Frantically, she searched the room for her handbag, shifting piles of clothes she wouldn’t be seen dead in anymore, opening and closing drawers and shuffling aside mountains of university exercise books. Her hunt proved fruitless. Teetering on the point of complete overwhelm, Evie instead threw on a pair of skinny jeans and a jumper. Then she grabbed the fake Mulberry Alexa bag she’d lost in a club on her twenty-third birthday, in which she was relieved and bewildered to find her old wallet and keys, and stormed back downstairs.

As she neared the front door, Meg appeared in the hallway munching on a piece of toast.

‘What’s wrong?’ Meg asked. ‘You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

Failing to find the words to respond, Evie just shook her head, pushed open the front door and stepped out onto the street.

‘Where are you going?’ Meg called out after her.

‘I’m going to track down Maximilian!’

‘You promised you’d read over my English essay this morning,’ Meg yelled.

But Evie was already running down the street.

FOUR

Four

After hopping off the Tube, Evie ran as if her life depended on it to the olive-green door on Brick Lane. She loitered awkwardly outside the building, ignoring the passers-by who were watching her curiously, and repeatedly pressed the buzzer until the door finally clicked open. On the second level, she knocked furiously on the door of the dingy flat where she and Ben had interviewed Maximilian.

While not allowing herself to truly believe what she thought she might be beginning to believe—that Maximilian had cast some kind of spell over her and she was now trapped in a messed-up version of her past—Evie was certain he was the only person who might understand the, ah, predicament she was in.

‘Maximilian, for the love of god, please let me in!’ she called, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Something’s happened, please open up—’

She felt a rush of relief at the sound of footsteps, but it was quickly replaced with renewed panic when a man with a just-woken-up look about him opened the door. He looked about twenty-five and was wearing nothing but a pair of briefs.

‘Where’s Maximilian?’ asked Evie, craning to get a look inside. But though the room was still dark and windowless, the mirrors, dusty chandelier and portraits of sad-looking nobility were nowhere to be seen.

‘Where’s who?’

‘Maximilian, the clairvoyant.’

‘Huh?’

‘You must know him!’ cried Evie. ‘Grey, fuzzy hair tied in a topknot with a feather sticking out of it, constant surprised expression on his face, about yea high.’ She held one of her hands above her head. ‘Last seen wearing a purple robe with slippers. Can speak to the recently departed.’

The man pretended to think for a moment, scratching his chin for effect. ‘Nope, definitely doesn’t ring a bell,’ he said with a laugh.