Lucy Goodly dodged sideways. A flurry of sparks whizzed past, just missing her ear. Instead they hit the chimney breast behind her and sputtered out, leaving a faint smell of burning as well as a large scorch mark on Lady Tabitha Grave’s nose. Not the real Lady Tabitha Grave, but her portrait, which hung over the fireplace.

      “Excellent!” said Lord Grave. “Your turn now. Concentrate. Create your own attack sparks and return fire!” Bathsheba, Lord Grave’s black panther, blinked her yellow eyes before slinking off behind one of the sofas, as though she understood what was about to happen.

      Lucy narrowed her eyes and focused her thoughts on the spell in hand. As Lord Grave had instructed her earlier, she imagined all the warmth in her body rushing towards her fingers. As she did so, her fingertips grew hotter and hotter until they felt as though they would burst into flames. When she felt she couldn’t bear the heat a second longer, she raised her hand behind her head, and then, as if she was throwing an invisible ball, flung it forward. The orange-red sparks that were clustered around her fingers flew off like tiny flies and hurtled towards Lord Grave, who ducked. But he was a smidgeon too late and the sparks grazed the crown of his top hat. Lord Grave whipped it off and beat the sparks out before they could do too much damage. Lucy folded her arms and smiled in satisfaction.

      “Impressive!” Lord Grave said. “Now, as I have just demonstrated, you might not always be able to get out of the path of an attack spark. And a magician skilled in this particular art might be able to create a spark that will track you if you try to flee from it. However, there is a technique that—”

      There was a knock at the drawing-room door.

      “Who is it?” Lord Grave called.

      “It’s Violet, sir.”

      “One moment!” Lord Grave put his hat back on. Then he hurried over to the window and opened it in order to dispel the smell of burning before calling Violet in.

      “Please, sir. Mrs Crawley wants to know if you can spare Lucy for a while. She needs us to fetch some ingredients for the ball,” Violet said shyly. She was a small mousey-haired girl three or four years younger than Lucy, who was twelve. Caruthers, Violet’s knitted frog which she carried everywhere with her, was tucked into her apron pocket.

      “Very well. Lucy has finished her … dusting, I think, so she’s free to go.”

      “Thank you, sir. Oh my, look