“You won’t miss it?” Walden said. She felt obscurely hurt. Yes, Chetwood was, honestly, a bit silly. She thought of the school’s silliness, its traditions and its poses and its absurd antique formalities, as the same species of fun and games as the annual house point competition. Laura sounded so annoyed.

“Oh—I don’t know,” Laura said. It was a full-moon night, and the moonlight slid across her fair hair and made fantastical spiked shadows out of the hedgerows that lined the lane. “It’s very pretty. Have you ever taught in a real school?”

“Chetwood is a real school.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Real enough to the pupils,” said Walden sharply. “Real enough to Nikki Conway, for example. If you mean, have I taught in a state comprehensive: no. There aren’t many jobs for people like me in the state system.”

“Because learning magic is only for people who can afford the school fees,” said Laura.

“Take it up with the Department for Education,” Walden said. “The only government work I was ever offered, I turned down. And Chetwood is genuinely very committed to its scholarship programme for young sorcerers, you know. I do think it makes a difference. Oh—why are we squabbling about this? It’s not a perfect system. I agree. I’m only a schoolteacher. I like my job. I can’t fix the world.”

Laura gave her a glance and a one-shouldered shrug. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Would you send your children here?”

“I’ve never wanted children. All right, the hypothetical. Yes, I suppose I would. It’s a good school. The magical education it offers is one of the best in the country. Yes, I think I would.”

“Could you afford it?”

Walden considered. “Presumably, if I have children, then I also have a partner. So … with the staff discount … yes. Probably.”

“Mmm,” Laura said.

“Wonderful date chat, thank you,” Walden said.

Laura laughed. “Sorry. You keep it bottled up, I suppose. I’ve been here four years. Nice place to work, pay’s good, colleagues all right—one absolute bitch who thinks she’s my boss, you know, but nowhere’s perfect—”

Now Walden was laughing.

“—but I don’t know, you walk in somewhere like this and you think, ‘Fucking hell, this exists? This is real? All these kids, do they think it’s normal, living in a picture postcard?’ Little bit of bitterness, maybe. ‘Why didn’t I have this?’ And the answer is I didn’t have the sense to be born to parents with more money than God. Not your fault.”

“Not more money than God,” said Walden.

“School fees are there in black-and-white on the website. Fifty grand a year, not counting, what, uniform, sports kit, events, extras, the annual ski trip—”