You are proud of this achievement. Very few of your kind has ever done anything like it. You become increasingly sure that all of them have struggled, all along, for nothing else. What a privilege to be human! What a wonder to be mortal! What an extraordinary world, bound by matter and motion, in which to move through space and time in your little sack of water and meat just doing things. Doing things for reasons. Repairing the trivially obvious damage to the thaumic engines, to secure the borders of mundanity for the humans—the other humans; you belong here now—what a treat! Reading all the dusty books on your office shelves, late into the night, to learn what is written inside them: what a remarkable delight!

Discovering that the body goes peculiar without sleep: discovering sleep schedules, and then, as an extension—a new amusement, a new amazement—discovering just what bad care you have been taking of yourself. Why do you have bottles of poison in your cupboards? (It’s quite nice gin and it was a gift so please don’t pour it down the—oh, never mind; you ignore all such mutterings in your thoughts.) Why do you only eat the canteen food—didn’t you know you could get your own ingredients and cook them yourself? Why don’t you ever seem to move? This body can climb; this body can swim; this body can run, and run, and (ow ow ow ow ow…)

A self is a home is a purpose is a life. You know. You have all these things now.

You are the speck who rose in the desert to become the prince of air and fire. You are also Dr Sapphire Walden. In all your years of scholarship and teaching, you have never, ever, ever been this enthusiastic about getting your marking done. This sort of thing by itself, says the caustic voice in your thoughts as you cheerily work through your lunch break on a set of A-level practice papers, should really be enough to let everyone know you aren’t human.

You take another bite of the poached egg and spinach on homemade sourdough you fixed yourself before you sat down, and ignore her.

I can’t believe you bake your own bread, she says.

She is obviously just jealous. You are so much better at being her than she ever was.

A classroom. You patrol the classrooms constantly. This is your territory; nothing here is secret from you. Desks pushed together in a cluster, the lever arch folders spread out. Magical notation blooming across the whiteboard in black marker and red. “Hello, squad,” you say. “Revising?”

Squad, team, everybody, you lot, Upper Six you have a wide array of these gender-neutral group addresses in the precious vaults of memory, and you take some pleasure in selecting the correct level of formality against warmth for each situation.