Walden had been expecting it. She didn’t stand up—this wasn’t her lesson, she wasn’t the teacher—but she leaned forward in her chair, opening up her body language, as the Year Elevens craned their necks to look at her. “It’s a fascinating question,” she said, which was filler while she rapidly thought through how to pitch what she knew into a useful mini-lecture for a class at this level. “The answer, helpfully, is both yes and no. Demonic personhood is a contested topic, because it ties into the very nature of what demons are, and that is a contested topic as well. Let me ask you all: Is a demon a human being?”

Headshakes, negative murmurs: that was an easy one. “Is a demon like a human being?” Less certainty this time, but a general no. “I agree,” Walden said. “A demon is not very much like a human being at all. So is a demon an animal, or like an animal?” Even more uncertainty. Ezekiel was watching her thoughtfully. Walden answered her own question: “No, on the whole, is the truest answer; but there are elements of yes as well. Demons are constantly experiencing one of the key pressures of the animal kingdom. In the demonic plane, they are all predators and all prey. Managing an invocation safely becomes much easier and safer when you keep those pressures in mind. Like most opportunistic predators, demons are unlikely to pick fights they are not certain to win. A trained modern magician is too much of a risk for all but the strongest demons, and they can tell; they have a raw sense for magical power and control that goes well beyond the senses we all develop in our magical practice. So to keep yourself safe, you only need to make it clear that the risk calculation of attacking you doesn’t work out in the demon’s favour. Most of the time, they accept that. After all, we have something they want. Our world is a kind of escape for them, a restful alternative to the merciless pressures of their own plane. It’s been argued that a first-order imp that moves itself into a nice safe home possessing a washing machine or a TV remote is engaging in a kind of self-domestication, like cats.”

Year Eleven looked thoughtful. A hand went up to ask a question. But Walden glanced at the clock: no, she couldn’t take up too much of Ezekiel’s lesson on tangents. She gestured hands down—a flattened palm in the direction of the curious student—and asked them all the critical question: “Is a demon alive?”

“Yes,” said the young man Alec, decisively.