Walden’s school. Her people. A deep well of magical potential.

You forgot the children, the Phoenix said, reaching with its power for the huddled teenagers in the dining hall, the Sunday clubs running in different classrooms and common rooms—all indoors today, thanks to the rain—and the rebellious handful of unsociable young people curled up in dormitories, watching videos on their phones or scrolling social media or playing games; even, in a few rare instances, actually studying. Walden blocked the greedy grasp of the Phoenix’s reach at once, and answered silently: Certainly not; when was the last time you completed child protection training?

Besides, it was done. A school was far more than its children. The institution, the rock-solid centuries-old stability of it, rested in the adults who kept it going; and Walden was connected, she had made her claim. The archdemon on the point of hurling itself at her at motorway speed hesitated, feeling the shadow of a larger and more dangerous predator dominating this space. What now?

Display, the Phoenix said, demonstrating a not-very-complex piece of evocation, a simple shower of light and noise—but then it didn’t need to be complex; any kind of organised spellwork was impressive to a mere archdemon, and light and noise might be ordinary in the mundane world but they were spectacular rarities in the demonic plane. The pests invading Walden’s territory were aware of their strength, aware too of their weakness. They took few risks. They were not hard to dissuade. A human thief looking for computer equipment was not rolling the dice on life and death, but an archdemon who lost a fight might lose all the pieces of self it had meticulously gathered over years or decades or centuries of struggle.

Struggle was not Walden’s thought. That was the Phoenix. What do you mean? Walden asked, and received no answer. Instead, her demonic passenger bared her teeth at the stalling form of the minibus and said, Now you make a way out.

Banishment, it meant, but banishment turned inside out from how Walden had always conceived it. She had thought of banishing a demon as thrusting it away. The Phoenix saw it from the opposite perspective, through the eyes of a being that had been defeated, banished, in its long history, more than once—How old are you? Walden wanted to ask suddenly. But she could tell it was not the time to interrupt. After all, this was a lesson.