They sat together for a short time at the kitchen table, until Beatrice had finished eating. This time, the food did not make her sick, and she was happy at being able to keep the food down, finishing off with a glass of water. This pleased Vladislav very much.

‘Now’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Would you like to come to the other room with me?’

Beatrice stared up at him with large eyes as he towered over her.

‘Come to the other room?’ she asked. ‘What for?’

‘We’re going to begin your very first lesson.’

‘My lesson?’

‘Yes’ Vladislav told her. ‘I am going to teach you to read.’

‘Oh, is that going to be difficult?’

‘Well’ Vladislav began, offering his hand for her to take, ‘that depends on you.’

She took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet.

‘Was it difficult for you to learn to read?’ she asked.

‘I cannot recall’ Vladislav said. ‘I learned to read from a very young age.’

‘Can a person older than a child learn to read?’ Beatrice asked, doubt laced in her voice.

‘Of course’ Vladislav told her. ‘You can learn at any age.’

He led her to the sitting room, a luxurious room with poofy sofas, walls lined with shelves filled with books and curiosities. Dark wood lined the floor and walls, and there were thick red and black rugs on the floors.

Against one wall, there was a stone fireplace.

Vladislav led Beatrice to the sofa, and she descended into it.

Vladislav did not sit just yet, instead he clicked his fingers, and pointed towards the fireplace.

Out of nothing, a fire sprung to life. It shone in Beatrice’s eyes. Her attention fixated upon the place for a time, before turning up to stare at Vladislav.

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing’ Vladislav said to her. ‘Just a little bit of magic.’ He bowed his head towards her. ‘I am a mage after all.’

‘Would I be able to do such things?’

‘You could learn to read’ Vladislav told her, ‘you could learn many things, but magic will be something you could never master. We mages, sorcerers, witches and wizards and the like, are born different. We have certain chemicals within our bodies, energies, forces, whatever you want to call it. It works alongside the magic, and allows one to manipulate and control it.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘We’ll be lovely and warm in here with the fire now.’ His head turned towards the window. ‘It will be getting dark outside soon. We will be cosy in here.’ He placed his skeletal hands together. ‘Now’ he said, ‘let us begin your lessons. This time next year, you will be able to read and write with ease.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely, now…’ he glided towards one of the bookshelves, taking a narrow book from there. ‘We’ll start with the alphabet.’ He paused, spinning around towards Beatrice. ‘You know what the alphabet is?’

‘Yes. They are the letter that make up the words.’ She paused. ‘Is that right?’

‘Correct’ he said, moving back over to her.

He descended into the sofa a short distance from her, before opening the book to the first page.

‘Here’ he said, leaning towards her. ‘This is the alphabet.’

Beatrice looked over at the page. The letters were bold and black.

‘The English language has 26 letters. These are all the letters we use in words.’

‘Oh’ Beatrice sighed. ‘I feel overwhelmed already.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Like I said, this time next year, you will be doing this with ease. You just have to break down the task into smaller manageable lessons. Don’t worry about tomorrow, focus only on this lesson.’

‘Right.’

‘Now, when reading and writing, you always start on the top line, on the left-side. So here, you would start with A. Now copy after me – A… B… C…’

‘A… B… C…’