What kind of a worm has tentacles? This was not good. ‘If it’s from the sea, then how the hell did it get here?’

‘Don’t know,’ he muttered as he was thrown up into the air then slammed down onto the stone floor with a painful thud.

‘Is this normal?’ By which I meant: is someone likely to work out what’s going on and come and rescue us?

‘No!’ He was face down so his answer was muffled.

‘Is it because of the Foinse?’

There was another muffled grunt that sounded like another no. The tentacle round my waist tightened until pain shot through me. If this wasn’t a result of the magic failing then it had to be because someone had conjured it up. Someone who wanted me dead. There was no way I was going to allow that to happen. Death by sea monster while three hundred miles inland was not the way I wanted to go.

Another tentacle whipped out, this time aiming for my throat. I lashed out with my feet, doing everything I could to kick it away. The squeeze around my waist was bad enough but if the worm latched onto my neck it would be adios muchachos. My feet flailed, jabbing at the slimy thing. I managed to keep my body clear of it but that enraged the thing even more.

There was a strange, high-pitched noise. I didn’t speak sea monster but I guessed it was something along the lines of ‘screw you’.

Abandoning me for the time being, the lashing tentacle snaked towards Jamie’s squirming body instead, wrapping itself round his legs and starting to drag him out of my line of sight and towards the window. Panicking, I stretched up to grab the light fitting in the ceiling so I could turn and get a better look. My fingers just managed to curl round the hanging wire so I could spin round. I could already feel the electric cord stretching – it would break in seconds. I had enough time, however, to see what the stoor worm actually was.

Jamie said this was a mere baby; I dreaded to think what the fully grown version looked like. Half of its body hung out of the open window. The other half was a monstrous size, filling the room. I counted six tentacles – but they weren’t what really bothered me. It was the gaping mouth lined with sharp yellow teeth and the vast, dark, sightless eyes which struck terror in my heart. We had no chance.