Winter glared at me. ‘First of all, you will address me as Adeptus Exemptus Winter.’

I raised my eyebrows. He was at the very top of the Second Level. I wondered whether he ran his own Department; it was certainly possible. He seemed rather young to have such power but what did I know?

‘Secondly,’ he continued, ‘I am not taking a sabbatical. You obviously know something about how the Order works and it appears you have a working knowledge of magic. We will work together and,’ his lip curled in distaste, ‘somehow get through this.’

‘Nope. Not happening.’

‘Now, listen—’

I pulled myself up. ‘No, Adeptus Exemptus Winter, you listen. I have a life. I don’t want to be in the Order. You can’t make me work with you. Plus,’ I added, pulling out my trump card, ‘you can bet your life-savings that the Order doesn’t want me.’

Biggins undid his cloak as if it were starting to constrict him. ‘What did you say your name was?’ he asked.

I smiled. ‘Ivy Wilde.’

He flinched. ‘Oh.’

My smile grew. ‘Oh indeed.’

Chapter Three

Biggins skittered off to make his report to the Order and to find out if there was a way to undo the binding spell; boy, I’d like to have been a fly on that wall. Meanwhile I put down some food for Harold and took Winter to my own flat. As I opened the door and realised that it was colder inside than it was out in the draughty corridor, I remembered that I still hadn’t called a damned plumber. That sucked – but at least it was a problem I had a chance of fixing.

Winter’s gaze swept across my living room. No prizes for guessing what he was thinking. There might be an absence of bee pollen but this wasn’t the gleaming place that Eve’s was. I picked up my bra from the back of the sofa and absently twirled it on one finger. He stared at me. Screw him. I wasn’t going to apologise for my clothes lying around my home.

‘So,’ he said, averting his eyes from my offending underwear, ‘I’m going to assume that you’re not in the Order because you couldn’t pass beyond Neophyte. You have the intelligence but not the magic.’

‘Guess again.’

He pointed at my thumb. ‘You’ve recently been bitten by a rodent of some kind,’ he said smugly. ‘That means you’ve not even mastered Myomancy.’

I held up the offending digit. ‘This is proof that I’m a Myomancy expert,’ I told him serenely. ‘It’s a bad omen. And look, here you are: the living embodiment of bad luck.’

‘A bite isn’t an omen.’

‘It is if you’re as adept as I am.’

He snorted. ‘Yeah, right. What can you actually do?’

I might have told him if the tone of his voice hadn’t been so incredulous but I didn’t need to prove myself to him. He needed me a hell of a lot more than I needed him. ‘What can you do?’ I returned.