand up to the sun, so that one side was in the light, the other in the shadow. She brought her hand down, painting the sky with a thick black stripe.

‘I always paid attention when the teacher told me something useful. It’s just that they didn’t do that very often.’

She added legs and arms to make a black stick figure, and finished it off with a coal-black head.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

For a moment, she thought she’d misjudged the situation, that he’d take offence and storm off. She needed him, and he didn’t need her. She should apologise.

‘I … Crows. I was so bored in school. I learnt next to nothing. And that was when I could be bothered to turn up. This – this is different. I’m actually excited by something. I’ll try and do my best from now on.’

‘You are very good, Mary, a natural. But while magic is not something you do by rote, you have to learn the techniques before you can create works of great beauty and power. It is an art, and all artists start by learning how to hold a brush.’ He grinned at her, his white teeth bright in the sunlight. ‘No more mist monsters. For now, anyway. You were lucky to survive that encounter, so let us not tempt fate by doing it again.’

The grin wasn’t happy. Crows was nervous, edgy.

‘How much trouble was I in?’

‘There are stories. Some of those who have such encounters swear never to use magic again. There are those who never recover. They are broken by seeing themselves as they truly are. So said the man who taught me. And you conjure your demons on the first attempt. What you did was very dangerous.’

‘But I know what I am. It’s just that I don’t like it. I want to be something different.’

‘The Red Queen.’ He was calmer now. He picked at her stick figure creation, like it was peeling paint, or an old black bin-liner left out in the sun and the rain for too long. ‘You are unusual. Most people imagine themselves to be better than they are. Not you. You are better than you believe yourself to be. That saved you, but please, do not do it again.’

‘What did you see, Crows?’

He turned away, and muttered.

‘What?’

He couldn’t look at her, so he addressed the clouds.

‘I saw nothing. Nothing at all.’