"Your sister Lettie is at the mansion door," said Calcifer sleepily. The fire flared briefly as he rolled over and snuggled further into the base of the fireplace.

Sophie paused in her dusting. "Lettie Lettie or Martha Lettie?" Michael still referred to Martha as Lettie when he wasn't thinking about it.

Calcifer let out an unimpressed shower of sparks in offended dignity. "Lettie Lettie. The one studying magic. I can feel it on her. Does it matter? She's your sister."

Sophie hung up her feather duster and smoothed down her skirts. "If it was Martha I was going to save us some time and send Michael."

Lettie was standing on the doorstep, dressed simply in a blouse and long skirt but somehow managing to look as though she were prepared for an unexpected audience with royalty. Not a hair was out of place.

"I'm always surprised when I come in here," said Lettie, as Sophie led her into the castle. "No matter how many times I do it."

She was looking around the room distractedly in the way that indicated she was either nervous or guilty.

"Did you want some tea?" Sophie asked. "I'll put the kettle on."

She had to bribe Calcifer with the promise of fresh aromatic sandalwood the next time she went to the marketplace, but he agreed to boil the kettle as quickly as possible.

"Sophie, I need your help with a spell," said Lettie.

"Oh. Howl isn't here," said Sophie. "He's out—"

"Yes, he's out with Ben— I mean, Wizard Suliman, on King's business. I want you to help me, Sophie."

"But I don't know formal magic," said Sophie.

"I know!" said Lettie triumphantly. "That's why it's all right to ask you, you see."

Sophie filled the teapot with the freshly boiled water and sat down again with a thump. "Perhaps you should explain some more."

"Today is usually our lesson day, but because the King called Wizard Suliman out we had to postpone it. So he's given me a spell to study in the meantime, and I cannot make head or tail of it."

Sophie laughed. "Howl used to do that to Michael. Are all wizards lazy teachers, do you think?"

Lettie giggled prettily. She pulled a piece of crumpled parchment out of her coat pocket. "Look, here's the spell. I've tried doing everything it says, I've tried reading it out loud, but I can't figure out what's it's supposed to do."

"A spell for dampening," Sophie read out loud. "What does that mean?"

Lettie shook her head. "I don't know. I thought it meant making things wet, but I've tried it on the tablecloth and nothing happened. Then I decided it meant it would muffle sound, but that didn't seem to work either."

The rest of the spell was a standard list of ingredients and proportions, followed by a method.

"Combine the first six ingredients in a ceramic dish, stir five rotations clockwise, add the remaining ingredients, stir six rotations anti-clockwise, then say 'drunk duos add a fifth' three times," Sophie quoted.

"That's the other problem," sighed Lettie. "Sometimes they put puzzles in spells, you know, to stop it from happening accidentally. I don't know what that one means. They usually have standard clues. You know, unfinished means you drop the final letter or muddled means you have to rearrange the letters, that sort of thing."

"I see," said Sophie. She poured the tea and handed the least-chipped cup to Lettie before taking one for herself.

"There's supposed to be a standard set of terms," said Lettie unhappily. "But I must be missing something. Howl probably has the same dictionary Ben does."

"Did you want me to ask Michael?"

Lettie shook her head firmly. "It's all right if it's you, but asking another wizard would be cheating."

Sophie read over the parchment again. "Are these all common ingredients?" She'd seen most of them on Howl's shelves at one time or another, but there were a few she wasn't sure about.

"I brought enough for three tries," said Lettie, pulling a collection of pouches out of her other pocket. "I already combined them into the two portions, one for each step."

Sophie frowned. "Is there any risk in combining them too early?"

Lettie brought both her hands to her mouth. "Goodness. I didn't think of that."

"Well, let's try it first, and if it doesn't work, we can raid Howl's supply closet," said Sophie.

She got to her feet and cleared a portion of the workbench by the simple method of sweeping it all into the sink. Howl had long learned to keep anything sensitive or breakable out of the common areas if he didn't want it to be moved.

Sophie fetched a large bowl and, staggering under its weight, placed it on the bench with a thump.

"I don't understand how Howl works like this," said Lettie, laughing. "I can hardly think with all this clutter."

"He says he can't think if everything is tidy. It reminds him of his sister."

Lettie shook her head. "I can't imagine him having a sister, either. I know she's real, but..."

Sophie, feeling some measure of solidarity towards Megan in her status as the eldest of the family, elected not to comment on this. She took the spell in hand and shook it to get some of the creases out, in case some clue was hiding in the folds.

Michael stumbled down the stairs and blinked at Lettie sleepily. He rubbed his eyes and peered at her closely. "Wha?"

Sophie waved him in the direction of the teapot. "Lettie had a question about her studies. Do you know if Howl has a book on decoding spells?"

Michael screwed up his face in thought, then brightened. "He does! I'll get it for you." He aborted his shuffle towards the table and trundled back up the stairs.

Lettie hid her smile behind her hand. "Does Martha know he's like this in the mornings? It's almost eleven."

"It's Howl's fault," said Sophie. "He woke Michael and Calcifer up at the crack of dawn to prepare a spell for this mission for the King."

Michael tumbled downstairs again, waving a book in his right hand. "Here you go. It's one of Howl's weird books, but I definitely remember him telling me it would be useful."

The book was brightly coloured and, bafflingly, titled Chambers Crossword Manual.

Lettie took it gingerly. "Are the words angry?"

"Howl told me it means cross as in sideways and upwards," said Michael helpfully. He seemed a little more awake now. "I'm going out. I'll bring back some cake if I go to Cesari's."

Lettie and Sophie exchanged amused glances.

"Let me see that book," said Sophie. It was a very odd book that seemed to be about some kind of word puzzles. She paged through it until she found something that looked like Lettie's spell. "Here, what do you make of this?"

"It does seem promising," said Lettie. "Ben's book doesn't look anything like this, though."

"'Drunk duos add a fifth'," Sophie repeated. "Well, it says here that 'drunk' means the same as 'muddled'. You rearrange the letters."

She wrote the letters D U O S on a scrap of paper and stared at it for a moment. She added U D S O, O D U S and S U D O for good measure.

"And 'add a fifth'?" asked Lettie.

Sophie picked up the book again. "I suppose it means you add another letter to make it five letters long. Do you think it has to relate to the topic?"

"O DUST?" suggested Lettie.

"Do spells usually sound like that?" asked Sophie doubtfully.

They looked at the letters again.

"How about D O U S E?" suggested Sophie. "That's similar to dampening, and E is the fifth letter of the alphabet."

Lettie brightened. "That must be it! Let's try it."

That seemed a little too easy to Sophie. She picked up the spell again and frowned at it while Lettie busied herself on the workbench.

On the first attempt, Lettie fumbled the spoon in the middle of the fourth rotation and splattered the bench with powder.

"Oh, blast," she said, looking helplessly at the mess.

Sophie took the damp cloth she kept on hand for just this purpose - the one she had politely requested not react with any magical ingredients - and swept the mixture into the similarly-spelled bin by the workbench.

On the second, when Lettie finished stirring the first pouch of ingredients and added the second, nothing happened.

Lettie poked it with the spoon. "It should be fizzing," she said. "Maybe I mis-measured the first batch."

Sophie held up the bin for her. Once the bowl was clean again, Lettie returned to the bench.

"This is the last attempt I have the ingredients for," she said, peering into the pouch mournfully.

Lettie emptied the first pouch of ingredients into the bowl and stirred it clockwise six times. The mixture started to fizz, and she quickly followed it with the second pouch. After the sixth anti-clockwise rotation she said, in a firm voice, "douse, douse, douse".

The bowl let out a puff of steam.

From the fireplace, Calcifer squeaked. "Careful! You almost put me out!"

Sophie spun around to look at him. Indeed, his flames had shrunk down to almost nothing. She scuffled over to the fireplace to fetch him some more logs.

"Oh!" said Lettie. "Perhaps it's a fire-dampening spell? I'm sorry, Calcifer!"

Sophie knelt by the scuttle and took a nice, medium-weight log from the pile. She firmly told it to burn bright and long, then threw it on Calcifer, who embraced it hungrily.

"At least we've figured it out now," said Sophie, getting back to her feet and brushing the soot off her skirt.

Calcifer muttered to himself in the grate.

If this is what real magic is like I'm glad I don't have to bother with it, Sophie thought to herself. Talking to things is a much neater way to go about it.

Lettie sat back at the table and poured herself another cup of tea. "Listen, Sophie—"

Sophie joined her at the table, clasping her sister's hand in her own tightly. "The King wouldn't send them to do anything they couldn't handle."

Lettie paused for a moment, then squeezed her hand back. "I wish he would let me come with him."

Having had exactly the same argument herself with Howl that morning, Sophie felt her instinctive swell of big sister protectiveness was somewhat hypocritical. "You're still learning," she pointed out.

"But honestly, Sophie, are you—"

"Market Chipping door," Calcifer called out.

Sophie put down her teacup and went to open the door.

"Sophie!" said Martha, smiling broadly. She tried to hug Sophie one-armed, a box balanced delicately on one hip.

Sophie declined the hug, took the box from her and shooed Martha inside. "I thought you were seeing Michael this morning," she said.

"It's cake," said Martha helpfully. "Michael went to the butcher's. Oh, Lettie, you're still here!"

Martha and Lettie exchanged hugs, and Martha settled herself at the table. The cake was intricately decorated in white chocolate with strawberries. Sophie busied herself with cutting it.

"Michael told me Howl was out with Wizard Suliman," said Martha, looking between the two of them briefly before settling her gaze on Sophie. "So I brought cake."

Sophie finished slicing the cake and brought it to the table.

"They're both very powerful wizards," began Lettie.

Sophie dropped her fork. "Are you both here because you think I'm worried about Howl?"

Martha blushed. Lettie just looked guilty.

"I just thought you might like some company," said Lettie.

"Michael told me Lettie was here, and I thought—"

"I'm perfectly fine!" Sophie protested. She folded her arms and glared at them both. "Honestly, you'd think I were the younger sister here."

"It's just, you do worry about things—"

"And I knew you'd never think to seek me out on your own—"

Sophie almost wished they were in the garden so she could work up a good stomp. There wasn't even anything in the vicinity she could kick.

"Oh, don't get angry, Sophie," pleaded Lettie. "It always makes the tea taste awful."

Sophie looked at the teapot guiltily. "It is lovely to see you both," she said. "But you don't have to worry about me."

"Even Michael thought you seemed out of sorts," said Martha.

"If I'm out of sorts it's because Howl woke us all up at dawn," Sophie grumbled. She picked up her fork again and took another large bite of cake.

"Do you like the cake?" asked Martha. "It's my own variation on the recipe. Mrs Cesari is letting me do that now."

Sophie had not given the cake much thought, but she turned her attention to it now. "It's very nice," she said.

"We should take the cake out to the flower patch," said Lettie dreamily. "We could have a picnic."

"That sounds lovely," said Martha. She got to her feet. "I'll get the cake packed up."

Lettie was collecting the teacups into an untidy pile. "Howl won't mind if we use a tablecloth as a picnic blanket, will he?"

"We do have actual blankets," said Sophie. "I'll find you one."

So they took the blankets, the rest of the cake, and the tea and sat on old blankets at the edge of the flowers, once Calcifer moved the castle there. Lettie shared the palace gossip she had picked up from Wizard Suliman, and Martha shared the ins and outs of life in Market Chipping, and they all agreed that next time they should invite Fanny, but they were glad she wasn't with them now.

When Michael found them they sent him out again for more cake, and by the time he returned Howl and Wizard Suliman had found them. Fortunately Michael had brought sausage rolls and pork pies, as well as cake, so they ate dinner and watched the sun set over the flowers.

And once it was just Sophie and Howl alone, she admitted to herself that while she hadn't needed it, it had been nice to be distracted.