Kitty stared unseeingly out of the window of the train; the endless desert vista of bleached sand met the intensely blue sky at a horizon that seemed impossibly far away. Her long dark hair was braided soberly back, and she wore a light, trim top with canvas shorts. The entire car, it seemed, was completely empty, but Kitty knew better than to assume that she was unobserved; she sighed, and glanced up at the corner of the ceiling, apparently at thin air. But her eyes, enhanced as no other human's eyes were by ... past experiences ... could instantly pick out two small, ugly creatures floated, leering at her. A long umbilical cord connected to each snaked out of the wall. Imps.

After all that had happened, it was not safe for her anywhere unless armored magicians protected her wherever she went. Even now, she knew, two of them would be keeping a close watch on the scrying disks connected to the imps in the car. She disliked the necessity of their presence, but could do nothing about it. She needed protection, and she needed it badly.

She sighed again, looking back out the window. Typical irony. Once, she had wanted nothing more than to protect: to protect Jacob, to protect her friends in the Resistance, to protect them all. Now, when they were all far away from her, she was the one being protected. All because of those two...

No matter what she started with, every train of thought eventually reached them. Bartimaeus and Nathaniel had, even during their life, occupied much of her mind. Now that they were gone, their memories claimed all of it.

Bartimaeus...you died here, away from home. Why did that happen? Why? To save our world? To save Ptolemy's world? Or to save my world? All I did was come to your home. I thought that was a huge deal at the time. Now, I'm not so sure. He had given up everything, because of a gesture. She had lost her youth, true enough, but not her life. He had lost his right to an eternal bliss.

Nathaniel was gone, too. That meant something starnge to her. He had not played much part in her life before he was a magician, so she had hated him as a magician. But she couldn't help feeling that, if they had met differently, their relationship would have been a very different one. His loss created a hole in a part of her life she previously didn't know existed. Why, she had no clue, but it did. The memory of his smooth, masklike, adult face, dissolving into innocent wonder as he looked at her when she woke up, called up strange emotions in her. Foremost among them was an overwhelming sense of loss.

I wonder...

Nathaniel was able to sense many things around him -- many, many things. A swirling tumult of ... something, everything, nothing, to which he was melded, it seemed, seamlessly. He was part of it, all of it, noe of it...confusing, but he could think of no other way to express it. It troubled him, that this experience escaped definition in his mind...or consciousness...or whatever it was. However, he found that if he allowed himself to relax into the rhythm of the flow, the decentralized consciousness, was, in a way, oddly comforting and wholesome.

You're taking it a lot better than the other ones.

Nathaniel jerked back to attention. The feeling was not pleasant. Who is that?

Who's that, he says. Maybe he isn't as smart as we thought. A snicker floated to him. Haven't you figured it out yet, kid?i am you, and you are me. We are all one.

All one?

All one. You exist, yet you do not exist. Same for me. Everything is nothing, nothing is something, something is everything.

Where had he heard that before? He remembered something like that from his early days of schooling, far back, when he used to nod off over tomes of Greek and Coptic in a huge library...

Why was it so difficult to concentrate? Suddenly, the comforting flow around him seemed a menace, an impairment. He tried his best to concentrate...and failed miserably.

Done yet?

Bartimaeus?

You knew it was me.

How did I? I don't know.

Magicians...can't see the forest for the trees. Ask something more sensible, why can't you?

Nathaniel thought for a moment, and had to agree. So what exactly is this place?

There was a long pause. Bartimaeus?

Ah, no voice of authority. I conclude you have learned something from here.

Answer me!

There it is. I was wondering... anyway, onwards. I welcome you, Nat, to the Other Place.