READ THIS: All right, guys, since your main gripe is that this is very similar to The Wish List (and I appreciate your honesty, so I'm not complaining here), I may as well warn you that this chapter will also seem very familiar to all of you who have read the book (though it's not as similar as the first chapter). So you don't need to tell me that it's like what happened in the book – I already know that. However, if it really bothers you, go ahead and say so. And trust me, after this chapter the plot of this fic will steer away from that of the book. Nathaniel isn't going to have a list of things he wants to do over, because – and this is made pretty obvious in this chapter – he is suffering under the delusion that he's fine the way he is. In a way, it makes Kitty's job harder than Meg's because Nathaniel isn't going to be agreeing with her or cooperating. Rather than having a clear idea of what she needs to do (i.e., completing a to-do list of sorts), she'll have to figure out how to change Nathaniel on her own. As the fic moves along you'll see the difference.

That was an absurdly long paragraph. But I hope it's made things clearer. Thanks for reading, everyone!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that belongs to Jonathan Stroud or Eoin Colfer, but I use them with lots of respect. ("Be kind; do not step on the characters.")

-
Accepting Irony
Chapter 2
-

Running afoul of Nathaniel at the moment was probably not the best of ideas. Having just endured a three-hour meeting concerning the American campaigns during which absolutely nothing – nothing! – got accomplished, the young magician was understandably not in the most pleasant of moods.

It had been a year since the defeat of the golem and the unveiling of Duvall as a traitor, and since then Nathaniel had gotten more powerful than ever. His underlings wondered at his skill with summoning, a special talent of his, and some even said that, should he try, the fifteen-year-old might be able to call up an entity as potent as an afrit on his own, a feat which usually required the combined power of two magicians.

During the past year, Nathaniel had grown a head taller and had cut his hair, which he had come to find alarmingly long. Now only just brushing the middle of his neck, it was much more presentable in his mind than the wild locks he had sported a year ago. Presentation was everything; the cleaner-cut you were, the more powerful you were deemed to be. Nathaniel wanted to be certain that he made an impression, particularly when his youth caused him to be constantly underestimated. It was frustrating, but it also made his successes all the more satisfying. He had earned the respect of his fellow ministers thanks to his past actions.

He swept into his office after glaring menacingly at his secretary, an attractive woman in her thirties, who in his absence had been holding a conversation with one of his junior ministers rather than focusing her attention on the substantial pile of papers lying on her desk. At the sudden presence of their boss, the woman squeaked and blushed deeply while the older magician paled, and Nathaniel found himself smirking at his newfound power of intimidation. It was good to be him, all right. If only he didn't find himself burdened with the presence of such idiots as the ones he had left gaping at the desk outside…

Two hours later he'd had quite enough of his paperwork and was preparing to go home. He had dispensed with the drainpipe suit months ago, but had decided to keep his long coat – it looked no less impressive when worn over a mercifully looser garment. He smoothed back his hair and left, making sure to scowl at his secretary (who was now working through the pile on her desk at a furious pace) as he passed her desk again, just for good measure. Her deep gulp and frightened expression, sure indicators that she was worried about losing her job, were immensely satisfying.

Once outside his building he greeted his chauffer and slid into the back seat, cushioned with light, soft leather. He drummed his fingers on the seat beside him as he watched the scenery in London flash by on the other side of the tinted window, his thoughts on the campaigns.

Although the Prime Minister assured the people of London that the situation in America was completely under control, at the meeting it was made clear that under the surface, things were a bit more complicated. The Americans were showing a great deal more resistance than had been anticipated, and what with the growing problem from the Czechs, who were rumored to be calling upon what power they had left to try and break free from London's grasp, the city was finding its forces rather stretched out.

Still, Nathaniel mused, at least there was no danger of an uprising from within. With the death of Kitty Jones the Resistance seemed to have been permanently extinguished. As always when his mind drifted to that incident, he felt a twinge of guilt at the memory of his broken promise. As always when he felt this, he suppressed it before it could get out of hand. He had only been doing what was best.

Sure, what was best…for you, that is, sneered a nagging voice inside his head not unlike Bartimaeus'. He ignored it and got out of the car when it pulled up in front of his townhouse, and gave his chauffer orders to arrive at the usual time in the morning. With that, the man drove away and Nathaniel entered his home.

He shut the front door behind him with a tired sigh and took off his coat, hanging it with great care on the rack hanging along the wall to the right of the door. He shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over the arm of a chair in his living room, sinking down into that same chair and closing his eyes. He hadn't realized how truly drained he was until this very moment. In fact, he might have fallen asleep right there if it hadn't been for the noisy disruption that occurred a second later.

-

Kitty shot back into the mortal world with surprising force, colliding with a squashy armchair that was suddenly as solid to her as it would have been had she still been alive. The force of the impact sent both girl and chair flying, and it took a moment once she had come to a rolling halt to remember which way was up. It didn't help that she was suddenly a lot more – there was no other way to put it – aware of everything than she had been in life. Instead of just the carpet, she was astounded to find that, if she concentrated a little, she could see the padding beneath, the thin fibers themselves, and then what lay within those fibers. She shook her head and tried to see things like she had in life – it was a lot easier on her mind.

Once she had steadied herself and focused properly, she became aware of the young man standing and gaping at her from across the room, an expression of open horror on his face.

"You!" he gasped, sounding like he was having difficulty catching his breath.

"Yes, me," she snapped irritably, for she had just realized exactly who it was that was staring at her as if he had seen a ghost.

…Oh.

"But…but you're dead!" John Mandrake stammered, breaking into that surprisingly depressing thought. "A year ago – you were killed by the golem!"

Only one part of that really registered: "A year ago."

"What do you mean, 'a year ago'?" Kitty demanded, suddenly feeling like she might throw up, should she have been able. "I can't have been gone for more than a day!"

"No," Mandrake said, looking as though he could hardly believe he was even having this conversation. As a matter of fact, she was having her own difficulties grasping the situation as well. Not only had an entire year whipped by faster than she could comprehend, leaving her a thing of the past, and not even remembered fondly by those who had known her, but she was with Mandrake.

Mandrake! Oh, no…the person she was supposed to be making good couldn't be him, could it? Suddenly the murderer she had been envisioning looked very, very appealing. Why on earth was she sent here, of all places?

"What are you doing here?" the boy asked, voicing her very thoughts. It occurred to her that in addition to suddenly seeing much more than she had been able to in life, Mandrake's emotions were practically tangible to her. Shock and disbelief actually poured over her in waves, and it was making her uncomfortable.

"Can you tone it down a bit?" she asked irritably. "That's really annoying."

"What?" he asked, looking bewildered. Of course; he wouldn't realize how his feelings felt to her.

"Never mind," she muttered. Of all the lousy luck…how long would this little mission take, anyway? Now that she knew exactly who she was supposed to be helping, she had the overwhelming desire to get the whole thing over with as soon as humanly – or spiritually – possible.

"Well?" the magician was asking. Kitty looked up, startled – she hadn't even heard him speak.

"What?"

"I said, you didn't answer my question; what are you doing here?"

"That's what I'd like to know," she said with a scowl. "When that stupid mite told me I was supposed to turn some idiot's spectral trail blue, I didn't think that idiot would be you."

"Mite? Spectral trail?" The boy looked utterly lost, which compared to the smugness she had been forced to endure when last facing him was almost pleasant.

"It's my job," she tried to explain. "I died, obviously, but since I saved your stupid life I was kept out of hell. But I guess it wasn't enough to get me into heaven, because now I've been sent back here, and the only way I can get into heaven is to get you worthy of entrance too. …At least, that's what I think that mite was blathering about; it was kind of hard to tell."

"Er…" Mandrake still looked confused. Kitty sighed.

"Don't you get it? Right now your spectral trail is a pretty ugly reddish-purple shade, so you don't exactly meet the criteria to get into heaven once you die."

"What do you mean; what's a spectral trail?"

"Well, you wouldn't be able to see it. It's like an aura, I guess, and depending on the color, red or blue, you go to hell or heaven, respectively."

"What's that got to do with you?" he snapped, clearly agitated by this revelation that his afterlife might not be as cushy as the one he was presently living.

"I already told you – I'm supposed to help you turn your aura blue."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"That's what I'd like to know," she muttered, then in a normal tone said, "By making you a better person, I guess."

"What's wrong with me the way I am?" he demanded hotly, looking deeply offended. Kitty snorted at this.

"Well, in short…you're a real prat," she said with a smirk, inwardly delighting at his outraged expression. "What I'd like to know is why you think you're so great. I certainly can't tell."

His mouth opened and closed, his face flushed and eyes dancing with anger.

"For one thing, I'm not a petty criminal," he shot at her at last. "And a dead petty criminal to boot," he added, which got her aggravated again remarkably quickly.

"Only because I felt strangely compelled to perform a completely selfless act and save your pathetic arse," she snapped back. If she was alive, her face would no doubt be red from anger.

"I wonder what caused such a drastic change in character," he sneered, the expression looking to her on one level like sharp black darts flung in her direction. "Given your earlier actions and lifestyle, I wouldn't have expected it in a thousand years."

"A little gratitude wouldn't go amiss here," Kitty retorted, her voice rising. "You forget that if I hadn't acted then, whatever my motivation, you would be getting pried off the tunnel wall and flung into hell by now. Dead," she added, in case her implication hadn't been clear enough.

"Well, I'd assume that one would have to be dead to be sent to hell," Mandrake said sarcastically, his voice louder, too. "But I must commend you on your astonishing ability to connect the two."

"You…!"

The angry exclamation got no further, because it was about then that Kitty looked down at her hands, which had clenched into fists of their own accord, only to notice that rather than only a few scattered red shoots there were now dozens striating the violet of her aura. She gasped and held her hands up to her face. Surely…surely just a little argument hadn't caused such a drastic change? She felt her anger evaporating and she felt herself sinking down onto the floor – until now, she had been hovering a good six inches in the air, on level with Mandrake.

"Something wrong?" he asked, the venom not quite out of his voice yet but his expression a little softer. She looked up from her hands, which she had been staring at in horror, and mumbled, "I guess you could say that. And look –" he couldn't see what she was indicating, but that wasn't that important to Kitty at the moment. "Your aura's redder, too."

"Huh?" He glanced down at himself doubtfully, though of course, he couldn't see his now slightly redder spectral trail.

"But…" Kitty looked at her own ghostly fingers again. "But that was just a little row…that can't have been so bad."

Mandrake moved a little closer to her, perhaps unconsciously, as she felt her shoulders sag and head droop. This was going to be so much harder than she thought it would be, if just arguing did this much damage. Why was it so much easier to do things that would hurt you in the end? She glanced surreptitiously at Mandrake, and then away again. Then again, given who she was dealing with, it was no surprise that she would be so easily angered. He wasn't exactly her favorite person in the world.

"Well," she said after an awkward pause, "I suppose we're both going to have to control ourselves."

"Apparently," he said, a little stiffly. "Well, then."

He held out his hand, and, without thinking, she reached out and took it, intending to shake it. What actually happened, though, was that she forgot to concentrate on the solidity of his hand, and she ended up being sucked forward as though down an invisible drain in his palm.

"What the – don't do that!" she cried out, pulling with all her might in the opposite direction.

"What are you doing?" Mandrake demanded, but by that time she had been sucked straight into his body, and the word 'doing' was spoken only in his mind, within which he seemed to have taken the backseat. Kitty gasped in shock, the sound escaping not her own lips, but Mandrake's. She had slid right into his body and seemed to have taken control.

"No!" she shrieked, the voice, when it reached her – Mandrake's – ears, not her own. She panicked, stumbling about the room wildly, pulling at the hair that wasn't hers.

"Let me out!" she yelled.

"I can't! And stop tugging at my hair!" Mandrake yelled back, only in his mind, to Kitty, of course. His own mouth wasn't his to control anymore.

This couldn't be right! She wasn't supposed to become Mandrake in order to make him become a better person, was she?

Or was she?

Either way, the idea was absolutely intolerable. The sensation of being in someone else's skin, in someone else's mind, was absolutely disgusting, particularly because of exactly whose body she suddenly inhabited. Apparently Mandrake thought so too, because he hadn't stopped shouting at her to get out. Against her will, tears started to well in her eyes. She dropped to her knees on the plush carpeting of the living room, her hands almost swallowed up by it.

"I can't do this," she moaned, fingers digging into the carpeting tightly enough to make Mandrake's knuckles turn white. "I can't be you. I want out."

And with that, she suddenly slipped out of Mandrake's skin, detaching and sinking down onto, and slightly through, the floor beneath the young magician, who was suddenly in full control of his body again and was breathing heavily as he leaned over her slightly transparent form. She looked up, relief washing over her, a feeling she never thought she'd have when seeing his face…particularly when it was this close. She scooted away hastily and got up, floating a few inches above the carpet, and he got to his feet as well.

"What," he asked, still panting slightly, "Was that?"

"I didn't mean to," she said, feeling miserable. "And I don't want to do that again."

"No," he agreed, folding his arms. "So I'd thank you to stay out of my skin from now on."

"It wasn't my fault!" she protested, indignation flaring up at once. "How was I supposed to know that would happen? It's not like I'm used to this, you know! It may have been a year for you, but I still feel like that whole fiasco was only a day ago! It's not easy!"

"All right," he said, holding up his hands. "Calm down, will you?"

"Don't order me around!" she snarled, hands clenched again. "I'm not one of your demon servants!" She was rising a little, now a few inches higher than before and at eye level with Mandrake again.

"I'm not ordering you around," he said, his tone of controlled calm only annoying her more. "It's just, you know, your spectral trail."

Oh. That. It figured that he would be the one to remember this, and he wasn't even the dead one.

"Right," she muttered, embarrassed, and tried to relax. God Almighty, how was she supposed to be civil and keep her own aura blue when almost everything he said seemed to annoy her to no end? "Sorry."

He frowned thoughtfully.

"I still don't understand how you're going to go about turning my aura blue. Are you supposed to act as my conscience, perhaps?"

"Don't know," Kitty said, putting her hands on her hips. "That seems like the thing though: I follow you around and keep you from being a jerk."

He glared at her, then looked away, running a hand through his hair distractedly.

"I wonder if other people can see you," he said, and she shrugged.

"I guess we'll find out, if I'm going to be going everywhere with you." She failed to suppress a grimace as she said this: the thought was not an appealing one. "Still, when we're out in public you might want to be careful about when you talk to me – it could look like you're babbling to thin air. I can't imagine that doing much for your credibility."

"Your concern is touching," he said dryly. "And if you'll excuse me, I think I've absorbed about all I can at the moment. It's been a long day for me, you see, and I'm going to bed. I assume you can find some way to entertain yourself that doesn't involve destroying my home?"

"We'll see."

"Ha."

What, he thinks I'm kidding?

He turned away from her and headed towards a wide staircase. She distinctly heard him mumble something about hallucinations, and shook her head. If that's what he was hoping for, he'd be one disappointed magician in the morning. She floated over to the couch and dropped onto it, making sure to concentrate on its solidity. She wasn't sure if it was possible to possess furniture, but that didn't mean she was anxious to find out.

-

Upstairs in his bedroom, Nathaniel pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He had studiously ignored what had just happened while he was preparing for bed, but now the situation was screaming for attention. Kitty Jones. Kitty Jones was a ghost and was in his house. He had just had an extensive conversation/argument with her, and she was going to be making him a better person so that she could get into heaven.

There was nothing else for it – he was clearly insane. The idiocy of his coworkers and the stress he was feeling had finally pushed him over the edge, and now he was delusional. This was not a good thing. How was he supposed to carry out his duties as (the youngest ever) minister of his department if he was having hallucinations about Kitty Jones, who had definitely been dead for a year and couldn't possibly be in his house?

"I need to start keeping alcohol in this place," he muttered, and dropped onto his bed. Maybe once he'd rested his mind would fall back into order. He would wake up and Kitty would once again be nothing more than a memory, like she was supposed to be.

Kitty couldn't have been more correct: he would be extremely disappointed when he went downstairs the next morning expecting her to be gone, only to find her experimenting with standing on the ceiling.