The flame is lobbed playfully in Strange’s direction; the sorcerer doesn’t quite execute a physical dodge, but it’s rather that he seems to flicker slightly, after-images lingering, as if the entire world has fast-forwarded slightly. A disorienting shift into a different timeline where he was already a few inches to the left, and therefore it wings harmlessly over his shoulder.

He keeps talking as if it never happened. “Yes, there’s a whole prevailing school of theory about which emotions correlate to which elements. It’s much like the Elizabethan humours. Water would equate to phlegm: emotional, mild, passive, sensitive, intuitive.” Wryly: “Does that fit well for you, do you think?”

There’s the sense of building barometric pressure, heavy in the atmosphere around them. The water isn’t materialising in the palm of Piper’s hand, but seems to be leaking out into the air instead. From his vantage point floating in the air, he tilts his head and looks up into the sky. It had been a cold brisk sort of day with an endless blue canvas above them, but now there seems to be grey seeping in at the edges, a brewing storm.

“You might be on the verge of making it rain on us,” he says, “and these are my good robes.”