Within two hours they had three perch between them. so they gathered in their tackle and headed for home, arriving well before dusk.

The following morning in Alderley village Susan went with Bess to the shops while Colin stayed to help Gowther with the vegetables. They all met again for a meal at noon, and afterwards climbed into the cart and went with Gowther on his round.

It was a hot day, and by four o’clock Colin and Susan were very thirsty, so Bess said that they ought to drop off for an ice-cream and a lemonade.

“We’ve to go down Moss Lane,” she said, “and we shanner be above half an hour; you stay and cool down a bit.”

The children were soon in the village café, with their drinks before them. Susan was toying with her bracelet, and idly trying to catch the light so that she could see the blue heart of her Tear.

“It’s always difficult to find,” she said. “never know when it’s going to come right… ah… wait a minute… yes… got it! You know, it reminds me of the light in Fundin…”

She looked at Colin. He was staring at her, open mouthed. They both dropped their eyes to Susan’s wrist where her Tear gleamed so innocently.

“But it couldn’t be,” whispered Colin. “Could it?”

“I don’t… know. But how?”

“But how?”

“No, of course not,” said Colin. “The wizard would have recognized it as soon as he saw it, wouldn’t he?”

Susan flopped back in her chair, releasing her pent-up breath in a long sigh. But a second later she was bolt upright, inarticulate with excitement.

“He couldn’t have seen it! I—I was wearing my mackintosh! Oh, Colin… ! !”

Though just as shaken as his sister, Colin was not content to sit and gape, Obviously they had to find out, and quickly, whether Susan was wearing Firefrost, or just a piece of crystal. If it should be Firefrost, and had been recognized by the wrong people, their brush with the svarts would at last make sense. How the stone came to be on Susan’s wrist was another matter.