‘Is it just you and her?’

‘And Peg. He’s, um . . .’

‘Um what?’ she persists.

My mind whirrs, but it’s never going to win against Zara. I look at Yanny, but he’s leaning back on his elbows, eyes closed, face tipped to the darkening sky.

‘He’s an imp.’

She slaps me on the arm, and then claps her hands. ‘IMPS ARE REAL!’

‘Don’t shout about it!’

‘No. OK.’ She bounces a bit, clasping her hands together. Then she turns her full bright on me again, and it makes me laugh.

‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘What kind of fairy are you?’

‘Not a fairy,’ I say. ‘I’m a sprite.’

‘A sprite,’ she breathes, staring at me, her head on one side. ‘I thought they were smaller.’

‘I don’t think they are,’ I say, looking down at myself. ‘Nan cast a glamour over me when I was small, and I haven’t worked out how to break it yet, so I don’t really know . . .’

‘Not a lot smaller,’ says Yanny. ‘Pretty much the same as fairies, only not so clever, and not so good in battle.’

‘Yanny!’

‘S’true,’ he says, shaking his head sadly.

‘You’re delirious. I’ll show you, when I can work out how. I’m sure I can fight just as much as you can.’

‘So why haven’t you?’ he asks, his eyes still bleary.

‘I wasn’t allowed to. Nan says she was protecting me.’ I shrug, knowing it’s cowardly. Yanny wasn’t allowed to either, only he did.

‘And your nan,’ Zara says, frowning. ‘Ghost Nan. She’s getting thin?’

‘She died a long time ago . . . She came back to look after me when my mother died. She’s OK, just . . . Yeah, a bit worn out sometimes.’ I shrug, trying to make it sound like it’s all OK, and nothing to be so sad about.

But I am so sad about it.

When I see her getting thinner, when I see how exhausted she looks – when she disappears entirely, even if it’s just for a couple of hours – it’s terrible. I thought she’d be with me forever. It seemed only right, since the rest of my family is such a disaster. She does always come back, I remind myself. And she always says she’ll hang around for as long as I need her to. The way things are at the moment, she’ll see that being for a long time.

‘So, ghost Nan looks after you?’

I press my fingers into the earth.

‘Yeah. And Peg. And I have a new little cat called Teacake . . .’

Zara’s eyes get all soft, and I wish I could take it back, because I just want to see the bright of her excitement, and now it’s gone.

‘You and Yanny have been hiding whole worlds from me! Whole . . . magical worlds.’ She stares out at Cloudfell Mountain and the dark swathe of Winterspell.

I wince. ‘I know.’

‘And now I’m supposed to be all noble and understanding?’ She sighs.