‘Where did the sheep come from? How did you kill it?’ The second question was particularly pertinent. If Mazza had used magic to rip life from the animal, that magic could have been used in turn to feed necromancy. As the Ipsissimus suggested, the truth of the matter lay in blood.

Mazza looked horrified. ‘It wasn’t my fault!’

I gazed at him in disgust while Winter inched forward, his eyes the colour of glacier ice. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘You accidentally killed it.’

‘No!’ he burst out. ‘I just found it! It was already dying. I didn’t do anything to it apart from…’ He halted abruptly.

‘Apart from what, Mazza? What did you do?’

He flapped his arms and began to babble. ‘Nothing! I didn’t mean to! I mean, I did mean to but only because he’s such a prick! No one would listen to me and I wanted to scare him off and make him stop, and when the herbs didn’t work I had to do something. I couldn’t just let him get away with that kind of thing!’

Winter shot me a glance and, interpreting the look, I nodded and put a hand on Mazza’s shoulder. He was visibly trembling. ‘Slow down,’ I told him. ‘And tell us from the start.’

He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘He wouldn’t leave her alone. He was using his position to get exactly what he wanted.’

There could only be one woman he was referring to. ‘You mean Amy.’

He nodded vigorously. ‘She told him no but he wouldn’t listen. I had to do something.’

‘Who are we talking about?’

He looked at me as if I were dense. ‘Trevor Bellows, of course. He goes after all the woman. Barry told me he was always the same but no one did anything about it because Belinda wanted to keep him around.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘He’s been on Enchantment since the beginning. He’s got power and money and status and any time anything happened, it just got hushed up.’

My mouth was dry. ‘I need you to be explicit, Mazza. What was he doing? What did he do to Amy?’ She’d never given any indication that anything was wrong. But then, if she were scared of him she probably wouldn’t have. I cursed myself. She’d been my room-mate, even if only for a couple of nights. How could I not have noticed that something was up?

‘He wanted her to sleep with him. He said that if she didn’t he’d get her fired.’

I sensed Winter’s rage. His fists clenched and his body went rigid. I was right there with him but I had to stay in control. I had to find out what Mazza had done and if he was the person we were looking for.

‘So what did you do?’ I asked. I spoke softly because if I tried anything above a whisper I had the feeling it would sound like a strangled scream of fury.