How was this achieved so easily? For one thing, Lady Tchainsaw wasn’t watching properly because she was busy applying bright red lipstick and looking at herself in the mirror. And secondly, because Effie made herself invisible while she was doing it. Using the Flow also meant Effie could do things at lightning speed. All Lady Tchainsaw felt was a mild tickle around her wrists and ankles before Effie used a sleeping spell she suddenly found she knew.

“What are you doing?” Terrence said, inside Effie’s mind.

“Defeating you and your stupid new friends,” said Effie. “Now, come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”

Terrence didn’t like the sound of this, but he was still trapped inside Effie’s mind as she walked to the center of the room and started a pirouette that turned into a series of fouettés which launched her into the air, until she was spinning and spinning and . . . There. She was back in the Flow. She could stay in it for far longer now. And it wasn’t even about topping off her power; it was just about spending time in this perfect, joyous, heavenly place where everybody was one and . . .

“Let me go!” Terrence shouted inside Effie’s head.

“No,” she said. “You come into my consciousness, this is what you get.”

“But I can’t stand it,” he said.

“Feel the peace, and the joy,” said Effie. “That’s what you get when you try to attack me.”

“Please!” wailed Terrence.

Effie kept him in the Flow long enough that the peace and the joy seeped into every part of Terrence and started to take him over. And then she took a deep breath and booted him out of her mind.

24

THE GRAND LECTURE THEATER was filling with people suffering from varying levels of exposure and trauma depending on where they’d been able to park. Most of them had wet hair and feet; some people had mild frostbite. As eight o’clock approached there were still a number of empty seats belonging to people who had, sadly, been struck by lightning or fallen in the large sinkhole that had opened up outside the Esoteric Emporium. Others had been knocked out by the enormous hailstones. This was certainly the biggest storm the Old Town had ever experienced.

Undeterred by the reduced size of his audience, Jupiter Peacock stepped forward to begin his lecture. The vice chancellor of the university had been due to introduce him but had been held up somewhere because of the weather. Just as JP was about to begin speaking, a woman strode onto the stage wearing an asymmetric hemp skirt and a patchwork recycled-cotton top. It was Hazel Bottle.

“Aha,” said Jupiter Peacock. “It looks as if my host would like to say a few words.” He narrowed his eyes and looked pointedly at his watch.

Hazel Bottle took the microphone stand from him.