She thought of Old Faithful’s shadow bearing down on the arcane lab that morning. Todd was right: if the great demon was stirring, precautions needed to be taken as soon as possible. So Walden would take them. She was expert and unafraid. Come on, then, she thought, watching the children toss dancing lights from hand to hand, the sixth formers flirting, the teachers gossiping, two small birds darting in and out of the branches of the great oak tree. Something bright and sizzling curled in the back of her thoughts, and she folded her arms, making sure to catch the sleeves of her blazer over her wrists. Come on, she thought at the monster in her school’s shadow. Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.

Walden was at the shiny, glass-fronted faculty meeting room in the new Bursary building bright and early next morning, early enough that she bumped into Dinah from Catering dropping off the croissants and tea urn. The meeting was due to start at 8 A.M., which gave her half an hour before the official start of the school day to run through an agenda with thirteen items on it. Everyone was going to be yawning and bleary and thinking about their lesson for Period One, and anyone on house duty would already have done Revs—as the first wake-up register of the day was traditionally known—before sending their teenage charges off to breakfast.

She sat at her laptop and gave her colleagues friendly smiles and greetings as they stumbled in and flung themselves gratefully at the tea and croissants. “Morning, Victoria—good morning, Simon—hi, Lilly—good morning—”

“How’s it going, Saffy?” said Ezekiel, taking the red plastic chair to her right.

“Busy, busy, but I can’t complain,” said Walden. “Did you get a croissant?”

“Can’t stand the school pastries,” said Ezekiel. He was wearing his clerical collar, but he’d left off the gown. Tuesday morning, so no chapel service today. He pulled out a notebook and fountain pen ready for the meeting—Ezekiel resented his laptop and used it as little as possible—and said, “Are you still coming by for that observation later?”

Walden had in fact completely forgotten that they’d planned a lesson observation, but she clicked subtly to her calendar and there it was: Period Two, obs Ezekiel Y11 GCSE Invocation. “Of course,” she said, “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Should be a good one,” said Ezekiel. “They’re a nice set, and I’m carrying on with the ethics topic.”

Magical ethics at GCSE level was one short-answer question and a box-ticking exercise—Should you summon demons to help you commit crimes, yes or no—well, that was an oversimplification. Not much of one. Walden hid her disappointment—she’d been hoping to see Ezekiel teach something interesting—and glanced up at the clock. Three minutes past eight. “Good morning, everyone!” she said. “Shall we get started?”