How did you sleep was a weird sort of question which never needed to be asked in Sapphy’s house. Everyone always slept the same in her house – well if Callum slept well, and up in the night if Callum was up.

“Yeah,” she just said in reply, pulling the lighter out of the dredges of her handbag. When Morgana mentioned the ravens, she glanced up curiously at the railing where the two birds were watching her carefully. She’d noticed the raven last night, but there had only been one then. Ravens weren’t a common sight in inner city Birmingham – pigeons, gulls and the odd blackbird were about the only wildlife Sapphy had ever set eyes on. “That one’s your familiar, yeah?” She correctly pointed out Kraar, recognising him by the size and solid black colouring. “We thought the lady down the road had a cat familiar, but it turned out it was just a stray which moved in coz she had mice in her house.”

Sapphy had never actually met a fairy with a familiar before. In all honesty, it was hard to tell who was a fairy and who wasn’t in Birmingham – not that it mattered anyway. It wasn’t like it affected her life in any way.

“What, like, your taps don’t work?” She took the bucket and inspected it as though she’d never seen one before. She looked back up at Morgana, her eyebrows climbing up towards her hairline, as the latter mentioned breakfast. “What – breakfast? Like, food in the mornin’?” She said it in a tone which she might have used to say you have a purple polka-dot Ferrari?

Fuckin’ posh, this place.

Sapphy glanced down at her cigarette, twirling it thoughtfully between her fingers. If there was food, she probably wouldn’t need a smoke. It would be better to save it, in case she ended up here longer than a few days and couldn’t find a supplier. Dumping the bucket momentarily on the table, she returned the cigarette and lighter to her bag, retrieved the bucket again, and pattered back down the hallway to the front door. The pump wasn’t far, as Morgana had said – just before the next line of houses. It took her a second or two to work out how to operate it.

She wasn’t alone, unfortunately. A couple of Morgana’s neighbours were out in their front gardens, conversing over the fence. They stopped talking to glance over at Sapphy as she plucked at the pump. Sapphy, in no mood to deal with people staring at her when she was in yesterday’s clothes and make-up, glared back.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at?” She snapped at them, which made them turn hurriedly away. “Yeah, that’s what I fuckin’ thought.”

The bucket full, she carried it sloppily back over to the house.

“That is fuckin’ heavy, man,” she groaned as she dumped the bucket on the kitchen floor by the door. It slopped about dangerously, but didn’t spill; the excess had already been spilt outside. “I thought, like, posh people had servants to do shit for them.”

She slid into one of the chairs and immediately leant back on it, forcing the chair to balance on its back two feet, the way everyone sat in school.

“No disrespect, man, no disrespect,” she added as an afterthought. “But, like, this house is way small for someone who’s brother lives in a fuckin’ castle, ya get me?”