‘I’ll say it again,’ Fake Eve said, with a furious toss of her head. ‘Who are you?’

My lips moved but no sound came out. She laughed at me. ‘Can’t talk, can you?’ There was a definite sneer to her voice. That really bugged me.

She might have been a talented witch but she didn’t know everything. As she patted me down, looking for some kind of identification in my pockets, she didn’t realise that I was still able – just – to move my thumbs. What most witches don’t know is that having opposable thumbs isn’t only handy for fashioning tools. It can also be very helpful for magic. It is generally believed that performing runes requires at least four fingers and a thumb. I smiled smugly to myself. The Order don’t know everything. I’d been literally twiddling my thumbs one afternoon when I discovered entirely the opposite.

Using swift surreptitious movements to avoid alerting her, I twirled one thumb and sketched out a brief figure of eight with the other. It was hardly elegant and wouldn’t win me any prizes in a magic competition but it served my needs very well. Drawing in the magic that Fake Eve had used against me, I pulled the energy together and flung it back at her. As I fell to the floor, finally released from the invisible force that was holding me up, she was slammed back into the window and glued there spread-eagled like a squashed fly. Ha! Take that, witchy woman!

I limped over to the man and bent down to check him. He was still breathing. That was something, at least. I ran my hands over his body, unable to see any broken bones. Pursing my lips, I went into the kitchen to find something to tie them up with. Eventually I came across a long extension cord in one of Eve’s drawers. Struggling against the man’s weight, I heaved him into a sitting position and wrapped the cord round his wrists. Fake Eve glared at me the entire time but I ignored her. Her turn would come. I fashioned a gag for the man out of a dishcloth and added a few magical flourishes in case he happened to be Houdini and could wriggle his way free. Then I pulled off Eve’s curtain ties and stood in front of the woman. Her eyes spat fire.

‘Three,’ I said, watching her carefully. ‘Two. One.’ Nothing happened. I’d mistimed it. A second later, the spell wore off and she slumped to the floor. I reached down swiftly before she could react and looped the ties round her wrists and her feet, ensuring that the magic encircling her was even stronger than it was for her partner. Then I dragged her over to him so they were back to back.

By the time I’d found a suitable gag to keep Fake Eve quiet, the man was coming around. He blinked his eyes, patently confused for a few seconds. Then he turned his head and caught sight of me grinning at him. He seemed even more astonished than I was that I’d bested the pair of them.