I dreamed of Fred, meowing loudly, and then turning silent. The light went out of his eyes, and he lay down, his body splaying out in the way that only the dead can do. I dreamed of Will, crying, looking devastated at first, and then, in a flash, becoming angry. I dreamed of lasagne, rich and cheesy and delicious. But it was ever so far away from me, miles and miles away, so instead I ate whatever was closest – some strawberry jelly, a block of cheese, and some custard.

  ‘Wanda. Wanda, wake up. And stop drooling.’

  With my heart beating fast, I sat up in my bed and wiped my drool. There were food stains on my jumpsuit, but that wasn’t the strangest thing. The strangest thing was that Sylvia Berry was sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at me.

  ‘Why does my drool taste like cheese? And jelly? And custard? And how did you get in here?’

  Sylvia rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve got an appetite for destruction, you do,’ she mused, wiping some of the custard from my trouser leg. ‘Dear Hecate, Wanda, why won’t you ever just obey and let me walk you where I want to? I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. Just relax and listen to what I have to say.’

  I jumped out of the bed, backing away from her. ‘Walk me? Walk me? Sylvia, what are you talking about? Why am I covered in food? And once again, how did you get in here?’

  ‘There really isn’t the time for explanations, Wanda,’ she said with an impatient sigh. ‘Anyway, let’s face it – you already know the answers. All that matters right now is Will is in trouble, and seeing as I can’t control you any longer, you’re going to have to sort this one out by yourself.’

  I sank to the cold, hard floor of my solitary cell. I knew I should ring the buzzer, but finding out the truth was more important. Although Sylvia was almost right: I did already know the answers, or at least I was beginning to develop a pretty big theory.

  The last few days suddenly made a sick sort of sense.

  ‘Sylvia … you’ve been doing this to me, haven’t you? You’re the reason I keep zoning out. You’re behind all of this. You … you killed Baldrick Berry.’

  17. The Wards Don’t Matter At All

  I wanted to slap myself for being so dumb. The answer had been staring at me the whole time. Finn might have said that the Scary Chair worked on everybody, but even he knew that wasn’t completely true.

  I’d always suspected that, just like her son, nothing could fully disempower Will’s mother. Mage Monks like Sylvia had a whole different skillset at their disposal. She wasn’t even in the prison when she killed her husband – she was able to use distance magic, to send a death spell from afar.

  She was able to go places she shouldn’t, too – she’d once broken in to one of the best protected parts of the Longest Library. And now she’d used her magic to commit another murder, and I was the one who’d taken the blame.

  She gave me a delighted smile. ‘See? I knew you’d get there in the end, Wanda. Look, I’ll answer all your questions when you get back. For now, just get out of here and go to Will’s. I know you can. I know you’ve been training with Erik. I’ve seen what you can do, too. You’re not a Mage Monk, but you might as well be. You can do the things that take us centuries to learn, like walking through walls, bouncing magic off you, getting in and out of the most heavily warded places on the planet. Even the wards of Witchfield don’t matter at all, not with power like yours.’

  ‘Centuries?’

  She cleared her throat (which wasn’t at all suspicious). ‘Not literal centuries, obviously. It just feels that long. It’s arduous training. I used to eat so much when I first started. Even now, I get famished if I push it too hard. That’s why you’ve been sleep eating. Every time you push me out, it takes a lot of your energy. And, for some reason, you also become obsessed with buying mangoes for your bat. Doesn’t he eat anything else? It can’t be healthy, surely, to only eat one thing.’ She waved a hand. ‘Never mind. We all have our foibles. But the thing is, you’re getting better all the time. I can’t even enter you for more than a second now – this time you chucked me out straight away and headed to the prison kitchen instead.’

  ‘I … how?’ Maybe I wasn’t imagining it – maybe I did still have my power, as I’d first believed. The food stains on my jumpsuit certainly seemed to prove it.

  ‘You know how. You know what you can do. You even maintained invisibility during your latest binge, and you kept yourself completely cloaked from any scanners that should have sensed you. But please, like I said, it’s time to go, Wanda. Go to Will’s, and we’ll talk when you get back.’

  ‘Sylvia,’ I spoke in a low, warning tone. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you explain yourself properly. I know you’ve been using me. What I don’t know is why. You can walk through walls yourself. I mean, you’re here right now, in my cell.’ My next few words came with bitter tears. ‘So considering all of that, couldn’t you have killed Baldrick Berry yourself?’

  She gave me a small, sad smile. ‘If I could have killed Baldrick, believe me, I would have done it. But it’s that dratted Queen of the Sióga, you see. She’s been helping the Wayfarers to dampen my power. I can still walk around within the prison, but getting out has become impossible. But my distance magic, particularly a trick called Possession and Leaving … well, she hasn’t got rid of that yet. I couldn’t send a death spell Baldrick’s way, but I could borrow your body. Your magic, too. Has Erik never taught you about this? I mean, when you started blacking out, surely he could have brought it up.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Erik doesn’t know I’ve been blacking out. He’s my teacher, not my confidant.’

  ‘Huh.’ She shrugged. ‘I would have thought he’d be doing his best to become your best pal, seeing as it’s a good way for him to get into Christine’s good books. Still, he was always a stickler for the rules, that cousin of mine, so I suppose it shouldn’t really surprise me that he’s been strictly professional with you – or that he hasn’t told you about some of the darker lessons we learned as Mage Monks.’

  I stood up, holding my head and staring at her. ‘Good goddess, why can’t you people just stay away from dark magic?’

  ‘It’s not dark magic … well, not exactly. It’s just … frowned upon.’ She stood up and walked towards me, giving me an appealing stare. ‘Look, there’s so much to this, Wanda, and right now I really don’t feel like we have the three centuries it’d take to go into the full details, so can we just talk about Will?’

  I shook my head, moving away from her. ‘Centuries again. That’s the second time you’ve said it.’

  ‘Stop focusing on the wrong things, Wanda. The thing is, it’s bad enough that the Queen’s made it impossible for me to leave the prison. And now with you constantly booting me out, I can’t Possess you anymore.’

  ‘Oh gee, I feel so sorry for you. It must be so awful not to be able to use me against my will anymore!’ A horrible realisation rushed into my mind. ‘Oh crap! It was you! You made me hold Will’s hand the other day. You made me say things to him. Things he thinks I said.’

  She blinked. ‘Yes, well … I just wanted to tell him that I missed him. That I loved him and would do anything for him. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Yes there is!’ I shouted. ‘There bloody is when he thinks I said it! When, thanks to you, he thinks there’s still a chance for him and me.’

  ‘Isn’t there?’

  I glared at her. ‘I used to like you, Sylvia. I used to wonder what you were doing, why you ever joined the Berry coven in the first place. But I get it now. You’re just like the rest of them. You’re as bad as your husband. You do what you want, when you want. And you take what you want, too. You took me. You used me, to speak with Will, and the goddess knows what else. You killed Baldrick, for Hecate’s sake! You made me think I killed Baldrick!’

  She lifted her chin. ‘And what if I did? I saw him, two nights before. He was talking to someone in his library, but I couldn’t see who, because I couldn’t control your stubborn body properly. He said, “Yes, I’ll do it. I’ll kill William Berry, I’ll do it at the press conference for the new school.” Tell me, what would you have done if it was your son? If you had a way to help him, wouldn’t you have done it?’

  I backed against the door. That was why I’d come home that morning in my jogging clothes – because Sylvia had taken my body and used it to spy on Baldrick. ‘Yes. I would have done something, but not that. I would have done what I was going to do before you took over my body. I would have frozen Baldrick. Disempowered him. Arrested him. Used him to get information about who else was after Will. You didn’t help your son, Sylvia. You kept me and the rest of the Wayfarers from properly investigating Baldrick’s assassination attempt!’

  She was silent for a few seconds, before saying, ‘Well, some of us prefer to do things our own way. Because some of us think that the kind of justice meted out by you Wayfarers isn’t good enough. The Baldricks of the world can’t be bargained with, or rehabilitated. They’re bad to the bone, Wanda. And right now, whoever sent him after Will, they’ll have someone else lined up to kill him. And of course I want them to fail, but … if they do … if they do, what happens next?’

  Tears spilled down her face. ‘Wanda … he’s doing so well. What if … what if all of this tips him over the edge again?’

  ‘You need to have more faith in your son,’ I told her, but I said it half-heartedly, knowing that I feared the same. I thought of the dream I’d just had: Will, crying over Fred’s body, his face moving from sadness to anger in a flash.

  ‘I have faith in you,’ she said. ‘I have a horrible sense that something’s going to happen tonight, and that only you can stop it. We get feelings like that, us Mage Monks. It comes from spending so much time just … watching, feeling, studying the rhythms of the world, the rhythms of magic. It’s not like being psychic. It’s like … sensing patterns.’

  She clasped my hands, and I didn’t shake her off. ‘If you ever cared about him, then please, go to him now. You have two hours before anyone checks on you, so there’s time. And when you get back, I promise – I’ll answer every single question you ask.’

  ≈

  I almost wished it were more difficult for me to access my magic. Instead, it was as easy as breathing. Not only that, but there seemed to be more power there than there was before.

  I knew, suddenly, what I’d been doing with the bars of my cell – that energising buzz I’d experienced when close to them was the feeling of their magic, channelling into me. The prison took my power away, and my body rebelled, and took some of the prison’s magic right back.

  It didn’t give me a rush to know that I could do that. It wasn’t a remotely empowering feeling, funnily enough – it was terrifying. What if I grew crazed with power?

  Although … I had some pretty good ideas from time to time. I might make a good dictator. I wouldn’t only be concerned with having my minions bake me apple tart around the clock.

  Snapping myself out of my fearsome imaginings, I began to plan. Having my power was one thing. Getting out of the prison without anyone seeing me was another. I needed to transport myself from here to Will’s flat without being seen.

  I could do what I’d been doing up until now, unbeknown to myself – I could use the kinds of magic Erik had taught me, to set myself apart and make myself untraceable as I simply walked out through the prison’s walls. That would involve incantations, and a little bit of time.

  But I didn’t feel like I needed to do that. All I had to do was picture Will’s living room, and click my fingers, and Witchfield’s wards didn’t matter at all …

  18. If I’d Never Met You …

  I stared around Will’s small flat. Fred was on the floor by his bowl, lying dead still, while Will was rushing towards him.

  Will stalled and stared at me. ‘Wanda? How–’

  ‘Never mind how for now,’ I interrupted. ‘What’s going on with Fred?’

  ‘He …’ Will’s voice became choked up with tears. ‘He was eating his food. I fell asleep reading, and woke up to the sound of him coughing, and now … well, you see what’s happening now.’ He wiped a hand across his face, sniffing. ‘He vomited up his food, then he made this horrible howl of a meow. It all happened in a flash. And now … Wanda, I think … I think he’s dead.’

  He stood up, let out an animalistic growl, and kicked the closest cabinet. ‘This is my fault! Someone did this to target me. Fred is just … was just … he’s just a cat, Wanda. Who could …?’

  I had a fierce, strong urge to comfort him, but I pushed it down and rushed to the cat. ‘Please be okay, Fred,’ I whispered urgently. ‘I should have come quicker. I should have listened to Sylvia.’ I gathered Fred into my arms, feeling a horrendous rush of guilt and sorrow. Even if I hadn’t trusted Sylvia, I should have at least trusted myself. Because I’d dreamt this. Somehow, I’d known this was going to happen.

  I’d interpreted one part of the dream wrong, though, because although Will’s face was filled with anger, it was all directed at himself.

  ‘Please be okay, Fred,’ I murmured to the cat, snuggling my face into his fur. ‘Please, you lovely big ball of marmalade fluff. Come back to us.’

  I looked up at Will, trying to hold back my grief and guilt, and think straight. ‘Maybe if we can get him to Healer Little, he could resuscitate him and pump his stomach. It might not be too late. We have to try–’

  I broke off, as one of Fred’s eyelids opened, and he let out a little cough. ‘Could you both back off a bit? Talk about space invaders. What’s going on, anyway? I was having a lovely dream about walking into a white light, and I just knew there’d be mice and cheese and chicken on the other side, and now … wait … why was I dreaming? I should have been eating? I … ooh. There’s my food.’

  As he hopped from my arms, Will caught him again just as quick. ‘Not that food, Fred,’ he said, his voice hollow with shock. ‘We have to check it.’

  I blinked wildly, my heart thumping, my palms sweaty. Fred was dead. He was dead. And now he was alive.

  Too stunned and scared to put my thoughts into words, I bent down and sniffed Fred’s half-empty bowl, and his vomit. Covering my nose and standing up again, I said, ‘Will, there was Jinx in his food. And I smell Eat It All Up, too. People add that to diet food. It makes it taste really good so their familiars don’t notice they’re eating something healthy. Where did you buy the food?’

  Will frowned. ‘It was just a normal sachet from the shop on this street. There’s definitely nothing added – Fred would have quite a lot to say if I tried to trick him into eating diet food. And I opened it myself, so I don’t know how someone could have poisoned a sealed sachet. I mean, it’s a well-known brand, not some random food I bought off a stranger.’

  Fred nodded. ‘Chicken in gravy. My current favourite. You’re saying someone poisoned me, Wanda? With Jinx? But that should have killed me, shouldn’t it? And yet I feel absolutely fine. I mean … I didn’t. But now I do.’

  Will looked curiously my way. ‘Yeah, it’s weird. But let’s not look a gift Wanda in the mouth.’

  ‘What?’ I blinked, feeling itchy and uncomfortable. I didn’t like the direction this was taking, not one little bit. ‘Me? It had nothing to do with me.’

  He arched a brow. ‘Sure. Just like Dizzy had nothing to do with you. Wanda, even if Dizzy wasn’t actually Harry’s familiar in his heart, he still shouldn’t be alive. My dad hit him with a death spell. And my dad was far too nasty to let a spell like that miss its target. That little bat was dead, Wanda. Properly dead. And my dad’s familiar, Dave – though he calls himself Whiskers these days, and he’s living the high life with one of my rich cousins. He was at death’s door, and after one conversation with you he was as healthy as a kitten. You do know that you’re the Wayfarer, right? Don’t you remember that Tall Tale about the original Wayfarer bringing a cat back to life? What was it she said in the story? Oh yeah: “When a familiar is killed without a reason, I’ll make sure it lives out its seasons.”’

  I scratched my arms, and added a little shudder. He was still ploughing on in the same uncomfortable direction. Couldn’t he tell that I wanted him to make a U-turn? Yes, I remembered the story, but I wished I didn’t. Necromancy wasn’t a hobby I was interested in pursuing. And I couldn’t actually do anything like Will was suggesting, anyway. Harry and Kilian Berry had forced the familiar bond with magic. That’s why Dizzy and Dave were still alive. It had absolutely nothing to do with me.

  And as for the death spell Will’s dad sent Dizzy’s way … well, Kilian Berry was the kind of man who was likely to overestimate his talents. He could have missed. Or his spell could have been a dud.

  Sure, I was yet to come up with a good excuse for what just happened with Fred, but I’d find one. ‘Well, you know,’ I said, scrabbling around in my brain. ‘Tall Tales are hard to believe when the writers didn’t even get the facts straight. There wasn’t just one previous Wanda the Wayfarer. There were two, and two Gretels, and a Sylvia. And I happen to think that–’

  ‘Wanda,’ he said, softly, laying a hand on my shoulder. ‘You don’t need to make excuses. It’s okay. I know how scary this is. I know how you feel about the idea of necromancy.’

  ‘It gives me the ick.’

  He chuckled. ‘Yeah. But maybe … maybe there’s a moment or two when things can go either way. And if they get forced onto the wrong path, maybe all you’re doing is righting things again. That’s not necromancy. That’s … putting the universe’s house in order.’

  I laughed, wiping away my tears. ‘Well, when you put it like that … Okay, I’ll try not to be terrified of myself. I’m not a necromancer, and I don’t give myself the ick. Maybe just a little ick, but not a major dose. And maybe we just got lucky with Fred, but either way, you know what it means. If someone tried to kill Fred …’