Ruby and Lola are in the conservatory when I get home, Ruby flicking through a magazine, Lola painting her nails.
Ruby is the oldest of us all, eighteen, and her chocolate brown hair matches her eyes - she's the spitting image of our Mum.
I'm sixteen, and my hair was brown too before I dyed it the garnet shade it is today.
Lola's fourteen, with long dark curls and bright blue eyes.
Whereas Ruby's quite fiery, I'm more chilled out, and Lola's a mixture of the two.
"So, where have you been?" Ruby asks.
"Just round to Grans."
"All this time? There's only so many minutes I can stand to listen to her go on about her glory days." Ruby scoffs.
The sound of her smirk startles Lola, who jumps and knocks the nail polish from the table.
Before Mum's new floorboards are splattered with purple glitter, the bottle zooms upwards into Lola's hand. She blinks in surprise.
"Did you do that?" I look at Ruby.
She shakes her head. "Lola must have."
"I thought I was the only one of us who could do magic," I comment.
"Oh, please, I could move fire since I was ten," Ruby smirks.
"I can control water and ice." I announce. "So Lola's powers lay in...air and earth?"
Lola is mesmerised by her new found strength.
"What's up with Andre? You guys are inseparable" she remarks.
"He's not well."
Lola seems satisfied and carries on doing her nails but Ruby just stares at me.
"Didn't he cheat on you with Carly Remington?"
"She threw herself at him, not the other way around."
"That was a bitchy thing to do." Lola hugs me.
"I wouldn't mind if she wasn't a witch."
"I'd call her more than a witch if she tried it on with Dylan." Lola decides. "I wouldn't fancy her chances against Ruby, either, if she went after Hamish."
"No, she is an actual witch, Lola."
"So that's why she tried to get off with Andre" Ruby realised.
"It's worse than that though, he's turning into some kind of...snake."
"How has that happened?"
I can barely bring myself to explain it. "Carly, well, her real name is Rosalind, has snake's venom in her veins. She drank from her serpent familiar and its blood mixed with hers, combining their powers. Normally when she kisses boys they die soon after, but Andre didn't, because he is connected to me. If I was not of magical blood myself, he would be long dead. So, although he was not killed, a bond of sorts was formed between them, and thus the snake poison went into his veins. As he is not magical, it's changing him into some sort of...abomination" I finish.
Ruby and Lola pull me into a hug.
"We'll help you get rid of her." Ruby affirms, and Lola does not question her plan.
A few hours later, I'm practising my ice bomb, hoping to somehow merge it with Lola and Ruby's powers, when I hear my name being called.
"Thorn, could you come down here a minute please?" Dad calls up.
I hear him talking to Dom in the hall.
I take the stairs two at a time and find the pair of them deep in discussion.
"Have you seen Andre, Thorn? He was supposed to be home from school hours ago, and he's not answering his phone."
"No, I've not seen him."
"Let me know if you hear from him."
Dad puts an arm around Dom's shoulder and leads him into the back living room.
I wander back upstairs and dial Andre's mobile, but it goes straight to voice-mail.
I'm just about to call Carly when a message from her flashes up on the screen.
'Andre is being taken care of. Come to the Albert Dock at eleven."
She was going to kill him.
Over my dead body was that going to happen.
I run into Lola's room.
"What's up?" Her warm eyes blink at me.
"Sh...she's going to, ki..kill Andre." I sob.
Ruby appears, as I'm crying into Lola's shoulder.
"Oh my god, what's the matter?" she demands a little impatiently.
Lola huffs and thrusts my phone at her.
Ruby's eyes flash in contempt. "Right, then, I suggest we practice our powers. We are all meeting her at the docks."
"We've only got three hours." Lola panics.
"Then let's make it count," I wipe the tears away on my hoodie sleeve and stand tall.
"What did you say to Mum and Dad?" Lola's in the back with me, glancing out of the window.
"That we were going to a party at Yasmin's. It's a Friday night, they won't be bothered." I assure her.
Ruby's driving, and she speeds down the dock road in five minutes flat, pulling up down a side street by the heritage market.
She checks her iPhone under a street light. "It's almost eleven."
We set off towards the bridge on Regent Road, on one side of which is a dock yard, on the other, a section of the River Mersey, surrounded by derelict warehouses. The windows that have not been bricked up are stripped of their glass, leaving gaping holes in the buildings.
Rusting doorframes are covered in graffiti 'Jack woz ere 2k3' is the only one we can make out - the rest are endless swirls of green and red.
Ruby hurries us on, forever checking over her shoulder.
A chip paper blows across the road which is full of potholes, great ugly cracks in the tarmac.
Did she really have to suggest meeting us here? It was creepy enough in the daylight.
A gate clangs open near the bridge and a soft, mellow voice calls out. "Thorn?"
Carly steps out onto the pavement, hesitating when she claps eyes on Ruby and Lola.
"They're my sisters." I introduce them all quickly.
"I'm keeping Andre in one of the old warehouses. It took everything I had just to bind him," she tells us, and leads us along the dock into an abandoned storage room.
A rotten, musty odour fills the air, and I look at the damp ceiling, which looks as if it will cave in at any minute.
There are some crates piled up against the corner of the bleak little room, and my ears pick up a faint clanking.
"He is behind them. After I got him tied up, he built a fort out of the boxes, trying to barricade himself from me." Carly divulged.
Ruby and Lola tug the crates out of the way, and I only just stop myself from screaming.
Andre is slumped against the wall, a heavy iron collar embedded into his neck, and blood seeps down the chains onto the concrete.
"How much blood has he lost?" I am so freaked out now.
"A little. Listen, I have an idea on how to release him from this form."
"Go on." I say fearfully.
Carly bows her head, golden locks swinging. "His soul is tainted, it is too much for him. I think we should-"
"For Christ's sake, he's not some sick dog that needs putting out of his misery!" Ruby snapped.
Lola backs her up "You can't, Thorn loves him".
Carly meets all of our eyes, looking defiant. "I know that. I'm in love with him too."