I barely had time to take in all these details before he lunged again. His body smacked against my magical barrier and I felt the magic in it waver. It wouldn’t last long.

Winter stepped up next to me. ‘Goddamnit, Ivy, get back!’ He raised his hands, drawing his own runes.

‘They won’t…’ I began. I didn’t get the chance to finish. Fire plumed upwards, singeing the ward and falling short uselessly. There was no such thing as a one-way barrier. It protected us from the monster man but it also protected the monster man from us.

Winter hissed out an expletive. ‘Release the ward spell,’ he yelled as we were subjected to another frustrated attempt at an attack.

‘If I release the spell,’ I argued, ‘then we’re dead.’ I wasn’t even sure why I was bothering to refuse. It’d probably take the bastard facing us fewer than three attempts to bring it down completely.

Winter’s jaw clenched. ‘Fine. On the count of three, you start running back down the hill. Go and get help from the town. I’ll hold him off until then.’

That was about the most nonsensical thing I’d ever heard – for many reasons. ‘You know I can’t run,’ I told him.

‘Ivy, this is not the time.’

I drew back my shoulders. ‘No, it’s not. Because if you think I’m leaving you here alone with that thing, then you’re doolally.’

‘Doo what?’

The monster man threw his head back and screamed. For a fleeting moment, his face was visible – what remained of it. I saw a swarm of maggots in the soft flesh of his cheek and little more than dark holes where his eyes should have been. I swallowed hard and tried not to vomit.

‘Doolally,’ I whispered. ‘Whatever this thing is, it’s going to take both of us to bring it down.’

Winter didn’t answer immediately. I wondered whether he was still going to argue the point. Instead he gave me a small, tight nod. ‘Fire,’ he said. ‘Fire will stop it in its tracks. If you release the ward, I’ll cast out enough fire to cremate it to kingdom come.’

I shook my head. ‘It’ll die with fire but it’ll take too long. It’ll be on us before it collapses and we’ll end up getting burnt too.’

The monster man snorted, as if he thought both of us were being ridiculous. Still on all fours and moving with the litheness of a cat, he began to circle round us apparently searching for weaknesses in the ward.

‘We’re running out of time. We need something.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

Winter reached into his pocket. ‘Calendula flowers. They’ll offer us some protection.’

Not much. I nodded, however. The energy I’d expelled in order to cast the three runes was costing me and my whole body felt drained and weak. Even if I wanted to run away and leave Winter to it, I wasn’t sure I could. ‘We have to work together,’ I said in a strained voice.