To no effect. She was a woman off her home ground and out of her armour: a London partygoer, not a schoolmistress, without authority over the night. She did not have time to try again. Dark shapes were moving in the shadows of the demonic plane. Bubbles of raw and deadly power were pressing up against the fabric of the real world. Something—several somethings—were coming. The Phoenix still wanted to take charge. Walden was not about to hand it power over her body for anything less than an Old Faithful—not when it had just tried to seize control on its own, and had almost, terrifyingly, succeeded.

“GET BACK,” shouted another, much louder voice, “IT’S AN EMERGENCY!”

And oh, of course people listened to bloody Mark. Well, if it worked. Walden had no time to worry about him. He was all right when he wasn’t surprised, but he’d been fairly useless when they went up against that minibus demon in the school car park. She could perceive the dim figures slipping through the gaps in the world, not with her eyes but with the well-honed thaumic awareness of the magician. Demons, none reified yet, so none visible to the layperson—which was a nightmare, because the street was now full of panicking people fleeing from the obvious wild magic of the opening incursion, and the majority of them couldn’t see the real danger. Four, five, six demons, all of a good size, sixth order perhaps. All likely to become larger and more dangerous than that fairly soon, because they were actively seeking out an incursion—which meant they were on the hunt—and this was central London, absolutely chock-a-block with systems and selves and stuff. There was an Apple store with a gleaming display of white Christmas lights and brightly lit phones and tablets just on the corner of this street, well within range. Any one of these demons could swell up to eighth or ninth order just by ripping through the contents of its stock room.

Fight them? No, not six on one. Walden wasn’t a magical combat specialist. Contain them, that was the key, until the Marshals got here. And close those inexplicable wild incursions behind them—nothing like that should be possible, not in the middle of London. This wasn’t Chetwood, where centuries of wild magic had soaked into the stonework. Yes, there would be some loose magical power around in a place with this many people, but there were also extensive legally mandated wardings all over the place, slammed on anything government-run—the sewers, to start with, and the Tube—and London was one place where the budget and trained magicians were always found to keep the wards checked and renewed.