I flicked an impello at her and felt a moment of mad satisfaction as it knocked her legs out from under her. As I ran to close the distance, I pulled my asp from the belly pocket of my hoodie and flicked it out to full length.

But she rolled and was on her feet before I’d got halfway there. She raised her hand – I saw a flash and got my shield up in time to deflect it into the air. I’ve been training to conjure my shield with an upward slope for use amongst the general public. You don’t want anything eldritch, or even mundanely pointy, ricocheting into innocent bystanders.

Lesley switched direction and headed for the right of the plinth that held up forty tons of mounted military legend so I went around it on the left just in case she planned an ambush – which is how we came to run smack into each other.

I’m bigger, so she went backwards. But not before her forehead hit me hard enough in the mouth to loosen my one filling and make me taste blood. I swung my baton but missed, and she kicked me in the thigh – which was probably a lucky miss. Then she hit me with something impello-ish which knocked me over backwards, but Nightingale has trained me to accept the direction of the blow and roll up so that I regain my feet as quickly as possible.

So far this was all suspiciously non-lethal. Not that I was complaining, mind you, but we were escalating enough for the street lights and spots around us to fizz out. I flung a water bomb in Lesley’s general direction but she’d ducked back behind the plinth and I dared not charge after her in case she was waiting around the corner with something unpleasant. I went wide and caught sight of her vaulting a waist-high stone parapet behind the monument and dropping onto the ramp below. I leaned over and watched as she ran down towards the pedestrian subway. I considered following, but instead darted back and ran down the nearby stairs instead – just in case she tried to double back that way.