“Not to worry,” Walden said. “Besides, arguably, it does work here.” No consent on the school’s part, no employment contract, but if they preferred this fairly benign imp to the other potential inhabitants of the photocopier—and Walden did—then it was worth trying to keep it happy. Making agreements with demons was the heart of her academic discipline, and keeping the school’s wild magic problems under control was one of her core responsibilities as Director of Magic. She would have liked to have her coffee first. “All right,” she said to the photocopier, “what are you striking for? Better working conditions?”

The demon said, Blood!

“All our staff are entitled to sick leave, pension contributions, support from the employee assistance program—”

Blood! shrieked the photocopier. No representation without exsanguination!

There were some chuckles from the crowd of teachers. “No blood,” said Walden firmly. A meal of human bodily fluids was the fastest possible way to turn a minor demonic possession into a major demonic problem. “Would you accept a digestive biscuit?”

The fiery flecks of the purple eyes in the depths of the multipurpose tray flickered. The imp said, with an air of deep cunning, Chocolate.

“Very well,” said Walden. She fetched a chocolate digestive from the staffroom kitchen and carefully fed it into the photocopier’s maintenance hatch. The demon ate it in two sulphurous snaps. Then the machine let out several loud beeps. “Now what?”

Staples! demanded the demon.

Walden fetched a box and tipped it in. Another gulping sound, and a strong smell of rotten eggs: then the photocopier began to spit out perfectly stapled packs of worksheets about—Walden read sideways—the Luddites.

“Thanks, Saffy,” said Marie. “Should I just give it a biscuit next time?”

“A small demon is still a demon. Better not,” said Walden, which was much more diplomatic than saying I ran an entire training session on handling low-level demon issues last INSET day, come on. The main advice she’d given her non-magician colleagues on how to handle low-level demon issues was ‘don’t.’ Chetwood had constant imp problems, and yes, they were annoying; yes, it was tempting just to deal with it yourself. But it was dangerously easy for a non-specialist to accidentally agree to a more serious pact than they’d meant. “Call me down, or any of the magic faculty, or else”—she sighed mentally, but it was what they were for—“one of the Marshals.”

The episode had taken up the time she’d meant to use to have her leisurely morning coffee. Walden filled a travel flask with coal-black caffeinated sludge from the coffee machine instead, and hurried across the quad to the arcane labs.