And so comes the third chapter. Read, enjoy, and review.

Kitty fished for the key in her pocket, trying to hold the boy up at the same time, her arm trembling. He was skinny and surprisingly light, but he was still deadweight and she'd been carrying him for a while now.

She brought the key out of her pocket and shoved it into the lock. Turning it, she opened the back door to her small house into her kitchen. Bartimaeus had asked her if he could put up a protective nexus around the house, but then he'd need to be there for her to get in; Kitty had argued that there would be times she'd need to go home without him hovering over her. He'd relented, and now she was grateful for the fact—he wasn't here now, no matter how much she might wish he was.

After dragging the boy in, she leaned against the door as it closed and let the boy slide to the floor. Why was her heart racing the way it was? She'd evaded magicians before. She wasn't in danger for the moment—they were looking for another magician, not a commoner. The boy was safe. Why couldn't she calm down?

Kitty answered her own question: Bartimaeus had been injured. She shivered again at the mere thought of the silver knife sticking out of his stomach. Him being hut while protecting her was one of the things she couldn't really forgive him for—or herself, for that matter. But he was safe now, back in the Other Place, where he could heal. Safe.

Kitty's heart rate finally slowed. As long as Bartimaeus was okay, she could deal with anything else that was thrown at her. She loved him, after all.

The boy groaned and shifted. Kitty leaned over him as his dark eyes licked open, the eyelid of the bruised eye only lifting part way. He saw her face above him and let out a cry, reacting faster than she would have thought possible as he seemed to fly across the floor until he reached the corner of her kitchen. He hit the wall so hard it had to have hurt, but he paid the pain no heed as he stared at her in fear, his hands raised in front of his body in a weak attempt to shield himself.

Kitty approached him slowly, her hands out in front of her in a peace-making gesture. "It's okay," she said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you like those magicians did. It's okay. You're safe." But he didn't seem to understand a word she said.

Even as he trembled, Kitty kneeled in front of him and gently touched his wrist. He made a muted yelp and pulled his hands to his chest, recoiling from her touch.

"Shh," she murmured comfortingly, "it's okay." She placed a hand on his dark hair gently. He whimpered, but backed into a corner as he was, he couldn't move away. Softly, she stroked his hair, saying comforting words in a soft tone, and even if he didn't seem to understand exactly what she was saying, the lull in her voice calmed him.

The two stayed in that position for several minutes. He was looking at the floor and Kitty couldn't see his face, but she could see several cuts on his arms that needed tending to. What she could see of his chest was a mass of bruises, but there wasn't much she could do about that. She stood to get a first-aid kit, but when she moved, the boy tensed again.

"Shh," she whispered. "Stay here."

She left the kitchen to get the first-aid kit from her bedroom and didn't see him look up at her almost shyly as she went.


He shivered where he sat on the hard floor. It seemed to be made out of some kind of marble, maybe, but that was the only familiar substance anywhere except for wood. The walls were white and almost chalky, but hard, as his thump into the corner had proved. There were tables around, with cupboards below and above them, with too many strange-looking contraptions he didn't recognize. He'd considered getting up, but maybe it was better to just sit where he was until that girl came back.

That girl… There were several things he didn't understand about her. First and foremost, she spoke some strange language that he didn't understand. He hadn't tried Greek with her yet—or Latin, or Egyptian—and he figured he should soon. She might understand one of them, since those three had been the traditional languages of a magician when he'd been alive.

That was another thing—'when he was alive'. Was he alive again, or had his spirit simply been summoned? He checked his own pulse. Steady. Strange. He wondered if the magician—his master; suddenly he saw why spirits hated that word so—had any idea what he'd done, what he was doing. Somehow he thought not. He was the first. Well, that had happened last time too, so that was okay.

Again, that girl. Did she want to hurt him or not? He'd been more terrified of her than all the other magicians combined simply because of the aura that radiated off of her, and when she'd grabbed his wrist, he'd been frightened out of his pain-hazed mind. Then he'd slid into blissful unconsciousness, only to wake up with her standing over him. Just them two alone. Again he'd been frightened, after the events of the past week he'd been here in this world as a slave, but though he'd been unable to think rationally enough to escape, she hadn't hurt him. She'd even seemed to be comforting him in her strange language, and she'd stroked his hair, apparently trying to soothe him.

He knew that not everyone was like his master. Was he lucky enough to have been kidnapped by someone who would help him?

The girl walked back into the room, leaving the door open. The door—it was one of the few familiar objects he could see, and its presence made him feel not quite as lost. She was carrying a small white box with red, foreign writing on it. She saw him and smiled kindly, apparently glad he was still there. Only then did it occur to him that he could have run while she was gone. Oh well, too late now.

She knelt in front him again and opened the box. He saw an assortment of strange tools inside that he didn't understand. She took one of them out, some kind of tube, and twisted part of it off. She held her hand out, as if expecting him to do something.

He just cocked his head in confusion. She gave him a little smile and reached out, grabbing his hand. He started a little, but she started talking again in that calming way of hers. She slowly drew his arm out and fingered one of his cuts gently. He winced a little but didn't pull away. She took the tube-shaped thing she was holding, put the tip of it to his cut, and squeezed gently. A clear liquid trickled out, and he gave a yelp as it stung. He snatched his arm away and put his other hand on his stinging cut, looking at her accusingly. What had she done?

She reached out, speaking comfortingly again, but he drew away as far as he could against the wall. She sighed and studied him for a moment, then looked around, as if searching for something. She finally brushed some dirt from under one of the cupboards. She put it into a little pile and looked at him to check if he was watching, which he was, curious. She pointed to the dirt, then to her skin. She pointed to the tube, then brushed the dirt away.

He thought he knew what she meant—the stinging liquid cleaned his wounds. That was important, he knew, to make sure they didn't get infected. Reluctantly, he held out his arm again. She smiled at him, a little sympathy and maybe pity evident in her eyes.

He didn't want pity. He wanted a lot of things, but not pity. But he couldn't tell her—could he?

"I don't want your pity," he said softly in Greek.

She looked at him, surprised, and for a moment he thought she understood him. But she only said something in her language, looking confused. He tried in Latin and again in Egyptian, but she obviously didn't know either. She said something again, but he just shook his head. They couldn't communicate with words; that much was clear, which made actions all the more important.

The girl just stared at him for a moment until he glanced pointedly at his still stretched out arm. She took the hint and sighed in relief as she went to work with her cleaning fluid. It stung, but after that feeling faded they did feel better.

Maybe he could trust her. So long as she didn't turn out to be some kind of deceitful magician.


Kitty sighed in relief when the boy let her use the antiseptic. She wondered if he really was a demon—spirit, she meant, obviously; that's what she always called them, but everyone slips up, don't they?—but she couldn't really tell. He treated her very normal kitchen wary glances as though it was a very alien environment. If he was indeed a spirit, she wondered when his last service had been.

She figured it must have been a while ago. He didn't even speak English, apparently, but that could be simply because he'd never had to learn the language before. Or did spirits instinctively know every language? These were the simple questions that had never occurred to her to ask Bartimaeus until now, when she wouldn't be able to for three days. It seemed like such a long time when he was a world away.

A whole new problem presented itself with the Band-Aids. Kitty picked one out from her first-aid kit and he leaned in for a closer look. She held her hand out again, and this time he knew what she wanted; he stretched out his arm once more. She peeled off the two protective strips and carefully placed the Band-Aid over his cut. He snatched his arm away and stared in wonder at the small contraption. He poked it, prodded it, and almost started to peel it off, but stopped and winced as it pulled at the hair on his arm. She could see the moment of recognition when he finally realized it was a bandage. He seemed to be fairly bright—Kitty wasn't sure she'd be able to tell a Band-Aid was a bandage if she'd never seen one before, and he'd picked up on her antiseptic pantomime pretty fast. She put more Band-Aids on his arms, to cover all but the smallest cuts, then gave his face a look.

She gently lifted his chin with her hand. He pulled away, not as violently as he would have before, but simply in an instinctive move. She briefly departed to get a wet rag, came back, grabbed his chin gently again, and began to carefully clean his face of the dried blood. There was an awful lot of it, and her cloth was a disgusting rusty red by the time she could see any of the natural skin of his face, and even then, his face was probably still past recognition—not that she could tell, never having seen him before. His black eye was almost fully swollen shut, and she decided that she'd need to get some ice for him soon, after a few more checks.

His legs were largely uninjured, with only a few bruises. Not being able to help with that, Kitty bypassed his legs and looked at his chest. It was nearly covered with bruises of varying size and color, but she didn't see any blood anywhere. She felt his ribs, saying soothing words as he winced when she pressed his bruises, to make sure they weren't broken. She was about to stand up, figuring her work was done, when she realized two things: One, the sleeves of her coat, which she'd rolled up, had blood on them. Two, the white wall behind the boy also was red with blood.

Kitty gasped and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around in a sudden gesture that frightened the boy again. He jerked in her grip, and she let go as she stared in horror at the mangled bloody mess that was his back.


His heart pounded. Was she angry? Was she going to hurt him? His back already ached and was probably bleeding something awful from the harsh, completely unnecessary whipping his master had given him. He squirmed in her grip, and she let go instantly. He turned around to face her and saw the look of utter horror in her expression.

"I'll guess you can hardly believe your own kind would do this?" he said softly. She didn't seem to hear him, and he knew that even if she had, she wouldn't have understood. His mouth twisted into a sardonic smirk, something that had never before graced his face.

"I never did either, but that's where I'm wrong, isn't it?" he whispered. "Even I, a scholar of the Library of Alexandria, am sometimes wrong," Ptolemy breathed, anger and betrayal in his eyes where there never had been before.

^_^ Reviews appreciated. Oh, and by the way, I'm a huge Ptolemy fan, which is why I HAD to bring him into the story... even if I'm just going to beat him up. So yeah, just a little explanation.

-Rydd Rider