My head is thrumming and I want to take off my glasses and rub the spot between my eyes where the paracetamol-immune migraine is building, but I don’t. Even without the soaking hijabs, cracked plaster skin and unnatural eyes, I’m not willing to be blind around the twins.

I clear my throat. This isn’t real.

“In your paper, you wrote that you think there are bee rituals. What—” I glance at Rimi, with her tilted head and white eyes, and flinch, “—what gave you that idea?”

Nightmare Resha blinks once, twice, then opens her mouth to speak. Water runs down her dark blue hijab and into her open mouth.

“Trust her. Follow the water. Ask the bees.”

Water dribbles out of the corner of her mouth, and her words echo with the unmistakable buzzing of bees.

The sound — not her lovely, chipper voice, but the low humming of a swarm of insects — is what makes me break, jerking in my chair and nearly tipping backwards with a loud grunt of surprise. I barely avoid face planting into my floor.

“Thomas?” calls a worried voice from the kitchen as I hesitantly look back up at the girls.

A loud rushing sigh of relief spills out. My students are back. The nightmare is over.

“Are you having a fit or something?” Resha asks, squinting. Her hijab is dry, her glasses back. There’s no buzzing accompanying her words, just her thick Glaswegian accent. She’s judging me, and it’s a lovely thing to see.

“Thomas?” Fadwa appears around the corner in a clash of colours. I didn’t even know she was here; she must have let herself in while I was having a meltdown. “I thought I heard something. Are you alright? Did they set you on fire again?”

“No, we were, uh, just talking about bees,” I answer, hoping that will satisfy her and she won’t notice my shaky voice and slightly puffy breathing. She’s like a bloodhound for anxiety.

“I told you not to write about bees,” she barks, coming fully into the room to stare down her sisters. “I have you studying with Thomas to learn your herbs and theory, not to focus on this pish.”

Her bright yellow hijab clashes hideously with the ugly red patterned jumper that’s swallowing her slender frame, and it’s hurting my eyes. She’s brilliant, but she dresses like an old man made love to a traffic cone.

“It’s no pish, we’re researching!” Rimi argues. “We’ve been studying bees’ patterns to see if there’s magic in them a magician could use.” An image of the nightmare Rimi and Resha commanding an army of killer bees pops into my mind, and I suppress a shiver. My migraine thrums happily; it seems to enjoy the obvious carnage this idea would come with.