“I’m just being realistic,” said Nikki. “Because I thought, after everything, back in October—I sort of thought we were going to get expelled. Me and Matty. And if that happened—well, I thought maybe I could explain that it wasn’t Matty’s fault, it was me. Because it was me, really, Dr Walden. You know that, don’t you?” And before Walden could say anything, she barrelled on. “And Matty can’t go back. He can’t. I don’t know if you know about his mum and dad, the stuff they did. They were freaks in a weird anti-magic cult, they abused him. And they still send him messages, his cousins and his mum, he has to keep blocking them.” Walden hadn’t known that; how awful. Nikki went on. “So when Matty said maybe he’d have to go back, I just. No. I started making a plan. I thought about jobs and stuff, like we’d have to find a flatshare so I made a list from the internet. But rent is really expensive. Aneeta said she’d help for a bit, she gets four hundred pounds a month and she never buys anything except tuck shop chocolate so she has savings … but actually I think her parents would probably hate that?” She hurried on. “And there’s stuff you need to be eighteen for—I was eighteen in December but Matty’s not till April—anyway if I could convince Mr Bern that it was all me really, then maybe he could stay. And I’d be okay—if I planned it all out first, you know?”

Walden could hear how nervous Nikki was. All those stops and starts, from a child who was normally more fluent and confident than most adults. More than that; she could hear that Nikki had not said any of this out loud before. Even the school counsellor must have missed it. One possible side effect of spending ten years growing up under the eagle eye of a pastoral expert was that you got very, very good at dodging pastoral expertise.

I’m not really—family.

I’d be okay—on my own.