“In my defence,” said Mark, “I was twenty and I don’t know what they expected. Anyway! At this rate your colleagues are going to wrangle all night. Why don’t we ditch the work jolly? There’s a nice little cocktail bar round the corner. My treat.”

“I don’t think so,” Walden said. It wasn’t even 9 P.M. yet. Besides, a group of teachers negotiating with each other could be quite funny to watch. All of them were rather too used to being the grown-up in charge and the only sensible person in the room. It was one of the commonest pitfalls of school management, a danger David had discussed with her when he appointed her to the Director of Magic role: you could not treat adult colleagues like incompetent children and expect them to put up with it quietly. Walden, watching an argument break out over Google Maps, told Mark about this. He laughed. “I’d noticed, Sapphire. Hard not to notice. Amazing that schools get anything done at all. The clowns are running the circus.”

“Ouch,” Walden said.

“No offence.”

“What exactly do you do,” said Walden, “when you’re not generously donating your time to Chetwood?”

Mark smirked at her. “It’s classified.”

“Right,” said Walden sceptically.

“Not that classified, I admit. But it’s boring, I promise you. Special advisor stuff. The civil service hates having me around even more than you do. Ah, looks like we’ve decided on,” he tilted his head, listening, “exactly the same pub that someone suggested in the first place. Glad we stood in the cold for twenty minutes about it. Sure I can’t tempt you to cocktails?”

“Maybe later,” said Walden, and didn’t let herself regret it when Mark gave her another knowing grin. She was an adult. She knew what she was doing.

Although, honestly, she might as well have said yes to the cocktails. The pub was so crowded that the little knot of teachers was forced to break up into groups of three and four, spread across several booths. Walden found herself in a twosome, with Mark, at the bar—she gave him a sharp glance; he’d managed that rather too neatly, which suggested he’d done it before. “I need to keep mingling, of course,” she said. “I am still at work.”

“Let your hair down,” said Mark. “I don’t think anyone cares at this stage.”