Two fully trained magicians on the spot. One of them a married man, father of three and foster father of seven. The other was Walden, who was single and unattached and hadn’t spoken to most of her family since last Christmas.

She had a momentary vision of her own memorial plaque in the chapel, a shiny brass record underneath the unfortunate Headmaster from 1926. DOCTOR S. WALDEN, 1986–2025, ALUMNA & DIRECTOR OF MAGIC, REQUIESCAT IN PACE.

She was the most senior person present. This was her school, and Nikki and Mathias were her students.

“Get someone to call the Headmaster if they haven’t already,” she said. “And don’t let it cross the road.”

Ezekiel nodded gravely.

“Are you planning to go in there?”

When had Kenning shown up? Walden had no idea. “That’s correct, Marshal,” she said.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“We can discuss it later,” said Walden, an automatic sentence out of her teacher phrasebook, and then she had to stifle a laugh. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She was not expecting Kenning to grab her by the shoulder. The Marshal had a strong grip. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Demonic incursions are a Marshal matter, Dr Walden. The Marshals will deal with it.”

Walden shook her off. “Then where are they?”

Kenning said nothing.

“Chetwood School employs six Marshals full time in case of magical emergency,” Walden said. “Two of them are supposed to be on patrol at all times. Where are they, Chief Marshal Kenning? Where’s your squad? The last one I saw was dithering until I gave him an excuse to run in the opposite direction.” Kenning still didn’t answer. Walden lost patience entirely. “Let’s face it, Laura. If a person is any good at demon hunting, then they don’t apply for the job where the most difficult thing they have to do on a daily basis is intimidate children. You say this is a Marshal matter? The Marshals aren’t here. I am.”

“We should still wait for support,” Kenning said. “You can’t send someone into a wild demonic incursion solo. It’s madness. It’s suicide.”

“Wait how long? If it takes much longer for help to get here, there’ll be nothing to do but force an incursion collapse from the outside. Now kindly stop wasting my time.”

Kenning opened her mouth to say something else, but she was interrupted. Out of the worried little crowd clustered on the lawn emerged someone who should definitely not have been there. He’d thrown on a hoodie with the school crest on it, and he was holding his phone.

Will.

Walden had a sudden mental flash of Aneeta, still tearful and frightened, alone in an unfamiliar place with no way to know what was going on, clinging to her phone. Texting a friend for support. I keep making mistakes.