Chapter Twenty-Three. Before It Goes Bang

As Spring Term begins, Walden’s teaching load eases but meetings consume her time. When NQT Lilly Tibbett reports something “off” in the lab, Walden intervenes to halt an escalating Year Nine evocation duel. Sensing deeper danger, she diagnostically confirms two demons riding students: a faint imp in Alfie and a stronger presence in Noor.

Walden drops stasis, shields with Lilly, and exorcises Alfie first, extracting a weak smoky imp. She then forces a larger third‑order entity from Noor, which manifests as blood‑flecked green slime, leaving Noor in an asthma crisis that Walden manages with her inhaler. The duty Marshal arrives; Walden orders a sweep of the lab and the Year Nine boarding house.

The Marshals quickly find an unauthorized Nintendo Switch in Alfie’s dorm—an imp magnet—prompting Walden to issue strict detentions and parental contact. Morris confesses he sourced the console, earning punishment tempered by credit for honesty. Noor’s dorm yields no device, leaving her possession unexplained.

Following a hunch, Walden brings in Todd the Keymaster. Together they discover a subtle ward leak channeled by recently erected scaffolding along Scrubs’s west wall, directly beside Year Nine rooms. Walden climbs the scaffold in PPE and patches the wards by night, while staff supervise displaced pupils past curfew.

In a late meeting, Walden explains the alarming implication: spontaneous third‑order infiltration signals multiple defensive failures across Chetwood’s vast ward system. Todd suspects the old thaumic engines; Walden plans a full audit despite having cleared them last summer. David, grasping the institutional risk, supports the urgent review. Exhausted, Walden returns home, duties unending as even A‑level marking still awaits.