Winter shot me a quick look of concern. ‘Yes.’

‘We need to stop the thing. We don’t necessarily have to kill it.’

His left eyebrow twitched slightly. I had the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me but there wasn’t time to pursue it now. ‘Not fire then.’ He paused. ‘Ice.’

That could work. I stretched out my hands. There was enough moisture in the air, I reckoned. Just.

The monster man began to growl. He was preparing for something. He threw himself down to the ground and began to scrabble in the earth at the base of the barrier, as if he’d decided that he couldn’t go through it so he might as well go under it. Every time he touched the ward, the magic flickered. We had seconds.

‘Use the calendula. I’ll release the spell.’

Winter agreed. ‘I’ll draw on the water in the air.’

‘And I’ll draw a rune to drop the temperature.’ I nodded. This could work.

Winter reached out, grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘We’ll be fine.’

‘Sure.’ I smiled unconvincingly. ‘No problem.’

‘Aim for its feet and legs,’ he advised.

The monster gave up on its scrabble and reared back before launching itself at the ward once more. The second after it crashed into it I sketched out the rune to dissipate the barrier; at the same time Winter threw the calendula in an arc in front of us. The monster grunted and heaved itself back onto its hands and feet. Winter drew his own runes and the molecules in the air almost immediately coalesced. The monster threw back its head, displaying a slashed, maniacal grin, then it lunged just as a wash of water rose up to meet it.

‘Now, Ivy!’

I wasted no more time. Hastily flicking out a double-handed rune, I forced Winter’s water to freeze. The magic was fast. Winter pulled me backwards as the monster’s claws scraped towards us. Then it fell heavily to the ground with its feet and legs encased in a large chunk of ice.

It groaned – but it wasn’t giving up. It stretched out its arms, flailing towards both Winter and me as if it thought it could still catch us. There was enough ice to hold it in place for an hour or two. That would give us time to work out what to do next.

I walked over and crouched down beside its head. It wasn’t easy; the smell of putrefying flesh surrounding it was extraordinary. A troubled thought pricked at the back of my mind but I pushed it away. This monster man was unlike anything I’d ever dreamt of but that didn’t mean I should start thinking the impossible.

‘Careful, Ivy!’

I gave Winter a faint smile. For all the creature’s flapping, it was an easy thing to stay away from those claws now its body was trapped. I tilted my head towards it. ‘What are you?’ I asked. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘There’s no point in trying to communicate with it,’ Winter said. ‘It’s not going to respond. It can’t.’