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Chapter Thirteen

love seems to stick in her veins

Nathaniel

Nathaniel had been passionately digging a trail on his very expensive Persian carpet for the past hour. Under any other circumstances, he would have marvelled at the fact that he now could stand and pace for so long, but there was no brain space for that at the moment.

Kitty was missing.

A crow came fluttering in through the window and the wind whistled in uninvited. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Anything?"

"Nothing," the crow replied, shaking itself dry all over the carpet. "It's foul outside. Have you seen this rain? She's probably huddled up in a pub, cosying up to some bloke."

Bartimaeus's chipper tone did nothing to convince him.

"Anything?" asked Piper as she came in through the door. Her hair was in disarray and her socks didn't match, but Nathaniel commented on neither of these. He knew she had been on the phone with Edward Norwood and the police for the past three hours.

"Nothing," Nathaniel and Bartimaeus chorused.

Piper cursed and ran her fingers through her hair, probably for the hundredth time. Nathaniel saw Bartimaeus open his beak to speak and knew instantly that he'd go and comment on Piper's appearance. Without preamble, he grabbed the beak in his hand and got a quack and a glare in response.

"Master," said a fourth voice as a bald eagle alighted on the windowsill. Nathaniel let go of Bartimaeus, who immediately stretched his limbs, sprouted a pair of twisted horns, lost the wings, and grew and grew until a minotaur was standing in place of the crow.

Shubit ignored him. Nathaniel tried to, but his poor carpet was now drenched and covered in dirt. Not to mention that it was probably the most illogical thing Bartimaeus had ever done, but now wasn't the time for tracking the score.

"I'm afraid I found no sign of Ms Jones in the locations you've had me look. But I asked a few imps on patrol tonight and they said there'd been a scuffle outside the bakery and that Ms Jones was taken by a hybrid. All imps reported they were unable to follow them after that. They also found the djinni Amare unconscious inside a garbage bin. She's recovered and is currently outside looking for Ms Jones."

Shubit's report was professional and formal, with no emotion to it, and Nathaniel found that it helped soothe his brain into an action mindset. They had the data, now it was a matter of putting the pieces together and narrowing down the places the hybrid could have taken her.

"Thank you, Shubit," Nathaniel said at last. "Please, come in. You must be exhausted."

"Much obliged," Shubit replied, bowing his head slightly before floating inside the study.

Bartimaeus's indignantly grumbled and sat down cross-legged on the carpet. Shubit again paid him no mind. Nathaniel didn't have the time to deal with this or with what had happened that afternoon. To be honest, he also didn't have the energy—he was hanging by a thread, fuelled solely by adrenaline and an overall sense of dread.

"What do you think?" Nathaniel asked Piper.

"I think I should've locked that girl up in this house," Piper replied hotly. Then she sighed, and with the rage properly purged from her system, she added, "I think that the orbs and our spirits haven't spotted any more signs of struggle in the area near the bakery. So Kitty could have escaped and is now hiding somewhere until she thinks it's safe to come back, or…"

Or she could have been killed already. No, Nathaniel had decided not to consider that yet. Nathaniel refused to think they'd find Kitty any way but alive. She had the Amulet, and he knew she always carried silver on her. Plus, she was incredibly resourceful.

"I'll grab a map and we'll cross-reference the intel we received so far from surveillance. Shubit, would you please come with me?"

"Certainly."

"And I'll get a search team to start looking. Let me know when you have that map ready."

Nathaniel nodded. Bartimaeus cut off their brainstorming session by saying, "And what about me?"

"Oh, whatever you like," said Nathaniel, disliking the way Bartimaeus's eyes were pinned on him.

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Nathaniel had meant to say that Bartimaeus could either join either him or Piper, or even go back to searching for Kitty, but that was clearly not what Bartimaeus had understood. Why was it so difficult to communicate with him? No, he didn't have time for this. Kitty was missing. They needed to pull themselves together and find her.

So he cleared his throat and amended himself. "We'll soon have more information, so we'll see then."

"Brilliant."

Kitty

There was a dull throb in the back of her head. There was blood in her mouth.

Those were the first things Kitty registered when she came to, vision blurry, hearing muffled. The next was cold, and then the rain pelting her face. Kitty groaned, turned on her side, and spat out the blood, barely distinguishing the spot on the gravel in the darkness as her throat burned with a vengeance.

A flash of lightning coloured the blood for her for just a second. Thunder rolled right after, like a gigantic set of drums making the world shake. It was right above her. She should move. She had to get up and move.

Kitty lay there, beyond exhausted and hurting, trying to piece together her last memories. She knew she'd left Norwood's bakery, and she'd waited outside for Amare. But after that—

"I'm sorry," said a childish voice.

The adrenaline hit her so fast, Kitty scrambled to her feet in record time, only to nearly faceplant afterwards. Two large, clawed hands grabbed her shoulders and helped her sit down.

"Um, don't do that. I hit you a bit hard."

"Yeah? I'll hit you harder."

The creature giggled nervously, and Kitty felt her bravado dissolve between them. The hybrid was shrouded in darkness like she remembered, but then lighting hit again, and from this distance she could make out the outline of thorns running up the lean arms, the green glint of scales, a tail. How had she not noticed a tail before?

Head swimming, Kitty tried to discreetly get the dagger in her boot without giving away her intentions, but the hybrid had been expecting that. Without much ceremony, it grabbed Kitty's wrists with one hand and pulled her up until her feet were dangling in the air. Summoning her strength, Kitty screamed as loudly as her lungs allowed, ferociously trashing and snapping her teeth. Her throat had to be bleeding after her efforts.

The hybrid flinched and nearly dropped her. "I've put a Bulb of Silence around us," it informed her in its childish voice. "Had to, because I thought you'd scream."

Kitty wanted to point out that that was hardly her fault and what kind of an idiot did such a blotchy job? But then she noticed they were on top of a tall building and her legs were dangling over nothing. The streetlamp below looked as tiny as a firefly. Kitty wasn't afraid of heights, but the air was nonetheless punched right out of her by the sight.

Fuck's sake.

She fought not to let her panic show as her mind raced, trying to come up with a solution. The Amulet was useless if the hybrid didn't use magic and she couldn't reach her dagger. Her best bet was to keep it talking so Piper's djinni would find her or one of the surveillance orbs still roaming London would notice them. But what then?

"I just want to talk."

"I can tell," she growled, now wary of throwing her weight around.

The creature's shoulders slumped, like Kitty's tone had hurt it. Which was absolutely ridiculous and one hundred percent a manipulation technique.

"I think we can help each other," the hybrid said in a small voice. "I thought you'd be easier to talk to, but maybe I should've chosen John Mandrake instead."

"What the hell are you even talking about?" Kitty snapped, the name-drop igniting another wave of fear and aggression within her, further contributing to her headache. It was pulsing and expanding from the back of her head to her brow. God, everything hurt.

"I have information that can be useful to you and your government."

That made her shut her mouth, which seemed to please the hybrid. "Does that interest you? Good. I'll put you down now, but please don't try to run because that's a six-storey fall."

Kitty grunted in response and the hybrid set her down gently in the middle of the rooftop. Feeling her wet jeans press against her rear was about as pleasant as a council meeting and Kitty grumbled at the sensation as she rubbed her sore wrists. True to her reputation, Kitty kept on her glare at all times, unwilling to give an inch. The hybrid remained hunched over her like an overzealous parent, arms comically stretched out. It made small hesitant noises like it wanted to apologise again, but Kitty wasn't having any of it.

"What's your name?"

The hybrid finally stilled. "Oh, uh, yes. Adamastor is what they call me."

Kitty supposed now wasn't the time to start thinking of how odd every spirit name sounded to her ears. She'd die laughing if one day she came across a spirit named Bob. But that was neither here nor there. Maybe she was concussed; it would explain why she couldn't seem to focus for long.

She let the pause stretch between them, even though she wanted nothing more than to throw question after question at Adamastor. But Kitty hadn't practiced patience for three years to let it all go to waste. No, she would draw it all out of the hybrid, whatever means necessary.

Besides, she was already drenched, so what was a little more rain? Later—if all went well—she could just ask Bartimaeus to grab her and wring her.

Focus, Kathleen.

"So, um, should I explain why I came to you?"

Kitty shrugged, which seemed to unnerve Adamastor further. Good.

"Right, yes." A long hand scratched a long neck before the other hand came to snap the former back down. Kitty watched all of that unfold with a blank expression. "I was called like the other hybrids, but I wasn't in on the plan. Asmodeus… I think you've met him."

Kitty snorted. "Sure have."

"Right. He's, uh, he's a little intense."

"Interesting choice of words," Kitty drawled, channelling calm and sarcastic Bartimaeus, who she thought would be doing brilliantly under these circumstances. "What about him?"

"Asmodeus gave my name. I didn't want to come. Resisted twice, thought I'd get punished for disobeying a third, so I came." Adamastor seemed to shrink further inwards the deeper the story got. "And then… well. I didn't know what was happening. I just followed Nouda's commands. Well, not Nouda's. There was this other spirit giving all the ideas.

"Anyway, I fled as soon as I could, and now I keep having to hide because I keep being chased." Adamastor frowned, or so it seemed to Kitty. "But I saw you. You and John Mandrake. He had a spirit inside him too, they were saying. But the spirit hadn't destroyed him. I thought that was ridiculous until I saw him—them—go against my brothers and sisters. And then against Nouda."

Here Adamastor paused, body language tense with indecision. Kitty noticed its hands trembling a little as Adamastor tried to keep them from scratching at its body. Did that mean that the physical protection from the pain Earth caused was gone?

Kitty waited. Every drop of rain that hit her went straight to her patience recipient. She pictured this recipient, made of clear glass and not too large to begin with, as it filled and filled until it overfilled. She pictured it cracking and trembling as it tried to contain all this water that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Soon it would unleash the biggest flood the whole damn world had ever seen.

"Are the rumours true?" Adamastor's voice promptly erased pictures of floods from Kitty's mind. "Did John Mandrake release the spirit before he faced Nouda? Did you travel to the Other Place?"

It was the second time he'd mentioned Nathaniel, and Kitty was suspicious, but she also knew the news of his survival was everywhere, not to mention the news of her trip. It was suspicious that this hybrid knew Nathaniel had dismissed Bartimaeus, however. She wasn't sure how much that bit was spreading.

So she opted for, "It's partially true."

Adamastor gasped. "Astounding." There were no further questions about it. After a pause, the hybrid said, "I'm going to give you the location of a meeting. A Commoners' Alliance secret meeting in Chiswick, in a pub called Rotten Bones."

"So I can't properly track it? Brilliant."

"No, this is a gesture of good faith. You go there and see that I'm telling the truth, and then we can help each other. And the pub will be closing early for the meeting, you'll see. That bit you can track."

Kitty shrugged. "Ambush."

"Trust," retorted Adamastor immediately. It reeked of desperation. "I need you to trust me."

"Maybe you're hoping I bring Mandrake."

"That's not in character for you," Adamastor said, and that was probably the creepiest thing he'd said all evening, because now Kitty knew she hadn't been paranoid whenever she'd felt she was being watched.

Kitty shook herself out of it and considered him for another moment. "And after that?"

"Do you think—" Adamastor looked around nervously, and Kitty followed the movements, feeling uneasy as well. Not that she could see anything with all the rain and the darkness. Bollocks, she was probably going to get a cold. A cold and a concussion. Brilliant.

Adamastor leaned closer. Kitty leaned back. "Do you think he could help me get back?" the hybrid finished in a whisper.

To say she was surprised would be an understatement. Adamastor had already established it—they?—hadn't volunteered for the cause, but Kitty had yet to meet a hybrid that wanted to go back. Although that probably wasn't a valid statement, seeing as every hybrid she'd met had either died right after or fled.

Kitty swallowed thickly as she tried to see Adamastor's facial expression, gleaning nothing from it. "Depends on the information you're offering."

Lying had been part of her life since she could remember, and in the past lying to a demon would have been her first impulse, one she'd obey without question or a trace of guilt. But after spying snippets of their lives from Bartimaeus's point of view, guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders.

Especially because the hybrid went ahead and said, "Thank you. You're very kind. My judgement was right after all."

Kitty bit the inside of her cheek and said nothing.

Piper

"Do I sound like I give a flying fuck about protocol? I'm the Prime Minister of this godforsaken country, so you'll do as I say and assemble a bloody team to go looking for Kathleen Jones and decimate that hybrid so hard any chance of reincarnation is forever lost, or so help me—"

A door slammed shut.

"Stand by," Piper said, glaring at her golden crystal ball and leaving it on the table.

Piper exited Nathaniel's dining room, which she'd been using to make calls and send out imps with messages, and briskly walked along the second floor's corridor until she reached the stairs. There she stopped.

The entrance door to Nathaniel's house opened into a wide carpeted space, tall as the house itself. The stairs snaked across the floors on each wing, a large, ornamented balustrade connecting them on each floor. Piper stood there, frozen to the spot. Below her, on the first floor, was an utterly drenched Kitty Jones, shivering, grumbling, with murder in her eyes. Her jeans were caked with the mud of a small swamp.

Now, Piper usually wasn't one for swearing, present evening notwithstanding. If there was a monthly quota to fill, Piper had gone well over the limits in one single night. So it truly wouldn't matter if what came out of her mouth went over this hypothetical monthly quota. No, she would lose with style, she would.

So Piper said the only thing that came to mind: "What the ever-loving fuck, Jones?"

Kitty looked up. "Tell me about it."

It took them all a while to settle after that. Piper had a million calls to make, not to mention a bag to pack. Kitty needed to shower and get changed, plus she should probably lie down since she refused to go to the hospital, going as far as saying that she'd kick all of their asses into the moon if they didn't stop making her headache worse. Which made the hospital sound like an even better idea, but Piper knew how to pick her battles.

While all of this excitement played out, Bartimaeus announced he was going to take a nap for the next hundred years but ended up making them all tea after Kitty complained once about her throat. Nathaniel put away the maps and asked Shubit to please go out and get Amare and the rest of the spirits once he felt comfortable the weather wasn't too damaging to his essence. Shubit had left almost immediately. Piper's brain was still knotted over this episode, and Romeo popped in there to cheekily taunt her with his profound words from earlier that day.

So now they were all sitting at the kitchen table, and Piper couldn't help the flashbacks to the day Nathaniel had been discharged from the hospital, even though they'd had many happy and fun moments in this kitchen as well. But now it was hard to reminisce about those when Kitty had just dropped a bomb in her lap. The Commoners' Alliance hadn't been extinguished, and they'd been operating right under their noses this entire time.

"So," Kitty drawled, eyeing each of them meaningfully. She looked comfortable in an oversized baby pink jumper, and Piper wished she'd thought to change out of her tight suit, because she could use the extra space to breathe. Her stomach was so full of knots, she couldn't even eat the toast in front of her. "Any questions?"

Nathaniel and Bartimaeus seemed to still be digesting it; they kept giving each other fleeting, conspiratorial looks that Piper couldn't decipher. Kitty took a sip of her chamomile tea while she waited.

So Piper spoke first. "You're not seriously considering going, are you?"

Kitty wrinkled her nose. "I don't see that I have much of a choice, do I? Besides this being extremely important information, it could lead to a great alliance if we play our cards right."

"Kitty, this is clearly an ambush orchestrated by a manipulative hybrid. This is a typical trick that demons play—"

"So now I can't see through manipulation, is that it? I'm sorry, who was it that saw right through the government's bullshit when she was thirteen, huh?"

Piper frowned. "No need to get so defensive."

"I was just attacked and kidnapped, so excuse me if I'm a bit on edge. I'm not in the mood for condescension."

Kitty's words hung in the air. Everyone but Bartimaeus drank their teas sour-faced, like they wished the tea had been generously spiked. Piper hadn't meant to be condescending, but Kitty was inexperienced. Just because she'd got lucky with Bartimaeus, it didn't mean other spirits wouldn't take advantage of her whenever they pleased, much less a hybrid.

"Very well, I'm coming with you," Bartimaeus announced, surprising them all.

"You are?" Kitty sounded beyond relieved.

"No, you aren't," Nathaniel blurted out, and the level of incredulity in the room rose further. "I mean," he cleared his throat, "I agree with Piper that it's dangerous for Kitty to go, even if Bartimaeus goes with her."

Bartimaeus looked at him and Piper felt an odd tension between them akin to the one she'd noticed at the hospital right after Nathaniel had woken up. "Don't worry, Nat," he said coldly, "I'm sure Shubit will learn how to cook for you."

Nathaniel looked stricken.

Piper did not have the time for this. "Returning to the point," she gave the duo a warning glare, "it's dangerous and reckless, and I know I don't stand on any moral ground right now, but I don't understand why we can't send a professional team to scope it out."

"Because then I'm breaking Adamastor's trust and we do need it if we want more information."

"It's a stakeout mission," Bartimaeus chimed in. "We do not engage. We go in, watch, and come out without being noticed. At the slightest sign of trouble, I grab this one and we go." He amicably punched Kitty on the shoulder. She grinned at him weakly in response.

Piper wanted to smack the both of them. "That's all fine and dandy, but what happens when we can't help Adamastor with what he wants?"

That earned her some silence from the other occupants of the kitchen. Bartimaeus went back to giving Nathaniel weird looks and Piper was about to tell them to just share it with the rest of the class when Kitty spoke again.

"We don't have to actually do it. We just have to try. That's all I promised to do."

"Very wise to make those kinds of promises."

"I don't see you coming up with a better idea," Kitty snapped, jumping to her feet and then wobbling a bit on her feet. All three of them moved to catch her if need be, but she straightened and gave them a warning glare. It stayed trained on Piper the longest. "You're going off to Boston, a huge risk considering you're taking such a small security unit, but you won't let me and Bartimaeus handle a bunch of commoners?"

Piper pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep, calming breath. "We're getting off topic. You want to go? Fine." Piper slapped the table, making Nathaniel flinch. "Bloody fantastic. When is this meeting?"

"Saturday at midnight," Kitty grumbled, sitting back down.

Of course it is, Piper thought bitterly. This is what happens when we waive the bloody curfew.

"That's right after I leave." Piper sighed. "I'll prepare a crystal ball for you to contact me, but I'm not sure it'll reach."

"I thought you were using crystal balls to communicate with North America?"

"They're more advanced," Nathaniel finally joined in. His face was drawn and pale, his shoulders tense. But what stood out to Piper was the pure exhaustion rolling off him in waves. It was no wonder, after having spent the day summoning an afrit and then worrying sick about Kitty. "Usually commissioned from stores like Pinn's Accoutrements. They find the best materials and spirits for the intended purpose."

And then, without giving anyone the chance to say anything else, he announced, "I'm coming too."

"What?" Kitty and Bartimaeus said in unison.

"I can walk fine now. Plus, if Shubit comes with us—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Bartimaeus said tersely. "Two's as good as it's going to get. Four's too conspicuous. Besides, an afrit's aura is ridiculously obvious and very traceable in the first hours afterwards. What do you think will happen if they have people with resilience to magic who can see through the planes?"

"Well, you're going," Nathaniel pointed out. "Besides, Shubit is very competent. He can cover it up."

"Can he now?" Bartimaeus sounded more annoyed than curious. "No matter, I'm a whole lot more discreet, thank you very much."

Nathaniel looked like he wanted to keep at it, and so did Bartimaeus. And then Kitty would probably get pulled into it, and Piper knew they'd stay there all night if this went on any further. In that heated moment, she saw no other choice.

"I have another mission for you, Nathaniel, if you'll take it."

That got their attention. Piper explained succinctly what Pinn had told her at the fundraiser a few weeks ago, making sure she stressed that there were no guarantees it was anything important.

"I can't exactly put a team on it, it's too ridiculous. But Mr Button suggested I sent you and Kitty to investigate." She didn't feel the need to mention that that had happened more than two weeks ago. "You don't have to do it, Nathaniel, or you, Kitty. I'm sure it'll turn out to be residual magic and Mr Pinn is simply too lazy to investigate himself."

"I'll do it," Nathaniel said without missing a beat. These days he always sounded eager to be doing anything that wasn't sitting still, which he didn't get to do often. "I'll ask Shubit to come with me. It's probably better if we do it either late at night or very early, while there aren't many people outside."

"It's London, there's always too many people outside," Bartimaeus grumbled.

"Not in the aftermath of the revolt," Kitty sang. Bartimaeus rolled his eyes at her.

"So it's all settled? Fantastic. This meeting is hereby adjourned. We will all report back in a week's time, providing that no one present at this meeting suffers an injury or any other damage, physical or otherwise." What had begun in a light, mocking tone had grown serious. She gave Kitty and Nathaniel a glare. "For the present, the Prime Minister has concluded that all the participants except Bartimaeus must go to bed."

Kitty raised her mug in agreement. "Hear, hear."

Kitty

By early Friday morning, things were much the same. Kitty had spent the night twisting and turning in her bed, making a mental list of what she needed to do before the stakeout. So far, her list had four items.

Number one: visit the place at least once to get a feel for the best hiding spots, or at least have Bartimaeus do it.

Number two: grab some low-tier magical artefacts just in case.

Number three: go over a plan with Bartimaeus.

Number four: decide on code words in case things went south.

Now Kitty was in the kitchen eating half-burnt toast with raspberry jam and chugging down unsweetened coffee like her life depended on it. Her head was still pounding, but the fog around her thoughts had lifted and her throat wasn't burning as badly. And all that without going to the hospital. Kitty lifted her cup of coffee to her past self.

To be honest, however, she hadn't been sleeping well since the first night Adamastor had ambushed her on her way home, but she hadn't told anyone about it and didn't plan to. Nathaniel wouldn't be much help; he didn't look like he was getting much sleep either. And she didn't want to give Piper more leverage to use against her after the previous night. That left Bartimaeus, which was probably the most pointless talk of them all.

She was glaring at her coffee like it had personally offended her when the doorbell rang. Suspicious, Kitty got up to take a look, finding Bartimaeus already there. Bartimaeus glanced at the cup of coffee in her hands and snorted. Kitty rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly.

"It's Sam," Bartimaeus told her, sounding surprised. "Hold on, I'm going to tell the sentries to stop harassing the poor bloke."

Kitty stayed inside and watched through the window as Bartimaeus punched the air to either side of him and shouted something with a very authoritative air about him. Then he beckoned Sam over, and together they joined Kitty inside. Sam was careful to leave his dripping umbrella outside the door and to remove his coat before coming in, getting a nod of approval from Bartimaeus.

"I hope I didn't come in at a bad time," he said nasally, and Kitty instantly concluded he must have a cold. His eyes were sunken, and the tip of his nose was red. But most notably of all, he had a purple eye.

"What the hell happened to you?" Bartimaeus echoed her thoughts exactly.

Sam shifted uneasily. "Oh, patient accident. They get violent sometimes. I usually manage it better, but I haven't been sleeping much."

God, if someone in hospital could manage to give a trained, young and healthy-looking nurse a purple eye, then Kitty didn't want to find out what they could do fully healed. Sam could barely open his eye, and it clearly pained him to do so.

Sam turned to her, eyeing her expectantly, and repeated, "Is this a bad time?"

Kitty self-consciously pulled her robe tighter around her frame to hide her childish pyjamas. Her face burning from embarrassment and morning brain still foggy, all she could do was shake her head no. Then she cleared her throat and told him properly that no, it wasn't a bad time.

Sam smiled gratefully at her. Now that he didn't have his coat on and she'd managed to stop staring at his eye, Kitty noticed that Sam was carrying a suitcase and a rectangular package. He handed it over to Bartimaeus without a word, who gave it a glare so fierce Kitty thought the package would combust. There seemed to be some sort of telepathic message passing between them in that moment.

Odd. Surely if the package contained medicine or instructions for Nathaniel's recovery there'd be no need for such secrecy? Then again, she conceded bitterly, they hadn't let her see most of what had happened during Nathaniel's treatments, even though she'd sat through all of them with Bartimaeus.

Kitty took a hearty sip of her coffee, its warmth melting away some of her resentment.

Which reminded her that she was being impolite. "Can I get you anything?" she asked at long last. "Coffee? Tea?"

"You didn't have to come here for these." Bartimaeus shook the package, and Kitty didn't hear any bottles or ruffle of paper. "I would've been much faster."

There went Kitty's attempt at polite conversation. She sent an unamused look Bartimaeus's way, but he wasn't paying her any mind.

"No doubt, but I had a check-up nearby, so I thought I'd come here instead of having Mr Mandrake go all the way to the hospital. It's mostly routine at this point," Sam told Bartimaeus, who narrowed his eyes in response. Then Sam turned to her with a hesitant grin Kitty instantly disliked. "Tea would be lovely, thank you. Would it be alright if we spoke in private after I check on Mr Mandrake?"

A tray with cooling cinnamon tea and fig rolls Bartimaeus had complained about arranging lay untouched on the redwood table between them. Already jittery from the excess of caffeine, Kitty couldn't stop her hands from picking at the sofa beneath her. Sam was her polar opposite, sitting very still on the armchair by the window and examining a painting in blues and greens on the wall with a blank expression.

Kitty was losing her mind.

She was about to speak when Sam finally put her out of her misery.

"I suppose you can imagine why I'm here."

"Well," Kitty began shakily, berating herself for ingesting so much caffeine so early in the morning, "it's either because you need to tell me something about John or because you have news about my parents."

Cut right to the chase, that had always been her strategy. Even if she'd fallen behind on her search these past few days, Kitty was acutely aware that her mind was in a constant floating state, as if it were waiting for something to pull her down and ground her again.

Sam nodded, and said in a measured voice, "You're right, it is about your parents."

This time Kitty couldn't keep her leg from bouncing, trying to match the increasing speed of her heartbeat. "Go on, then," she heard herself say through a thick throat.

"I did as you asked. Since you're not back in the system yet, it took a while longer. I contacted the nearby hospitals, provided your DNA samples, and asked a few colleagues if they could speed up the process.

"As you know, every hospital is overbooked. What happened two months ago maxed out our capacity, so we built tents. As the weeks went by, we tried to slowly transfer the patients and staff to the hospitals to provide better care. Your parents were in one of those tents in Paddington until a week ago, when they were transferred to St Mary's Hospital."

Kitty tried to think back on whether she'd been to any tents in Paddington. She'd been to St Mary's, but admittedly not in the last week. And her search had been kept closer to the river, where the hybrids had concentrated their attacks, and further south, closer to where they'd lived before, since she didn't think they could afford rent in London. But did that mean they'd moved to Paddington recently? Hyde Park was right there. Had she truly been so close to them all this time that all she'd had to do was cross Hyde Park and check the tents there?

"And?" she prompted, when Sam had remained silent for a few minutes too long, probably to allow her to register the information.

Sam sighed and Kitty's face scrunched up.

"Your father passed away during transport. They tried to get him cleared for transfer a week before, but no hospital in the area could take him."

Kitty absorbed the information as if she were listening to a report about two people she didn't know, the words registering in her mind, but not the meaning. There was a rush in her ears drowning out her surroundings, Sam's voice nearly lost in it.

"And mum?"

She hadn't used that word in so long that it felt foreign and childish in her mouth. She was transported back to a time when 'mum' had meant safe and home, when she'd needed nothing more than being in her mother's arms for her fears to melt away. When 'mum' had meant invincible.

"Your mother was successfully transferred to St Mary's, where she stayed for the past week, but…"

But.

"There were some complications, and… I'm afraid she left us this morning. I'm truly sorry, Kitty."

Kitty vaguely registered that he did sound sorry, that his eyes were clouded with concern and empathy for her. Her throat felt so tight. She cleared it, swallowed down the huge lump to no avail. Her body felt so rigid she wouldn't be surprised if she couldn't get up after this. Her stupid mind could only echo in loop, Not invincible.

"How did it happen?"

Sam gave her another concerned gaze, waited a bit for her to change her mind. But when Kitty didn't take back her request, he continued. "Mrs Jones sustained severe burns during the attacks, causing not only damage to her skin, but also to her internal organs. The staff fought to keep her alive, and for a while your mother fought as well. But after your dad passed, she stopped fighting. She refused to eat, and stopped responding to the medical staff."

If I had been there—

Kitty shut down the thought as quickly as it sneaked up on her. When she inhaled, her stomach trembled and her chest protested, wanting to stay as small as possible. "So she died of a broken heart?" she asked with a small, bitter laugh.

Sam moved forward in the armchair to put a reassuring hand on her bouncing knee. Kitty hadn't noticed she'd still been doing it. She stopped and met his eyes.

"She died because she was in severe condition. Even with ideal care, there were no guarantees she'd make it."

"But she held out for so long. Why now—" She choked on a sob and then gasped, surprising herself at the emotion bleeding out in her voice.

After all, she didn't care about her parents. They'd abandoned her years ago.

Kitty didn't care.

Sam slid into seat beside her, grabbing a napkin from the tray and offering it to her. He put a reassuring arm around her shoulders as Kitty furiously wiped at her tears to no avail; her body seemed bent on making them. Against her better judgement and overall pride, Kitty allowed herself to be held by this friendly stranger who seemed to know just how to comfort her.

Sam's voice droned on as he very scientifically explained why damaged bodies stopped functioning after a while, even when people intended to keep fighting. Kitty half listened to him through her sobs and her guilt and her anger.

And when Sam ran out of science and took to chanting the same mantra of, "It's going to be alright," Kitty almost believed him.