‘Bigger than you and I will ever see. The last P4-7D job was signed off in 1947, when they built the Thames Tidal Barrage. There was a lot more power about in those days, but even so it took a consortium of twenty-six sorcerers, and the wizidrical power peaked at 1.6 MegaShandars. It was said metal grew too hot to touch within a twenty-mile radius, and children’s sandpits turned to glass. They evacuated the local area for a job that size, naturally.’

Tiger blinked at me in wonder. Magic wasn’t generally talked about. Despite the obvious advantages, it was still regarded with suspicion by most people. Re-inventing sorcery as a useful commodity akin to electricity or even the fourth emergency service was something Mr Zambini had been most keen on.

‘What if someone did?’ he asked. ‘Commit an act of illegal sorcery, I mean?’

I took a deep breath and stared at him.

‘It’s about the only thing the twenty-eight nations of the Ununited Kingdoms agree upon. Any unlicensed act of sorcery committed outside the boundaries of a House of Enchantment is punishable by . . . public burning.’

Tiger looked shocked.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘an unwelcome legacy from the fourteenth century. Highly unpleasant. And that’s why you, me, we, everyone, has to be extra diligent when filling out the forms. Miss something or forget to file it and you’re responsible for a good friend’s hideous punishment. We lost George Nash four years ago. A lovely man and a skilled practitioner. What he couldn’t tell you about smoke manipulation wasn’t worth knowing. He was doing a routine earthworm charming and his B1-7G form wasn’t filled in. Someone’s eye wasn’t on the ball.’

Tiger tilted his head on one side.

‘That’s why you don’t talk about her, isn’t it?’

Tiger was smart. Mother Zenobia had sent us the best.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘the fifth foundling’s name isn’t spoken under this roof.’

We both sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the panting of the Quarkbeast, the chewing of the Transient Moose and the occasional sip, from us, of hot chocolate.

Tiger, I guessed, was probably thinking the same as me. About being a foundling. We were left outside the Convent of the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster before we were even old enough to talk. We didn’t know our true birth dates, and our names weren’t the ones we were born with. I think that’s why Tiger had guessed that the fifth foundling was the one responsible for George Nash. There is no greater insult among foundlings than to refuse to acknowledge the one thing that you value more than anything else – your name.

‘Did you ever try to find out?’ asked Tiger.

He meant my parents.