“All right! And that’s how it’s done,” she said. “And now you know its name, which should make things a little easier. Will, you first.” She passed him the dagger. “Off you go.”

One by one, the sixth formers summoned a demon.

Walden had picked Will to go first because she judged him least likely to get nervous. He rushed it—she had to sharply remind him to slow down as he chanted the words of invocation—but he got Vazirikal back, managed to compel it down to a convincing reification although the teeth were less distinct, and asked it what was for lunch in the school canteen that day. Chips! howled the demon.

“Nice,” said Will, and dismissed it, fairly neatly. Then he glanced across the pentagram at Nikki. “Beat that, Conway.”

Nikki rolled her eyes.

“Very well done, Will,” said Walden, in a no-nonsense tone. “Aneeta, your turn.”

Aneeta wore an expression of grim concentration as she ran through the invocation. She could not get Vazirikal’s form pinned down to more than a vague conglomeration of shadows, but Walden was pleased with her control otherwise. For her query, she rattled off an equation Walden did not recognise. The demon spat an answer, and Aneeta dismissed it with a little gasp of effort.

“Good work. Though I’m afraid I have no idea if that was correct,” Walden said.

“I’ll check it,” said Aneeta. “It’s from my Chemistry homework.”

Walden gave an assessing glance to the two remaining. Mathias was wearing a familiar strained expression: Please don’t pick me! Walden had mercy on him. “Nikki,” she said.

Nikki did the summoning perfectly: steady pace, tight control, an elegant and precise reification. She asked Vazirikal what she ought to give Matron for her birthday. The demon said, Knit!

Nikki dismissed the demon and said, “I’ll make her a scarf.” Walden caught her smug glance at Will and hid a smile. A little competition could go a long way in a classroom setting. “Excellent work, Nikki,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it better myself. Mathias, your turn. Stay calm, take it slowly.”

Mathias looked a little sick. But he needed this practical, and Walden did not want to humiliate him in front of his peers by not even letting him try. She thought he could do it. She was sure he could do it.

He put too much power into the invocation. Mathias never quite believed how strong he was. Walden felt the blowback hit her through the pentagram, and watched the rest of the class wince. Will said, “Oof, Matty.”

Walden saw Mathias’s focus slip.

The roar of power in Mathias’s invocation did not have the cold and dangerous edge of Walden’s long experience. In the demonic plane her magic said, Watch out, here comes a predator.

Mathias’s said, I’m big and slow, come eat me.