A taxi or minibus would have been a needless extravagance, so the three sorcerers, myself and the beast were packed into my Volkswagen for the short journey from Hereford to King’s Pyon. The well-proportioned ‘Full’ Price was driving, Lady Mawgon was in the passenger seat and I was in the back with Wizard Moobin and the Quarkbeast, who sat panting in between the two of us. We were three-fifths of our way through an uncomfortable silence as we showed our passes to the sentry and drove from the walled city and into the suburbs. The silence was not unusual. Despite the three of them being our most versatile sorcerers, they didn’t really get along. It wasn’t anything particularly personal; sorcerers are just like that – temperamental, and apt to break out into petulant posturing that took time and energy to smooth over. Running Kazam Mystical Arts Management was less about spells and enchantments and more about bureaucracy and diplomacy – working with those versed in the magical Arts was sometimes like trying to herd cats. The job at King’s Pyon was too big for Price and Moobin alone, so I’d had to coax Lady Mawgon into making up the shortfall. She thought this sort of work beneath her, but like all of them, was realistic. Kazam was almost broke, and we badly needed the cash.

‘I do wish you would keep your hands on the wheel,’ said Lady Mawgon in an aggrieved tone as she shot a disapproving glance at Full Price, who was steering by spell. The wheel was turning by itself, while Price’s arms were folded neatly in front of him. To Lady Mawgon, who in better days had once been Sorceress to Royalty, open displays of magic were the mark of the guileless show-off, and the hopelessly ill bred.

‘I’m just tuning up,’ replied Full Price indignantly. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t need to.’

Both I and Wizard Moobin looked at Lady Mawgon, eager to know how she was tuning up. Moobin had prepared for the job by tinkering with the print of the Hereford Daily Eyestrain. Since leaving the office twenty minutes before he had filled in the crossword. Not unusual in itself since the Eyestrain’s crossword is seldom hard, except that he had used printed letters from elsewhere on the page and dragged them across using his mind alone. The crossword was now complete and more or less correct – but it left an article on Queen Mimosa’s patronage of the Troll War Widows Fund looking a trifle disjointed.

‘I am not required to answer your question,’ replied Lady Mawgon in a haughty tone, ‘and what’s more, I detest the term “tuning up”. It’s Quazafucating, and always has been.’

‘Using the old language makes us sound archaic and out of touch,’ replied Price.

‘It makes us sound as we are meant to be,’ replied Lady Mawgon, ‘of a noble calling.’