‘What are you doing?’ Zara asks, catching me at it again later in our English class.

This whole new-girl thing is getting old.

‘She’s giving them the imp,’ says Yanny.

‘What?’ Zara looks baffled.

We both turn to look at him.

‘The imp. Staring at someone, smiling, giving them the creeps.’

‘I’m not sure the creeps is what I was aiming for . . .’ ‘Well, you weren’t being friendly,’ he says.

‘They were staring at me first!’

‘This is a very strange and immature conversation,’ Zara sniffs. Then her eyes sharpen on Yanny. ‘What’s that about imps? Are they real?’ She leans in closer to us. ‘They’re real, aren’t they! I know there are strange things going on here . . .’

‘It’s just a turn of phrase!’ Yanny says, shaking his head and picking up his rather battered book.

‘Nope. Try again.’

‘It’s a thing,’ I say, feeling my skin heat. ‘You know, like an impish grin. You’ve heard that before . . .’

Zara frowns, but she doesn’t get a chance to say anything more because Mrs Arnott is giving us all a stare that has nothing to do with imps, and we spend the next half-hour writing about the downfall of humanity in Animal Farm. Well, I do, and Zara does. Yanny spends most of it pretending not to stare at me, until I give him the imp.

‘Where did you say you live?’ he whispers, as soon as we sit down in history. His eyes glow, and there’s a tiny little pull, deep in my chest.

Magic. He’s using magic on me.

‘Just outside the forest. How about you?’

‘On the other side.’

‘The other side?’

‘Of the forest.’

‘I didn’t say which side I was on?’

‘Well, we clearly don’t live on the same side, so it must be the other side.’

All the time, that little glow, that smile, that pull of power.

There are different kinds of magic, Nan says. There’s the kind that comes from within, when you are a creature of fae, that is in your blood and your soul and in everything you do. And then there’s the kind you can learn from books – words of power that can be used to make spell-magic with just a little bit of heart. I can do a little of both, same as she could. But Yanny’s definitely using the first kind right now – I’m sure of it.

‘Stop it,’ I whisper.

He pulls back. ‘So you do have magic.’

‘Enough to know when it’s being used on me!’

‘You should be enrolled.’

‘No I shouldn’t! . . . Enrolled into what?’

I stare at him, while the teacher starts talking about Joseph Lister, but he doesn’t answer. My hand reaches for a pen, and when Mr Allen starts making notes on the board, I follow the rest of the class in writing them in my book.

Yanny does really have fae magic.

‘What should I be enrolled into?’ I ask him again as we make our way to the cafeteria.