“Also, I like these people,” said Walden, and set herself to proving it by sliding into the corner of a booth next to most of the Modern Foreign Languages Department. MFL were reliably some of the most sociable teachers you could meet, because few people studied a modern language to degree level unless they had at least some interest in talking to other human beings. A lot of them were expats, French and Spanish teachers shivering even inside the pub and talking longingly about their flights home. You did have to contend with the fact that the conversation across the table was conducted in an effortless polyglot medley of English, French, Spanish, German, and a little Italian—Walden’s GCSE Spanish was enough to follow parts of it, but not to join in—but the three people nearest her switched generously into English when she sat down. Mark, undaunted, joined the booth of NQTs behind her, apparently very successfully if the gust of laughter following the first thing he said to them was any guide.

And the evening proceeded convivially. Everyone relaxed enough that they did, at last, come up with some topics of conversation that were not school, lessons, mocks, public exams, how tired everybody was, how bad the canteen food was on Sundays, and the horrific behaviour of 9C. The groups in the booths mingled and split. People got up to fetch the next round and were replaced by someone else sliding into their seat. Some split off in twos and threes, or even—here was a Christmas miracle for you—got caught up in friendly conversation with strangers. Walden stood her round, and didn’t object when most of them ordered something a little more expensive than they’d been having before; she was management. She found herself eventually on the table of NQTs, who let loose a flood of questions about her tattoos: Were those real? Were they magic? Were they allowed?

One thing to know that the sixth form thought you were an ancient crone at thirty-eight; quite another to get it from the twenty-somethings. But they were all Generation Z together, Walden supposed. She took the cheerful route: yes, real, of course allowed but who wanted to talk to children about it, and yes, of course—very magic.

“I swear I saw the bird move,” someone said.

“It’s a phoenix,” said Walden, and at the back of her mind came a susurrus, an echo, almost a harmony: I am Phoenix.

She held up her arm to show them. The Phoenix twisted its proud neck to fix its eye on its audience. It spread its blazing wings up Walden’s arm, and flexed its golden talons. Everyone started chattering at once. Half of these people were junior teachers from the magical departments, interested in the how and the why. “Illusion. It’s just a fancy evoke,” said Lilly decisively. “I’ve got a butterfly on my ankle. I can make it flap its wings.”