‘I wanted to protect her. If I could stop him, I thought maybe I could find something that would keep her safe. This is my second series with Enchantment. Last time one of the contestants sprinkled some herbs around their beds to keep them safe at night. I thought I could do the same.’

I frowned. ‘I don’t remember that.’

‘Nothing happened. He sprinkled the herbs and then slept like a baby. It didn’t make the cut.’

I sighed. ‘So you thought it was an effective protection spell?’

‘Yes. I copied exactly what he did except in larger quantities.’

‘Let me guess,’ Winter said through gritted teeth. ‘Mandrake, cinquefoil and prickly ash bark.’

Mazza blinked. ‘How did you know?’

‘We found it all around the first set.’

‘Oh.’ Mazza deflated even further. ‘It didn’t work anyway.’

‘Funny that,’ Winter muttered.

‘I’m not a witch. I don’t have any magic at all.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘But I thought that if I did what he had done, then it might be okay.’ He threw Winter an accusing look. ‘At least I tried!’

I offered a soothing nod. ‘You did.’ I gave him a moment’s pause to gather himself together then my voice hardened. ‘But this still doesn’t explain the scent of blood.’

‘Bellows wouldn’t stop what he was doing. I had to take action. I thought if I could scare him I could make him stop. I was going to saw through his staff so that it snapped when he put his weight on it but I knew that wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t have a clue what to do. Until I found the sheep.’

‘Where was it?’

Mazza obviously didn’t want to answer. He scuffed the ground with his toe and demurred. ‘It doesn’t really matter.’

I leaned forward until I was almost nose to nose with him. ‘We’ll decide what matters. Where did you find the sheep?’

‘By the cemetery,’ he mumbled. He pulled away from me.

I didn’t move. He could only mean the one at the bottom of Dead Man’s Hill. ‘Before or after Benjamin Alberts was killed?’

‘After,’ he whispered. ‘Armstrong wanted me to go and scout out the area. He wanted to do a challenge amongst the graves. You know, to make it spooky or something. He didn’t want anyone to know because he thought they might be annoyed that he was still thinking about using that place after what happened. I found the sheep there. I don’t know what had happened to it. It was lying on its side and there was a wound in its stomach. Maybe a wild animal had got to it. I was going to get a vet but my phone kept cutting out. Bad reception or something. I knew that by the time I got to town and found someone it would probably be too late. With all that blood all over the place I just…’ His voice dropped and he hung his head. ‘I collected as much of the blood as I could and then I hit the sheep over the head and put it out of its misery.’