When Edgar and Noah made an appearance at breakfast, half of the school was already there. The canteen was high-ceilinged, it had a lovely traditional wooden floor with matching carvings on the brick walls, and it was currently was filled with teenagers all dressed in training clothes – black t-shirts and tank tops, dark tracksuit bottoms, leggings, and even some forbidden jeans amongst the final year students. The boys located Lee and the two girls in the far corner, and after much weaving between tables they took seats either side of Lee. The table was small enough to keep Fourth and Fifth Years from joining them, so they were thankfully alone as they started to help themselves to toast and cereal. Lee and Emmy broke off their conversation as Edgar sat down, and Emmy returned to her soggy cereal. Joy had her head in A Clash of Kings as she absentmindedly munched on toast practically dripping with butter.

"No waffles today?" Edgar said, as he buttered a slice of toast. "What a shame. It always makes Mondays so much better."

Lee chuckled as he buttered another crumpet. "Probably because they're not so healthy, but it hasn't really worked out, has it? Instead we're drowning in saturated fat." He licked some melted butter off his fingers, which had dripped off his sodden crumpet. There were thin white scars on his neck, as though a spider had spun a web on his skin, where runes had been the night before.

"But what about the high calorie diet thing?" said Noah. His t-shirt was as black as gear, but there was a pale grey sketch of a bird riding a bicycle splashed across his chest ­– not exactly uniform. A silver ring glinted on his finger as he raised his spoon to point at Lee. "You go running all the time, and we all have to train, so don't we need loads of calories?"

"Don't talk humdrum nonsense, Noah," Edgar said, carefully cutting his toast into triangles before shoving some in his mouth. He chewed quickly and swallowed. "Marcus is a demonhunter and he's massive, so obviously he's why –"

A loud bell clanged at the front of the room, and silence fell. Emmy looked up from her cereal, her eyebrow raised, and even Joy closed her book, though it was with an air of impatience. A glance over at the door told all of them that something was going on. The Headmaster – a balding man in his fifties with plenty of beard – was climbing onto a chair, so he could survey the canteen. He cleared his throat, and the sound reverberated – if he squinted, Edgar could just about see the loudness rune on his neck, but it made his sight rune tingle.

"I'm very sorry to interrupt your breakfast" – his voice was so loud that it made both girls, and a fair few students besides, jump, and the headmaster noticed – "ah, sorry, all right." He pulled what looked like a long fountain pen out of his pocket – again the sight rune on the back of Edgar's hand prickled – and he scribbled a rune on the back of his hand. "Let's try again." His voice was quieter now, though still loud enough to be heard clearly over the muted crunching of unfinished mouthfuls of toast. "I'm sorry to interrupt your breakfast, but I have an important announcement. This morning, we received news from the Synod in London that the Ephemeral Chalice has been taken from the Palace of Westminster."

There was a horrified silence. A gasp ran through the room, and immediately whispered discussions sprung up. Emmy turned to stare at the boys in horror, her parabatai staring at the Headmaster with her mouth agape. Edgar and Lee exchanged a bemused look before turning back to the Headmaster, and Noah leaned forward, whispering something to Emmy.

"But how –"

"Now, really, can I have some quiet?" The Headmaster's voice echoed in their ears, and silence fell again. His disapproving gaze swept across the room before he spoke again. "The Synod has everything in hand. If anybody has any information that might help the official Sunder investigation, then come speak to me immediately. The Chalice will be found. Anyway, if you will excuse me..." The Headmaster climbed down with some difficulty, but the canteen was filling with loud discussion before he had even left the room.

Emmy leant forward. "I don't believe it," she said, and she pushed her glasses up her nose. "The Synod's chamber has incredible security. I was reading about it for M&L last week. How could someone get in?"

Edgar edged his chair to the side, so he could see around Emmy as the others started to talk. Over her shoulder he could see person he was looking for. Giles Bullwright was leaning back in his chair, the picture of coolness. His hair was as black as ichor, annoyingly shiny, and gelled into a stiff quiff that Edgar was sure you could spike an apple on, it had so much product on it. His crisp shirt was only half buttoned, and it was probably new – he was the sort of person who wore clothes once and then threw them away. He hardly seemed bothered that the Chalice, arguably the most important of demonhunterkind's sacred objects, was stolen. Giles, who had just come back from London...

Someone poked his arm. "Don't stare at him," Lee muttered, and Edgar turned to look at him. His parabatai's eyes were somewhat narrowed in disapproval, but there was some concern there too. "You don't want him coming over here, do you?" Edgar sighed before shaking his head.

"I was just saying, we can ask Merryhallow during first," said Emmy, peering over the top of her glasses at Edgar. "He'll tell us anything." She glanced down at her watch, and she jumped. "Oh, by the Angel, I've gotta grab my folder. See you guys." Her chair scraped on the wooden floor as she got to her feet, and she hurried out of the canteen at top speed. Joy raised an eyebrow, checking her own watch.

"But class doesn't start for ten minutes," she said, frowning, but then she sighed, marking her page in A Clash of Kings and getting to her feet. "I need her to help me with my hair." She followed Emmy's path out of the canteen, her long caramel hair brushing her elbows, and in dire need of a brush.

Noah raised a pale eyebrow in her direction. "Doesn't she need her folder too?" He shook some of his messy hair out of his eyes – he couldn't hide it under a beanie, as they were banned under the dress code – as Edgar poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Who knows? I didn't even know Joy had a Demonologie folder," he said with a shrug. He poured the equivalent of several spoonfuls of sugar straight into his coffee mug. "Have you ever seen her take a folder to lessons?"

The other two exchanged a glance, confirming to each other that Edgar had a good point. He took a swig of his coffee, and he smirked in a knowing sort of way. "Anyway," said Lee – having finished his crumpet, he was wiping butter off his fingers onto the tablecloth. "Anyway, I wanted to go to the training room, so I'll be going. You know how quickly the ropes get taken up." He got to his feet. His shirt was cut lower than his gear jacket, so Edgar could see the parabatai rune permanently inked onto his collarbone, like Mandarin characters carefully and intricately painted on a scroll. He flashed a grin at Edgar before making like the girls and disappearing off into the crowd that was beginning to filter out of the canteen. It was getting late, and Edgar started to drink his coffee with a little more urgency, burning his taste buds in the process.

A quarter of an hour later, Edgar sidled into the Demonologie classroom, stylishly late – or that had been the plan, anyway. The room was empty apart from Joy, who was sat at one of the wooden desks, her hair now plaited, reading A Clash of Kings again, and Emmy, who was deep in conversation with Marcus Merryhallow. Marcus stood on the teacher's platform, his pet raven, Munin, perched on top of the blackboard, and his hand rested on the desk as he chatted to Emmy. His tangled grey beard and stout stature reminded Edgar forcibly of the ceramic garden gnomes often found fishing in humdrum gardens. He seemed completely unaware that half of his class hadn't bothered to turn up as of yet.

Edgar dumped his bag on the desk behind Joy, next to one of the tall arching windows that was bathing the classroom in sunlight. Joy glanced up at him, shooting a meaningful look over at Marcus before returning to her book. A deep cry sounded from the teacher's desk.

"Aha! Edgar! The man of the hour." Marcus had descended from the platform and was advancing on them, belly first, with Emmy scuttling along in his wake. She perched on Joy's desk while Marcus clapped Edgar on the shoulder. "Emmy was just telling me about what you and the boys got up to last night!" Emmy grimaced at Edgar over Marcus' shoulder, mouthing a quick apology. "So let's see this note, eh?"

Reluctantly, Edgar reached into the pocket of his black Harrison jacket and pulled out the thin piece of parchment. He presented it to Marcus with an air of irritation, but Marcus seemed completely oblivious – his eyes skirted over the extravagantly inked words, his fuzzy eyebrows rising.

"Obviously a Poe fan. And you say it was done by a seraph blade?" Marcus turned the note over in his hands. The back was covered in a thick rust-like powder – dried fairy blood.

Edgar nodded, sitting down at his desk. "The wound was burnt at the edges. It must have been. But there haven't been any reports of rogue fairies recently."

Marcus nodded, his beard pressing into his chest as he looked down at the note. A small frown crumpled his forehead, which were dominated by his fuzzy eyebrows. Edgar had once read that Georgian women wore eyebrows of mouse skin, and Marcus' eyebrows were all he could ever envisage. "There have been lots of fey murders recently. I've looked into them, and they've all had wounds that could have been from a seraph blade. There aren't many leads available, though..." He handed the note back to Edgar. "Perhaps you should all have a crack at it?" He grinned at them, but it was barely visible beneath the beard. "A fresh pair of eyes and some young brains might be what this case needs to crack it!"

Edgar and Emmy shared a glance, and then Edgar nodded. "Sure. It's not like we've got any exams to study for or anything." He folded the note up and shoved it back into his pocket as some of their classmates sneaked into the room, glancing at their watches. Marcus remained completely unaware. He tutted, waggling a disapproving finger at Edgar.

"It's the work of a demonhunter to police the paranormal world! This is far more important than your exams – and they're not for months, anyway." He turned and rolled his eyes at Emmy and Joy, who forced smiles onto their faces. When he looked away they shared a panicked glance. "You'll definitely get extra credit."

Edgar shrugged. "Sure. Whatever. We'll do it." Marcus grinned, and he clapped Edgar on the shoulder again.

"Excellent! Good lad!" He bounced off to the front of the classroom. Edgar shuddered, taking his jacket off and throwing it over the chair next to him.

Joy leant towards him as Emmy took her seat next to her, pulling her textbooks out of her bag. "Two hours of this," she muttered, her nose wrinkled. "Two hours." For once, Edgar shared her sentiment completely, and he sighed as he shoved his bag off his desk.

Emmy turned, her copy of Advanced Demonologie in her hand. "I was hoping if I headed him off early he wouldn't pounce," she whispered, flicking through her textbook. "Sorry. But he told me he thinks it's a serial killer, and frankly I agree. I normally wouldn't suggest this, but maybe we should go to the library –"

There was a snort of laughter. "You hate the library," sniggered Joy. Emmy eyeballed her for a moment before looking down at her page. It was covered in diagrams of seraph blades, describing their various demon-killing properties.

"We need to find the humdrum records," she said, ignoring Joy's comment. "The humdrum police take care of a lot of things, and I can't believe this won't have been in the news. Maybe that'll give us some leads?"

Edgar shrugged. "We need his records too, if he's been investigating any other murders. Otherwise we might miss something. We didn't exactly take lots of notes last night. I didn't think this would be our job."

Joy set her book down on the desk just as Marcus burst into a good-hearted chortle. "I'll get them off him at the end," she said as he rumbled his way back up to the front of the class, seemingly deciding that enough people were in attendance for him to begin the lesson. "Maybe there have been other notes that he's not telling us about."

"Maybe." Emmy glanced over at Marcus as he started to write the title on the blackboard in his elegant loopy script, as chaotic as a ribbon twirling in the wind. Munin cawed in annoyance, taking off and landing on Marcus' shoulder in a sweep of black feathers. "Maybe...this is going to sound crazy...but if there are rogue demonhunters doing this, maybe they're the ones who took the Chalice?" She bit her lip, her hazel eyes wide with concern behind her glasses. "If that's the case, I'm not sure if –"

Joy poked her in the ribs. "You worry too much," she said as her parabatai shot a scowl at her. "They're nothing to do with each other. The Sunder have an official investigation into the whole Chalice thing, and Marcus wouldn't have given us this if he thought they'd overlap at all, would he?" She looked at Emmy expectantly, and Emmy nodded, still looking a tad worried. She pulled her grey cardigan – nearly the same colour as Noah's beanie – more tightly around her.

There was a short silence, when all that could be heard was the slight squeaking of Marcus' chalk on the blackboard, and Munin ruffling its feathers. Edgar pulled a pen out of his bag, and he clicked it. "Well. If we don't die, we can go to the library, then." The girls both nodded, and they turned back towards the front, just as Marcus started to recap some Third Year knowledge about how Reapers interacted with seraph blades.