It began when I started a practice session without taking my phone out of my jacket pocket. I even noticed a little flare in intensity when I formed the werelight, but I’d only been reliably casting for two days so it didn’t register as significant. It was only later, when I tried to call Lesley and found my phone was busted that I opened up the case and saw the same trickle of sand I’d noticed at the vampire house. I took it down to the lab and prised out the microprocessor. As it came loose, the same fine sand streamed out of its plastic casing. The gold pins were intact, as were the contacts, but the silicon bit of the chip had disintegrated. The cupboards in the lab were full of the scent of sandalwood and the most amazing range of antique equipment, including the Charles Perry microscope, all put away with such precision and tidiness that I knew no student had been involved. Under the microscope I found the powder to be mostly silicon with a few impurities which I suspected was germanium or gallium arsenide. The chip that handled RF conversion was superficially intact but had suffered microscopic pitting across its entire surface. The patterns reminded me of Mr Coopertown’s brain. This was my phone on magic, I thought. Obviously I couldn’t do magic and carry a mobile phone, or stand near a computer or an iPod or most of the useful technology invented since I was born. No wonder Nightingale drove a 1967 Jag. The question was how close did the magic have to be? I was formulating some experiments to find out, when Nightingale distracted me with my next form.

We sat down on opposite sides of the lab bench and Nightingale placed an object between us. It was a small apple. ‘Impello,’ he said, and the apple rose into the air. It hung there, rotating slowly, while I checked for wires, rods and anything else I could think of. I poked it with my finger, but it felt like it was embedded in something solid.

‘Seen enough?’

I nodded, and Nightingale brought out a basket of apples – a wicker basket with a handle and a check napkin, no less. He placed a second apple in front of me, and I didn’t need him to explain the next step. He levitated the apple, I listened for the forma, concentrated on my own apple and said, ‘Impello.’

I wasn’t really that surprised when nothing happened.

‘It does get easier,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s just that it gets easier slowly.’

I looked at the basket. ‘Why do we have so many apples?’

‘They have a tendency to explode,’ said Nightingale.