“I’ll go and hurry her up,” said Hazel.

“No. Let me go,” said Marcel.

This time, after knocking, Marcel Bottle entered his daughter’s bedroom. As usual it was a mess of old herbals, medicine charts, dried flowers, bits of twig, crystals, gemstones and paper bags full of herbs she’d got from the market. She worked so hard, thought Marcel. She was bound to progress in no time and become a great Master Healer when she was old enough. All she had to do was find an established healer to mentor her. The Guild would be sure to let her at least go up one grade from Neophyte to Apprentice.

Marcel had racked his brains for any healers that they knew. There were none. He was himself a hedgewitch guide, and his wife was a druid engineer. His sister, Octavia, had taken Lexy under her wing a bit and let her make most of the potions in the bun shop, but she was herself an alchemist elysian who cooked her buns to make people happy, not to make them better.

“Lexy?” he said. “Come on, we’re all waiting for you.”

“I don’t want to go,” she said.

“Why ever not?”

“I’m too busy. I’ve got exams to study for, and—”

“But there’s no school next week.”

“For my magic grades. Dr. Green tests us every week now.”

“And you really can’t spare us an hour or so? We were going to go to the Winter Fair Market for a while after dropping off JP at the university. I’ll get you a spiced doughnut? Or even two? And don’t they have a dried herb stall this year? It’s pocket money day as well. . . .”

Lexy sighed. She really did want to go out with her parents. It happened so rarely that they all got to spend time together. Her father was always doing “community activities” like leading free yoga retreats or knitting for the needy, and her mother was either working in the bun shop or inventing things in her yurt at the bottom of the garden.

The problem, of course, was JP. But Lexy couldn’t say anything.

“Okay,” she said.

“Attagirl,” said Marcel. “Wrap up warm, though. It’s freezing out there.”

Back in the Realworld, Effie managed to dry her tears and get through the front door and into her bedroom before anyone asked anything about her day. Not that they ever did.