Of course no one ever really had weekend plans in term time—apart from the chatty group of newly qualified teachers in the corner of the staffroom, who buzzed with the enviable energy of youth. To Walden’s eyes they looked barely older than the sixth formers. Their ringleader, blonde-ponytailed and enthusiastic, was Lilly Tibbett, who was the NQT—a newly qualified teacher—in the Evocation Department this year. Walden, as Director of Magic with oversight of all the magical departments, had sat on that hiring committee. Lilly was a talented young magician with a CV full of scholarships and prizes; almost no actual experience, but you expected that at twenty-three. She had the makings of a good teacher, which was to say she knew her stuff and she was good with people. At twenty-three, the good-with-people was mostly raw charisma, rather than skill, but charisma was a valuable place to start. Her students already called her, lovingly, Tibbs.

“Duty calls,” said Frau Cole, as the bell went. “My bad Year Tens, so pray for me.”

“Good luck,” said Walden. “I ought to be in a meeting.”

She had a meeting, and another meeting, and a phone call with a parent, and another meeting, and lunch with colleagues where—naturally—everyone only talked about work; and the Admissions briefing after lunch, and her direct report meeting with the Head of Instantiation, and a one-hour arcane safety single lesson with 7C. Last on her docket was the weekly two-hour state of play with the site manager. Todd Cartwright was a wiry man in his sixties whose bald, domed head rose gently through a shoulder-length shock of grey hair. He had been at the school for forty years, longer than any other member of staff, a Chetwood institution. His current title recognised what he actually did, and had in fact been doing for years, but before that he’d been called caretaker, handyman, security guard, van driver, and most importantly—and the reason Walden had fought tooth and nail to keep him reporting to her, rather than reorganised into Operations in the most recent shakeup—Keymaster.

The ancient title was as old as the school. The Keymaster was the keeper of the school’s Great Key. It locked the outer doors to the chapel, which were traditionally kept open, and the gigantic oaken Chetwood Gate, which was usually shut—with the postern gate open instead—to discourage country ramblers and tourists. Some people saw the beautiful rolling grounds of a boarding school, charmingly filled with young people doing traditional outdoor boarding school activities, and just could not comprehend ‘private property,’ or indeed ‘you cannot wander around a school in term time taking photographs of the children.’ Yes, Chetwood was absurd, ancient, privileged, beautiful—but to the children who lived here, their school was not an aesthetic. It was just life. They had a right to get on with life without being goggled at.