Enormous interest suddenly surrounded their pentagram and its little scissor-slice incursion. Vazirikal got eaten even as Mathias was groping for it. Walden said calmly, “I’m taking control of the summoning. Mathias, on three.”

Mathias didn’t seem to hear her. He was still trying to summon Vazirikal; except that what was left of Vazirikal had been incorporated into a seventh-order archdemon. It would burst the boundaries of their fourth-order array without difficulty if it managed to get a foothold, and he was blindly offering it one. “Mathias,” said Walden sharply, and then she didn’t bother with the count or being gentle. She shoved all four children out of the magical working and took sole control as she threw her own power between the assembly of demons and her students. There were gasps and shouts as the four sixth formers flew backwards and either sat down hard or thumped into the white walls of the arcane lab.

In the demonic plane, most of the descending scavengers scattered. The archdemon, not yet reified, was imperceptible by sight, but Walden could feel the spiked weight of magical distortion it gave off. It gave her the equivalent of a considering look, trying to decide whether a delicious meal of teenage magician was worth the risk of taking her on. Walden returned her best cold schoolmistress stare: Do you really think it’s a good idea to try me, kid? The demon couldn’t actually see her expression any more than she could see it, but part of being a magician was knowing the relationship between your solid, mundane human body and the magic it performed. If you wanted your presence in the demonic plane to be frightening, it helped to be a good actor. This performance of inarguable authority was more or less the skillset you needed to manage a roomful of teenagers anyway, so Walden got plenty of practice.

The archdemon seemed convinced. It wavered.

Then it reared back in alarm.

Walden was startled until she realised that Kenning had jumped into the pentagram, shortsword drawn. This was reification in reverse, the mundane world brought into the demonic plane. The magical weapon manifested as a glowing blade of white light. Kenning herself was also projecting into the demonic plane, much harder than Walden, the avenging angel manifest as a stalwart figure of muscle and defensive magic. Oh, thought Walden, she’s actually quite good. She had assumed—well, talented demon hunters tended not to end up as school security.

She also thought, as a minor corollary: Oh, she’s gorgeous.