It was not just the beautiful English and the good manners. Tonino had fair hair – that almost greyish fair hair people usually call ash blond – which Cat had never imagined an Italian could have. It looked very sophisticated and it made Cat’s hair look a crude straw colour by comparison. As if this was not enough, Tonino had trusting brown eyes and a nervous expression, and he was evidently younger than Cat. He looked so sweet that Cat shook hands as quickly as he could without being rude, knowing at once that everyone would expect him to look after Tonino.

“Pleased to meet you,” he lied.

Sure enough, Chrestomanci said, “Cat, I’m sure I can trust you to show Tonino the ropes here and keep an eye on him until he finds his feet in England.”

Cat sighed. He knew he was going to be very bored.

But it was worse than that. The other children in the castle thought Tonino was lovely. They all did their best to be friends with him. Chrestomanci’s daughter Julia patiently taught Tonino all the games you played in England, including cricket. Chrestomanci’s son Roger joined in the cricket lessons and then spent hours gravely comparing spells with Tonino. Chrestomanci’s ward Janet spent further hours enthusiastically asking Tonino about Italy. Janet came from another world where Italy was quite different, and she was interested in the differences.

And yet, despite all this attention, Tonino went around with a lost, lonely look which made Cat avoid him. He could tell Tonino was acutely homesick. In fact, Cat was fairly sure Tonino was feeling just like Cat had felt himself when he first came to Chrestomanci Castle, and Cat could not get over the annoyance of having someone have feelings that were his. He knew this was stupid – this was partly why he was not happy with himself – but he was not happy with Julia, Roger and Janet either. He considered that they were making a stupid fuss over Tonino. The fact was that Julia and Roger normally looked after Cat. He had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle, until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder. Cat knew all this perfectly well, but it did not make the slightest difference to the way he felt.

To make things worse, Chrestomanci himself was extremely interested in Tonino’s magic. He spent large parts of the next few days with Tonino doing experiments to discover just what the extent of Tonino’s powers was, while Cat, who was used to being the one with the interesting magic, was left to wrestle with problems of Magic Theory by himself in Chrestomanci’s study.

“Tonino,” Chrestomanci said, by way of explanation, “can, it seems, not only reinforce other people’s spells, but also make use of any magic other people do. If it’s true, it’s a highly unusual ability. And by the way,” he added, turning round in the doorway, looking tall enough to brush the ceiling, “you don’t seem to have shown Tonino round the castle yet. How come?”