I was read this book at school when I was a small boy. I loved it and the idea of the face in the teapot being the first sign of the magic. I later read the book as a young teenager myself. And again I left it with its hints of classical mythology but some of the images and the scenes – the long corridor with the candles dripping wax in piles for centuries.. I think this was Victoria Walker's first novel. And she wrote it when she was very young.