When a tough and beautiful person wearing rune-inscribed armguards and a silver sword stood in front of you, very visibly the inheritor of nearly a millennium of demon-hunting hero-tales, it was quite hard to shove her back into the place where some part of the Chair of Governors clearly wanted to shove someone with no university degree and an Essex accent. Laura too clearly knew what she was talking about. She looked like a hero, even while she insisted that she had been the key point of failure. If she said Walden was an astoundingly capable magician and the person Chetwood needed, it was hard to disbelieve her.

“The students in question must, of course, face appropriate consequences for a very serious error of judgement,” the Chair said, “but I would not dream of interfering with the school’s processes, David, when it comes to what those consequences should be. The safety of the school community is paramount, naturally. The governors are sure you will consider the best interest of all the children under your care.”

Walden murmured agreement, as did David in the Headmaster’s seat. The Chair was quite right, after all. A little patronising, but quite right. And what he was really saying was that they had won, won what they had been fighting for all through the investigation process: another chance for Nikki and Mathias. Walden had not been expelled from Chetwood for bringing Old Faithful down on top of herself as a teenager—and she probably should have been, because she had done it on purpose, and someone had died. But then, teenage Saffy’s parents had been alumni and donors. Charlie had taken the blame: conveniently dead, with no one to speak for him, another young person from a troubled background.

And so Walden was not immediately losing her job. She was, despite everything, a little surprised by that.

“Chief Marshal Kenning,” said the Chair, “we have considered your assessment as well. As the Marshal on the spot—and as a key stakeholder in the school’s magical security arrangements—we felt we had to take you very seriously. We have also spoken to the Marshals’ District Commander for Buckinghamshire about this matter.”