Two, we didn’t have hot doughnut stands lining the street.

We’d immediately petitioned for that but had wholeheartedly lost on account of us being under the age of thirteen and not considered reliable business sources. My efforts of pointing out that Harry Potter was only published because of a child were ignored, and I’d had the last laugh when, several months after we officially opened the gardens to the public, a snack stand had opened near the house.

With—that’s right—hot bloody doughnuts.

I mean, I had to pay for them, but it was so worth it.

It was like a funfair in my back garden.

I moved the pillows to the end of the bed and got the fitted sheet. It was folded perfectly—whoever had done this was surely a magician. Unfolding it was like unravelling fairy lights at Christmas. You know when you just wrap them around your hand and shove them in the box with the tinsel because it’ll be fine next year?

Yeah.

It was never fine.

Neither was this.

“What the—” My hands were in corners, but they were opposite corners. They didn’t match up, and even as I slid my hand down the side to another corner, I somehow ended up at the same corner.

I was all twisted up.

I felt like Alice in Wonderland, except there was no Wonderland in a fitted sheet.

Just Hell.

There was only Hell.

“Help,” I whimpered. “I’m stuck.”

Miles, who had been observing me with thinly veiled amusement from the doorway, pushed off the doorframe and came over to me, slowly reaching out for the sheet. He untangled it from my hands and took it from me. He deftly moved his arms and undid the mess I’d made of the sheet. “You don’t do this often, do you?”

“Not often enough, evidently,” I muttered to myself. Why did this never happen when I was alone? Oh, right, because I folded my own sheets, and I folded fitted sheets like a normal person.

Not very well.

“Why don’t you go and get changed?” Miles asked, holding the sheet up. “You’re still soaking wet, and I don’t fancy you getting my bed wet.”

“Why would I get your bed wet?”

“You’ll be touching my sheets,” he said dryly.

Right.

Of course.

“Sure. Um, I’m just down the hall, but I’ll come back and show you downstairs. I guess you need to eat?”

“Unless I’ve suddenly become a vampire, food would be appreciated.”

I stared at him. “I was right. One of us might not make it through this storm.” On that note, I left the room and hobbled down the hall to my own. I was absolutely freezing, and I hadn’t realised just how wet my clothes actually were. My leggings were stuck to my legs, my socks were almost like the ones that had individual toe things, and somehow, even my t-shirt and jumper were wet.

I had no idea how that had happened.

I wasn’t going to get warm this way, so I decided to take a shower. It ended up being the quickest shower I’d ever taken, and when I was done, I dressed in a pair of clean, dry leggings, thick socks, and a long, knitted jumper. Drying my hair was far too much work, so I simply towel dried it and pulled it into a plait that hung over my shoulder and only dried my fringe.