What Jupiter Peacock did not know is that there is a tiny, tiny exception to this: an aperture that opens—rather similar to the apertures mages find in great art—in a very small number of charitable acts. It is almost impossible to describe in words, but it happens when someone gives something because they don’t really think it is theirs, and because they no longer believe in the separation between you and me, and . . .

Effie suddenly felt warm, beautifully and wholly warm, as if her body was made of syrup: a sweet, very dark purple syrup that flowed out from her into the entire universe. It felt very tickly: that moment when you are laughing so hard you can’t even beg the person who is tickling you to stop, but gentler and more comfortable. It was like floating in water slightly heavier than normal, which was also soft, and in some way magnificent.

It was actually quite similar to the feeling Effie’d had when Suri had cast the spell on her—or whatever it was she had done—and then said that thing about Effie having no resistance. All at once, Effie was afraid of the feeling, and it left instantly: a genie pouring itself back into a bottle; a great storm turning one last time, gathering its skirts around itself and going home.

“Come back,” whispered Effie, although she realized that it was she who had left, not the feeling. “Wait for me,” she said, but the moment was gone. She blinked, once, then twice. But it was over. She could smell chestnuts and marshmallows again in the little stoves around her, hear the sound of coins as people bought things, their wintery coughs and the way laughter travels through falling snow . . .

The woman had disappeared. Effie breathed slowly. What had just happened? Had the woman cast a spell on her?

To calm herself, Effie looked again at the bookstall.

And there it was. A thin blue hardcover with a slightly broken spine. Galloglass, not translated by Jupiter Peacock but by someone called Frederick Jago. It was a dual text, with the poem in English, but also printed in the original Rosian. Effie realized she had drifted into the magical part of the bookstall that other people couldn’t see. Rosian was, after all, a magical language. She hadn’t even known that “Galloglass” had originally been written in Rosian. She’d assumed it had been Latin or Greek.

“Only a fiver,” said the stallholder, seeing Effie’s interest in the book. “Due to the damage to the spine. Shame, because otherwise it would be a valuable book, that. Very rare.”

“Oh,” Effie said. “I haven’t got any money. Sorry.”

“We take other currencies,” he said, winking.

“Thanks,” said Effie. “But I haven’t got that much M-currency, either . . .”