Well. There was no point sitting around feeling sad. Walden stood up, stretched with a wince—the Phoenix had used her body hard in that fight, everything ached—and tried to gather some professional detachment. “The incursion should shut itself down, now, I think,” she said, “without that monster holding it open. It’s much too big to self-sustain. Shall we?”

Silence.

“Laura?” Walden said.

She turned towards the Chief Marshal and found herself staring down the length of a silver shortsword. The tip was at her breast.

“Ah.”

“You’re possessed,” said Laura.

She’d seen Walden wake the Phoenix, of course. And she was a Marshal.

Walden met her eyes steadily. “Other way round, actually,” she said. “I possess.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“I still have my doctoral thesis somewhere if you’d like to read it.”

“Dr Walden,” said Laura unhappily.

“I really don’t know what I can do to prove it to you,” Walden said. “If I am possessed, then I have been for years, and it hasn’t caused any problems yet. But, if you’ll forgive my pulling rank on this one—I am an expert on demons. More than you. And I feel quite confident that the Phoenix is under my control, and harmless.”

“You think you’re the first magician to say that about a demon?”

“Well, no, of course not,” Walden admitted. “The difference is, I’m right.”

“I have a duty,” said Laura. “I swore an oath of service. I can’t let a higher demon walk around loose in the mundane world.”

“It’s not loose, it’s extremely carefully caged,” Walden said. “But I do see your point.” God, she was tired. How on earth to get Laura to leave her alone about this?

Then a sudden inspiration. “Would you care to swear an oath about it?”

Laura stared at her. “A what?”

“An oath,” said Walden. “A geas, you know, that sort of thing. I understand, Marshal Kenning. The Phoenix is potentially quite dangerous, yes. But I can give you the power to sort it out in a pinch, if you really don’t feel you can trust me.”

The shortsword finally wavered, before Laura’s wrist stiffened and she brought it back to its threatening position at Walden’s breast. Walden thought, for a moment, about the kind of courage it took to watch something take down an eleventh-order demon, and then decide it was your duty to fight it.