A dozen junior Marshals, less impressive than the KMVs, quickly set up a warning-tape barrier around orange traffic cones. Then they corralled the idiot pedestrians with phones and started running imp checks. Two academic magicians in winter coats with Marshal badges and high-vis armbands turned up; that would be the warding squad. Walden, still feeling rather stunned by everything that had just happened, watched not very intelligently as the two of them did a worse and slower job than she would have of establishing that the surprise incursions were definitely gone and shoring up the wards in range, all along the street. Of course, if you were a trained academic magician and you wanted a career where you actually used magic, there were plenty of jobs in industry and security that paid a lot better than working for the Marshals. The only thing that paid worse, in fact, was probably teaching.

Walden stood, and stood. She should have been completely exhausted. She should have been half-collapsed on the pavement. But the cool rush of power from the demon that she and the Phoenix had eaten, the demon that was now a part of them, was something between a draught of water straight from a spring in the Scottish Highlands and a slug of strong gin. She was fizzing. She could have set the city on fire. She could have buried all of Covent Garden under ice. She stared at nothing.

“Miss, you’re in shock,” someone said. “Miss, come and sit down.”

“Doctor,” said Walden automatically.

Then she was sitting on an uncomfortable metal chair, still in her black party dress and Mark’s warm wool coat, next to a van marked with the ancient Marshal coat of arms—sword and armoured fist crossed on a shining white shield. There was a folding table in front of her. Walden rested her hands on it. After a moment, a middle-aged man with dark brown skin and thinning hair sat down on the other side of the table. He had the bulky, sagging build of someone who had been heavyset and dangerous before he moved to a desk job, and could probably still punch an archdemon with reasonable force if he really wanted to. “Arjun Ramamurthy,” he said pleasantly. “I’m Chief of Incident Response for southeast England.”

Walden could see the rank stripes on his sleeve and the white-and-gold detailing at the collar of his jacket. “KMGC,” she said.

Knight Mareschal Grand Capus. Chief Ramamurthy inclined his head. “Most people don’t know the ins and outs of Marshal ranks,” he said. “And you, of course, are Dr Sapphire Walden.”

Walden tried to shake herself out of her daze. “Have we met?”

“Only in my files, Doctor.”