“Ah yes, your first day as a university student,” said Orwell. “Don’t eat the cottage pie in the canteen, that’s all I’ll say. Oh, and keep out of the botany department. They’ve got some enormous plant in there that is apparently very carnivorous. It’s already eaten two post-docs and a cleaner.”

“Okay.”

“Are you all right? Normally even you would be interested in carnivorous plants.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Well, you’re missing out with this book, I can tell you. Such a magnificent poem. Listen to the last stanza. The way ahead is long and hard/So learn some poems for the road/Or better, take along a bard/To tell us stories as we go. Moving stuff, eh? I should read more poetry. Really gets the blood moving around the body. Makes one feel pure, and intelligent. Where are you going?”

“I’ve got homework to do before tomorrow.”

“Suit yourself.”

Effie went through the rest of the evening in a daze. She ate her vegetable stew without really tasting it. Cait had made apple pie and custard for dessert, but Effie didn’t really feel like any.

Before she went to sleep Effie tried to get a message to the others about meeting up, but Lexy wasn’t answering on the walkie-talkie, and Effie didn’t have a pager. But once she found Maximilian he’d be able to page Lexy and Raven. Effie realized she hadn’t seen Wolf for days. She hoped he was okay. Once she found him, she was sure he would agree that nothing really mattered apart from doing something about the Diberi. The question was what. Effie wished she’d been able to remove the history of the Diberi from the Great Library. Or did she? She wasn’t at all sure how she felt about that anymore. But one thing was clear. The spirit of the library wouldn’t have let her do it. It just wasn’t possible.

So how had Effie’s mother managed it?

Odile Underwood yawned again, for about the fifth time that evening.

“Are you all right, Nurse Underwood?” asked Raven.

They were all sitting around the dinner table in the Underwood house: Wolf, Raven, Maximilian, Odile and Dill. The children were drinking Dill’s homemade fermented elderflower cordial and the adults were drinking deep red wine.

“What? Oh yes, love. Nothing for you to worry about,” said Odile.

She yawned again. “Been working hard, that’s all.”

“Have you been at the hospital all weekend?” asked Raven.

“Yesterday,” said Odile. “Today I’ve been doing home visits, trying to undo all the binding spells that are out there recently. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many people bound. And the way they’re doing it . . . It’s barbaric. It’s one thing taking someone’s magic away, but today I saw a chap who had also gone blind. I visited two witches who simply could not get out of bed anymore. And one of them had even lost her familiar—which as you’ll know is a fate worse than death for witches. And then there was the principiant healer who thought he just had the flu until he found he couldn’t put enchantments on his tonics anymore. It breaks your heart.”