We all looked at one another and shrugged, then dutifully applauded as Logan presented Mother Fallopia with her Silver Stork. That done, we returned to the table and the roofing-tile-sized after-dinner mints, cheeseboard, any leftovers on other people’s plates and finally the serving bowls themselves. Traditionally, Fat Thursday never resulted in any washing-up.

Several other ex-poolers joined us and we settled down to talk, or at least, they talked, I listened, my mind still distracted. A cop who worked in Forensics told us about her job analysing splatter patterns of messy eating following illegal pantry incursion and food theft.

‘It’s always out of hunger so they eat on the spot,’ she told us, ‘and hunger eating is never tidy eating.’

She told us about a Pantry Heist over at the Cary Grant Dormitorium. It was unguarded at the time, having been boarded up after a reactor shutdown, but stealing pantry was then, and still is now, an offence carrying the punishment of Frigicution. Most were blaming Villains, but the authorities decided it was the Campaign for Real Sleep wanting to retain enough pantry to mount an overwintering campaign. No one with any sense believed them, and Kiki – RealSleep’s nominal head – denied the report as ‘utterly ludicrous’.

‘Some said it was the cops nicking stuff themselves in order to flush out Kiki into denying it,’ said someone, I forget who.

‘Who is Kiki anyway?’ I asked.

‘The head of RealSleep,’ said Megan.

‘I know that. Not the what, the who.’

‘Nobody knows,’ said Lucy with a shrug. ‘It’s not a person, it’s a position. Remove a Kiki and the Vice-Kiki takes over.’

This was undoubtedly true, as much was run on the Hydra principle, from Royal Families to Winter Consuls to the military to staff at Mrs Nesbit Tearooms. Remove one and another would be waiting just behind. Irrespective, RealSleep had been quiet recently, but like the active-yet-currently-dormant volcano on Skye, no one was sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I left them to their conversation and started to corral the children into tidying up and fetching out the board games and the hookahs as the gathering dusk brought darkness to the hall. Sister Placentia loved a raspberry hubble-bubble when playing Scrabble while Sister Fertizilia tended towards her non-aggressive version of chess where you couldn’t take any pieces. Zygotia liked nothing more than a noisy game of Hungry Hippos. Each to their own. But as I was passing Mother Fallopia’s office on an errand for Sister Placentia, I noticed a row of people sitting on the bench outside. I asked what was going on and Williams blinked owlishly at me and said that Logan was conducting open interviews for the Winter Consuls.

‘Open interviews? No preselection?’

‘Seems like it. He lost his Novice and needs a new one.’