I swallow hard, about to ask what will happen to me if I do, when she presses her finger to my forehead. Electricity surges down my spine and sparks along my arms and legs. Magic ripples through me like a stone dropped in some vast, unknowable ocean. I am a wave breaking on the shore, a bird diving into the sea, an autumn leaf falling. There and gone again, me and not me.

‘Picture the bird,’ she commands.

I dig my fingernails into my palms and focus with all my might, imagining myself as a cormorant. Sweat covers my forehead as lightness rushes through my body, hollowing out my bones. I am abruptly too hot and shivering all over. My hands tingle and I’m filled with an overwhelming sense that I can do anything. The heat intensifies and my bones creak. Something is happening. I’m changing.

The realisation fills me with panic. I thought I could do this, but I can’t. The idea of becoming another creature – of physically transforming – is terrifying. I tell myself that I have to become a witch to save my mother, but it’s like a shutter has come down in my brain. Magic drips through my fingers, leaving my hands with the sensation of holding a pile of wet seaweed. I am no longer hot, but cold as the stone beneath me.

An image of a girl with long dark hair and red lips flashes into my mind.

Let me help you.

Something thumps wildly in my chest, like a bird is battering its wings against my ribcage. Moronoe’s face grows bigger and brighter, her words loud.

You must let me help you.

The stronger she becomes, the weaker I feel. I shake my head and her image fades as quickly as it came.

I open my eyes and inspect my hands. My fingers are my own, but when I touch my jaw I feel feathers. I try to sit and hear a snap. Stars prickle at the edge of my vision as the pain hits me, white-hot and searing. I look down and see a shard of bone protruding from my right thigh. The skin surrounding it isn’t pink and covered with blood. It’s black and bumpy like the leg of a bird. I pull at the hole in my tights and tear open the material. The scaly surface covers several centimetres of my leg. I try to cry out but my tongue is swollen and flaps like an eel in my mouth, and all I make is a strangled juddering sound. I turn my head and tiny bones crack and pop in the tunnel of my neck.