Winter scratched his chin and cast a critical eye across my bedraggled and sweaty appearance. ‘I was going to move onto sparring,’ he said. ‘But I think that’s probably enough for today.’

‘Great.’ I was really looking forward to getting back home. I didn’t even care if my sheets were still wet; right now I’d sleep almost anywhere.

‘Take a quick shower,’ Winter said. ‘After that, we can hit the library.’

I went very still. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Why? What have you done?’

I glared at him. ‘You know what I mean. Why do we need to go to the library?’

Honest-to-goodness surprise flickered in his eyes. ‘So we can study.’ Belatedly he seemed to understand what I was getting at and slowed his speech as if he were speaking to someone of very low intellect. ‘The library is where books are kept. Books contain knowledge. If you read books, you can learn things.’ Winter raised an eyebrow. ‘You can read, right?’

I shook my head. ‘Nope. Not a word. So there’s no point going near any books.’

Winter remained deadpan. ‘Hmm. In that case, we’ll need to spend even more time in the library than I thought. We can begin with basic phonics.’ Damn it. The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘I’ll teach you the alphabet song.’

‘I hate singing.’

‘It seems, Ms Wilde, that you hate everything and everyone unless it involves lounging around at home and doing nothing at all.’

I grinned. ‘So now you understand why all this training is a waste of your time.’

He gazed at me with sapphire-hued promise. ‘I don’t fail, Ms Wilde. Ever. The Ipsissimus wants me to prove myself so that is what I will do.’

‘I’ve told you before, my name is Ivy.’ I put my hands on my hips. ‘And failure is good. People who don’t fail have no understanding of their own limits.’

Winter leant closer to me. ‘People who don’t succeed aren’t trying.’

It was like talking to a brick wall. I suppose I should have been grateful that sometimes he showed glimpses of a sense of humour. I sighed. ‘I’m going for that shower.’

‘Fifteen minutes,’ he called after me. ‘Or I’ll come in after you.’

That was too good to pass up. I turned round. ‘You can come now if you want. I’ll soap your back. You can wash my hair. And then we can—’

‘Shower, Ms Wilde,’ Winter interrupted flatly. ‘Now.’

Scratch that about his sense of humour. The man was no fun at all.

***

As before, Winter took off at tremendous speed. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to sprint alongside him, he tutted loudly and slowed down to match my pace. I could tell it annoyed him from the way he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. This was fun.

‘There are two main methods of performing magic,’ he informed me.

‘Casting runes and herblore.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m not a complete idiot.’

‘I never said you were. If you let me finish…’