The two women lead Ess into her living area. When Shades moved to follow, the old woman Dorothy had called Flo shook her head.

"No distractions," she said.

Ess stepped up close to Shades as she saw him bristle.

"It's fine. This time, it's my mates, and I'm safer with them than you were with yours. Trust me, Hon. Have a lie-in." She pushed him gently in his chest. For a moment he resisted, looking over her shoulder at the sisters, then he gave a single nod.

"Shout if you need me," he said. He stretched and scrunched his face as he tried to wake himself up. On another day it would have been comical. "I'll stay awake."

"Sure, whatever. Keep the bed warm for me." She gave him another gentle push and he stepped back, his eyes still on the two women.

They entered the living room. Ess gave Shades a wink as she closed the door, but he looked like a sleepwalker already. When she turned Flo had donned the sort of facemask builders use when sawing plasterboard.

"Cos of sow," mumbled Flo.

"What?"

Flo took a deep breath and pushed the mask to the side. "Clothes off. Shower," she said, and snapped the mask back into place.

"Excuse me?"

"Do as she says," said Dorothy. "You've obviously been exposed, and she knows what she's doing." Dorothy at least wasn't wearing a mask, though Ess noticed she kept her distance. "Go, scrub it off. We've got work to do."

Ess entered the bathroom. In the event, a shower didn't sound a bad idea. Her head was still woolly and she suspected she smelled like someone who hadn't washed before going to bed fully clothed. She peeled off yesterday's clothing and stepped under the stream of steaming water. When had Shades come home? He looked dead on his feet. Mother Gaia, did she look as awful as him? She had no recollection of going to bed. Had Shades found her asleep in the apartment? She hoped she looked alluring and angelic when he found her, but suspected she'd been dribbling and frizzed her hair into clown wig. That would explain why her clothing had not been interfered with. Her body too.

The bathroom door opened and Ess saw Dorothy's outline through the shower curtain.

"Not just a rinse, soap too. Scrub it out, girl."

"Okay, okay. I'm not six. I know how to shower."

"I'd have thought you'd have known how to stay safe, but I was wrong about that, apparently. Have you scrubbed?"

"I'm doing it now. Jesus!" Ess turned off the water and grabbed the soap, lathering it over her wet body. The silhouette of Dorothy paced beyond the curtain.

"Your own blend?" she asked.

"What? The soap? No. I get it from a sister in the West End."

Ess could hear the disapproval in Dorothy's sniff. She wasn't Dorothy's student anymore, so why was she so riled by her disapproval. "Well, what do you expect? I live in a flat in central London. Where am I going to grow apples?"

"No, no, I understand. But you still practice herb lore? I saw the jars in the kitchen, or do you buy those too?"

"I'm a sister, Dorothy. Don't you judge. We all do what we have to. And yes, I still make my own remedies. I'm bloody good at it too, ask anyone." Ess turned on the water again, closing her eyes and letting the hot water wash away the soap. Without warning the stream of water turned ice-cold. Ess shrieked and snapped her eyes open. Dorothy's hand rested on the taps.

"What the hell? What the actual hell?" Ess grabbed for the hot tap, but Dorothy's grip remained firm. "Jesus, Mother and Joseph, what the hell are you doing?"

She whipped the curtain aside and leapt from the bath. Dorothy tossed her a towel and smirked.

"Awake now?"

"Yes! And I was before. What the hell did you do that for?" Ess clutched the towel to her body and shivered with cold and rage.

Dorothy raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Oh, are you angry with me?"

"You just -- " Ess waved at the shower. "And then -- " she waved at the bathroom door. "You come into my flat unannounced, you push me around, you treat me like a kid, you and some crone who treats me like a plague carrier. Angry? Angry? I'm bloody furious!"

Dorothy smiled. "Good. Because we need you motivated, Flo says. You were never one for pep talks but I can see London hasn't damped the fire down any. Come through when you're dry. And bring that temper with you."

For several seconds Ess stared open-mouthed at the door after Dorothy left, her anger at her former mentor matched by the anger at herself for having her buttons pushed so easily. Then she scrubbed herself with the towel as though her skin was to blame for the whole thing. Okay, so maybe anger was a good thing. She recalled how anger at the fairy boys had carried her through their glamour. Even so, there was no need for the woman to be so damned smug about it. Her clothes were gone. She grabbed the bathrobe hanging from the back of the door and threw it on, knotting the belt too tight, then slamming the door open and storming into the living room.

The furniture had been shoved to the sides of the room, the rug rolled into a corner and a pentagram drawn on the floorboards.

"Make yourself at home," she snarled. "And that had better be water soluble." She stabbed a finger at the symbols drawn on the floor. "If it doesn't wipe clean in one go I'm sending you the cleaning bill."

Flo, her hands encased in latex gloves, pulled a length of duct tape from a roll and wrapped it around the neck of a clear plastic bag. Ess' yesterday clothes were clearly visible inside. She let the bag drop near the front door as though it were week-old garbage.

"Hey, careful with that. Those are my smart slacks." She'd dressed as professionally as her wardrobe had allowed when they'd gone to see Davenport. Not that it was particularly smart after she'd slept in them, but screwing them into a bag wasn't going to improve their look any. Flo held up a corked test tube and shook it as though it should mean something to Ess. It held a cotton bud immersed in a brown liquid. "What's that?"

"Contaminated," said Flo, as though that was the end of it.

"Flo swabbed your clothes," translated Dorothy. "They tested positive. If there are any farewell sentiments you want to share with them, now's the time, otherwise you need to get rid of them. Burning would be favourite."

"Burning? But those are my favourite slacks." Not to mention her lucky knickers. Well, they'd have been lucky for Shades, if she'd managed to stay awake.

Dorothy raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Ess sighed. In the end, they were just clothes, and if she really was enchanted...

"Fine, I'll burn them. What else?"

Flo walked over to the kitchen worktop and rummaged in a leather case, the sort doctors in 1940's films carried. She came over to Ess and held up another cotton bud. Ess nodded her consent and Flo ran it down the side of her face, into her hair and over her hands. She dropped it into another test tube containing a clear liquid and shook it vigorously. Holding it up to the light she peered at it for a few seconds and then grunted, apparently satisfied. Then she pointed to the pentagram.

"Stand."

Ess stood in the centre of the pentagram, facing Dorothy.

"What's all this? I've scrubbed myself clean, haven't I? I'm angry, aren't I? That's all I needed last time. They fluenced Shades and after a shower he was right as rain. Oz too, all he had to do was to sleep it off."

"Last time? My gods, woman, how many times have you taken dust?" Dorothy made it sound like cocaine, and it wasn't as if she kept volunteering for it.

"Okay, there was the first time." Ess closed her eyes and tried various sentences out in her head, but none of them could make it as far as her voice. The spell's injunction was still strong. "The first time," she settled for. "Before I came to you. Then a couple of them came here to try and put me off, but all they did was put Shades to sleep and royally pissed me off. But that was a couple of days ago. You reckon I've been exposed since then? No idea what that could have been, but I'm over it now, aren't I?"

Flo pulled her facemask off and peeled off her gloves. Presumably the test tube solution had certified her non-infectious.

"No."

Ess waited, but Flo seemed to think that explained everything.

"We needed to get rid of the dust," explained Dorothy. "When we've dealt with your beau you'll need to burn your sheets. A good vacuuming wouldn't hurt either." Dorothy glanced around at the flat, studiously not making any comments about the general cleanliness. "But that's just putting an end to the glamour. You've been enchanted, and we need to fix that too. Well, fix it as much as Flo can. Oh, she's good. None better. You should be honoured. But the dust just helps the enchantment stick. Who put this on you?"

Ess worked her jaw. If she couldn't tell these women, sisters in the craft and powerful ones at that, then who could she tell? She wanted to tell them; she wanted to tell anyone. She closed her eyes and the king's face filled her vision again.

"Yes, that's what I thought," said Dorothy. "It's going to take more than a sluice of soapy water and a change of clothes. So stop being such a drama queen and stand still like an adult. You came to me, remember."

Ess opened her eyes and stared at Dorothy, who matched it with a stare of her own. After a moment Ess nodded. "Fine. Hit me with your best spell."

"Don't leave the pentagram," said Flo.

Ess nodded. "I know that much. Do you want me to recite anything?"

"Think on the enchantments laid on you. Put them into the front of your mind. Keep it there."

"Enchantment. There was only one."

Dorothy and Flo exchanged a look, as if they knew Ess' life better than she did herself.

"Concentrate." Flo took more things out of her bag, collections of twigs, dried herbs and leaves bound with twine, a couple of tiny muslin bags that looked like mulled wine infusions you found in the shops at Christmas. She unwrapped a wax-paper package that held a bundle of tiny bones. Ess closed her eyes. Don't judge. Every sister communed with the Mother in her own way. Some used candles, some incantations, some herbs. There were stories of a sister who used sex, though that was probably apocryphal. Flo, it seemed, needed sweepings from a forest floor and the rancid remains of a long-dead rodent. Each to their own, but if she tried to get Ess to touch the skeleton there was going to be some non-judgemental arse-kicking.

The enchantment. She thought back to that day in Regent's Park. The clearing, the king in the centre. In her memory the sun filtering through the leaves bounced off thousands of particles of dust as they danced and glittered around her. That was a false memory, she knew. But the king wasn't. His gravitas, presence and - There was no other word for it - his majesty. How much of that was him, and how much the fairy dust playing with her senses? She tried to concentrate on the king's features. They blurred and shifted in her memory. His words then. His injunction to find his daughter. That terrible command to return in seven days and her certainty as he said it that she had no choice but to comply.

Ess was vaguely aware that a million miles away Flo murmured her spells, but all Ess could hear now was the King's voice bypassing her ears and carving his commands direct on her heart. Sweet Mother and Her handmaidens, how had she thought she could escape to Paris? Two days away? It was ridiculous. She had to find her, because she absolutely had to return to her father at the allotted time. And when she did, what would he do? Send her to sleep for a hundred years? Turn her into a dribbling vegetable? What would she remember? Would a tiny part of her still be deep inside, screaming in her soul as her useless body rotted in a care home somewhere?

And what if Flo could release her? They'd found her easily enough before. Daisy's brothers knew where she lived. Would the iron pendant and rowan wand be enough? Against those boys, maybe. Against a bunch of them? And would she be able to use them?

"Ess!"

Dorothy's voice broker her reverie. Ess snapped her eyes open. The two women stared at her. Flo had a knife in her hand, not one like the stainless steel one Ess kept in the kitchen, carved in Celtic runes and blessed by a mystic on midsummer's night. This one was brown with rust (at least, Ess hoped it was rust), though the blade edge was bright and sharp. The handle was too big, as though centuries of whetting had reduced the length of the blade. Ess tried not to think of why a witch would need to sharpen a blade that much.

"You need to work on your aura," said Dorothy. "Lots of negativity in there, once we got rid of that artificial high."

"Artificial high? What do you mean?"

"The dust. Heavens, girl, you were as high as a hippy. But now we've sorted that out I can see a lot of self-doubt in there. Wouldn't have guessed it. You're a decent liar, I'll give you that. A coven would help. Get you back into the circle. Even a counselling session. I can put you in touch with a sister that runs retreats. But that won't help you right now. So one of the Gentle Folk induced a feeling of well-being in you. Soaked you in the stuff too."

"Ingested," said Flo. "Purge."

"Yes indeed. I've told her to purge already, but she seemed to think that meant snort dust like a junkie. Never mind all that," Dorothy added, waving away Ess' objection as she opened her mouth to argue. "Let's see the damage. Answer my questions. Were you enchanted?"

"What? I guess so."

"No, I want a proper answer. Can you remember someone putting you under an enchantment?"

In her mind's eye Ess saw the fairy king.

"Yes."

"What sort of creature?"

"A f-f-f --" Ess swallowed and closed her eyes. She was a sister of Gaia, damn it. "Fairy."

Dorothy nodded. "Who?"

"K-k-k-k-" Ess shook her head. Why was this so hard? She'd done everything the women had said. "K-king."

"A fairy king?" Dorothy raised her eyebrows. "Well, if you're going to have someone bugger up your mind, it might as well be royalty. What was the injunction?"

"Go back." That had come out without a stutter, but she had to fight back the nausea.

"Bugger that for a game of soldiers, girl. Okay, see how it works? You have to practice, understand? You have to keep pushing against it. Your stubborn streak should help you there. It's not going to be pleasant. Now, where did you get all this dust from?"

Ess shook her head. "I don't know."

"Your boyfriend is drugged to the gills too. Did he get it off you? Was there a lot of physical contact last night?"

"Mind your own business." Ess frowned. If she was on a high, had Shades been on one too? They'd certainly both been lovey-dovey last night, before getting home. And there had been no 'physical contact' that Dorothy was asking about. When had she last felt normal?

"Davenport," she said at last.

"Excuse me?"

"It was Davenport. It must have been. He told us to relax, take a couple of days off. He said we were a lovely couple, even though we'd been fighting." But she'd been so sure. His aura gave no clue he was lying. Unless...

"My God, he's a fairy."