What Abigail Did That Summer (Rivers of London, #5.3)

by Ben Aaronovitch

“Are there aliens?” Simon asks Indigo. “Not that I know of,” she says. “Unless you count cats.”

Demi-monde- which is French for “half-world” and an old euphemism, according to Miss Redmayne who teaches humanities, for any sexually active woman who failed to conform to the strict patriarchal gender norms that permeated French society in the dark days before Tinder.

I find out later that this is also called Poet’s Lane, because Keats and Coleridge used to jam down here looking for nightingales.

“Have fun,” she says and releases me. “Make trouble.”

I tune out EastEnders and concentrate on Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. It’s his favourite and I could do most of it off by heart, except it makes me cry at the end because now I know what magic can really do and what it can’t.

So is the Shadow Lady the ghost of a practitioner? I thought they were all men, all the portraits in the Folly are men—total trouser fest. Or is it like Mrs Redmayne says about science and art and literature—did all the women get photoshopped into oblivion?