Chapter 119

“—so we’ve brought him along so you and he can have a little talk about reversing the spell you cast.”

“Um, actually I’m really not sure I want to—” Tip began.

The witch huffed impatiently. “Well, let’s get on with it, then, I haven’t got all day.” To Tip’s horror, she pushed up her sleeves with dye-stained hands and started to mumble an incantation.

“Wait!” he yelped, Steve’s tightening arms around him making it come out more squeakily than he’d intended.

“Er, Aunty?” Steve said, sounding uncertain for the first time since Tip had met him. “I did promise him—” He broke off as the air seemed to crackle, and Tip was torn bodily from his arms by an unseen hand and dumped, hard, on the floor.

As metaphors for his life went, Tip thought groggily, it wasn’t an inaccurate one. Blinking to clear his vision, he hastily examined his limbs and torso. So far, so human.