Tonino told it, clearly and well. There were several occasions when Cat might have interrupted with some further explanations, but he scarcely said anything, because he was so ashamed. It was not just that he, a nine-lifed enchanter, had let Master Spiderman cast a spell on him to make him forget what he was – and he knew he should have noticed the spell: it must have been inside that old hackney cab – but the fact that he, Cat, had been so busy resenting Tonino that he had nearly got both of them killed.

It made him feel worse that Tonino kept saying that Cat had behaved well, and that Cat had been managing to work magic in spite of Master Spiderman’s spells. Cat did not think either of these things were true. The most he could say for himself was he was glad he had been sorry for the trapped souls, enough to help rescue them. And he supposed he was glad to find he liked Tonino after all. Tonino had been so calm and sturdy through it all – the perfect companion. And he suspected that Tonino’s back-up magic had done twice as much as his own.

“So Gabriel de Witt is dead,” Chrestomanci said sadly.

“Not really,” Tonino said, gesturing round at the sleeping babies. “He is here somewhere.”

“Ah yes, but I imagine he – or she – doesn’t know who he is now,” Chrestomanci answered. He sighed. “So Neville Spiderman was hiding out in a time-bubble, collecting the souls of all the Chrestomancis, was he? And probably killing apprentices to prolong his own life while he waited. It was lucky he kidnapped the two of you. We’d never have caught him without that. But now we have, I think we’d better get rid of what’s left of him – it looks infectious to me. How old is this hospital?” he asked the Mother Superior.

“About seventy years old,” she replied, rather surprised.

“And what was here before it was built, do you know?” Chrestomanci asked.

She shrugged, rattling her headdress. “Just green fields, I think.”

“Good,” said Chrestomanci. “Then I can send him back in time without moving him. It’s a bit hard on the person who falls over him in the field, but it fits with what I remember. He was supposed to have been found dead in a ditch somewhere near Dulwich. Will everyone please stand back?”

Cat, Tonino and Mother Justinia all backed away a pace. Before they had quite finished moving, a blue glow appeared round the monkey-like thing on the floor and Neville Spiderman was gone. This was followed by a rapidly evaporating puddle with a strong smell of hospital.

“Disinfectant,” Chrestomanci explained. “Now, we have eight souls to account for still. Cat, can you remember which babies they all went to?”

Cat was more ashamed than ever. The babies all looked alike to him. And it had all been so confusing, with souls darting in all directions. “I’ve no idea,” he confessed. “One of the twins, but I don’t know which. And that’s all.”