‘A relative of yours, darling? One of the Swintons? Alas, I am not. I’m a … friend of the family. What the French call an amie de la maison. You see I was attentive in my lessons. I have been here for … simply ages.’ She had a leather pouch beside her, and this she pulled out and offered to him, mimicking the posture of someone he had seen only the day before.

Her profile. Her eyelashes. The shoulders.

With an electric jolt Tom recognised her.

It couldn’t be. It was mad.

But then so many mad things had happened already.

‘The boy!’ he said. ‘The boy at school.’

She lifted an eyebrow, as if in triumph.

‘How could you have got there? How can it be? Was it – can it be you?’

‘In a way,’ answered Zita. She resettled herself on her cushion.

‘You came to me in the quad. In White Quad, I mean, at school. Yesterday.’ He blinked. It really had been only the day before. The boy in the quad, the wild man on the path – all yesterday. He felt suddenly much older. ‘I remember, I was sitting on the bench underneath the founder’s statue, and I was watching the groundsman picking up litter and thinking about the holidays and my parents. And you came. And went. Between the clock sounding the tenth and eleventh strokes.’

Again she said softly, ‘In a way.’ Her large, soft eyes blinked at him. Her hair was cut short, in a boyish parting. She pushed back a silver cameo earring that hung against her cheek, and busily picked up a vial of something silvery.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘I’ll need your help to get some things. There are draughts I need to make for Jack. Most of the ingredients we can get from the farm or inside the boundaries, but there are some things we need from the woods.’

She hadn’t answered his questions. Tom knew she wouldn’t. He would have to wait.

‘The woods where the enemy live?’

‘We have to be careful, obviously. They’re not terribly watchful, and they like hunting, and they’re not always – here, if you know what I mean, but you still have to be careful. That stunt with the arrow was more of a warning shot, if you will excuse the terrible pun. They won’t act on it. You and I will go out in a minute.’

‘Look,’ said Tom.

Zita, having stood up, stared at him over her shoulder and pouted. She had an amazing ability to discomfit Tom, even without saying anything.

‘I need to know. I need to know what’s going on here. I’ve seen so much in the last few hours, I don’t even know where to begin.’

‘You’ll need this,’ she said calmly, passing him a scabbard with a short sword in it.

‘Are you serious?’ he said, holding it clumsily at his waist.