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“I've been thinking,” said Cutangle. “Surely it would be better to give the staff to Simon? He is a wizard, and -”
“Over my dead body,” said Granny. “Yours, too. They're getting their power through him, do you want to give them more?”
Cutangle sighed. He had been admiring the staff, it was one of the best he had seen.
“Very well. You're right, of course.”
He leaned down and laid the staff on Esk's sleeping form, and then stood back dramatically.
Nothing happened.
One of the wizards coughed nervously.
Nothing continued to happen.
The carvings on the staff appeared to be grinning.
“It's not working,” said Cutangle, “is it?”
“Ook.”
“Give it time,” said Granny.
They gave it time. Outside the storm strode around the sky, trying to lift the lids off houses.
Granny sat down on a pile of books and rubbed her eyes. Cutangle's hands strayed towards his tobacco pocket. The wizard with the nervous cough was helped out of the room by a colleague.
“Ook,” said the librarian.
“I know!” said Granny, so that Cutangle's half-rolled homemade shot out of his nerveless fingers in a shower of tobacco.
“What?”
“It's not finished!”
“What?”
“She can't use the staff, of course,” said Granny, standing up.
“But you said she swept the floors with it and it protects her and -” Cutangle began.
“Nonono,” said Granny. “That means the staff uses itself or it uses her, but she's never been able to use it, d'you see?”
Cutangle stared at the two quiet bodies. “She should be able to use it. It's a proper wizard's staff.”
“Oh,” said Granny. “So she's a proper wizard, is she?”
Cutangle hesitated.
“Well, of course not. You can't ask us to declare her a wizard. Where's the precedent?”
“The what?” asked Granny, sharply.
“It's never happened before.”
“Lots of things have never happened before. We're only born once.”
Cutangle gave her a look of mute appeal. “But it's against the I-”
