So I would have had a long, apologetic note at the beginning of the last chapter, but in my haste to finally update I forgot to put it in. But I really do apologize – if I couldn't kick my writer's block and write a chapter within a year, I should have at least indicated that the story was on hiatus. It was very inconsiderate of me.

Happily, I'm inspired again, and I'll be doing my best to stay on track and update every couple of weeks or so. I probably won't be consistent all the time – I'm starting college this year and will need time to adjust – but know that I'm trying.

To everyone who read and/or reviewed, thanks for sticking with me. Hope you enjoy the chapter (but in order for you to do that, I'll have to actually shut up and let you read it, won't I?)

-

Accepting Irony

Chapter 6

Kitty's mind was racing as she followed Mandrake through a series of gateways that led them deeper and deeper into the Tower. There were two big reasons that she wanted to prevent Mandrake from torturing the prisoners. The first and most obvious was that it would wreak havoc on his soul, and therefore she would be that much closer to an eternity of fire and brimstone. The second was that she identified heavily with the prisoners, having had the short end of the shaft for the brief period that had been her life. All they had been doing was what she, Mr. Pennyfeather, and the rest of the Resistance had always hoped they would: take a stand.

Also, she would have to be present during all this, as she was unwilling to leave Mandrake alone with his obviously malfunctioning conscience, and she really didn't want to watch people being tortured.

Bartimaeus had not been allowed in, and had flown off in the form of a small brown bird to wait. Now that he was gone, Kitty suddenly remembered why Mandrake had summoned him in the first place, so she felt curiously defenseless on top of everything else.

For his part, Mandrake looked grim. He was in a foul temper, as made evident in the car ride to the Tower, and therefore even less prone to listen to her than usual. But she did have one advantage at the moment, which was that he couldn't speak to her, since he was being escorted by four guards who would wonder why he was speaking to thin air if he did. She took the opportunity to argue her point as best she could while he was unable to interrupt.

"Listen," she said urgently, floating in front of him (he couldn't even glare at her properly when surrounded by guards), "I know you think that you need to do this, that it's part of your job and all that, but that doesn't make it right. Just stop one minute and try to picture what life is like for these people! Try to understand why they might have done what they did – they're not trying to overthrow the government, they just don't want to be steamrolled by it!"

He jerked his head a bit, as if there was an annoying insect buzzing in his ear. His expression was like stone – if she was getting through to him, he was doing a spectacular job of hiding it. She paused for a second, considering. Since appealing to his better nature didn't seem to be working, she tried appealing to his ego instead.

"You're smart!" she said desperately. "You can think of a way to trick them into telling you what you want to know if you just put your mind to it, I know you can. You did it to me, didn't you?"

His hand flicked up as if to brush his hair out of his face, concealing the roll of his eyes. Great. Apparently she'd insulted him a few too many times for him to take her flattery seriously. Either that or he didn't think fooling her was exactly deserving of a medal, which was kind of irritating.

"Please," she said quietly, but the wailing of a siren drowned it out, preceeding them as they passed through a portal into a circular stone chamber. Their human guard fell back as they entered the portal, but two huge demons clutching spears with silver tips met them on the other side. They saluted Mandrake as he passed, and despite their intimidating size and musculature, something about their eyes gave Kitty the distinct impression that they were pretty dim.

Extremely thick stone pillars ascended toward the ceiling, too high for Kitty to see what was on the platforms they supported. Just as she was wondering how Mandrake expected to interrogate the prisoners from down here, he stopped and the flagstone beneath him wobbled. She quickly stepped onto it behind him as it began to rise into the air, a few faint grunts beneath them the only sign of the entity that supported the weight. They rose until they were on the same level as the platforms, four in all, each holding its own man within an ominously humming blue-white sphere. Their eyes were all trained warily on Mandrake.

"Please don't," Kitty said again, touching his shoulder. She couldn't see his expression, but felt him take a deep breath.

-

Ironically enough, my own escape from the Tower of London was what prevented me from entering it again. Since the incident in which Faquarl and Jabor broke me out (dubious saviors to be sure), entities like me were no longer allowed near the Tower. I took on the form of a finch and flitted an acceptable distance away, then settled down to wait for my master's return.

I have to admit I was feeling bad for Kitty at this point. She could have had a nice axe murderer to work with, but instead she was stuck trying to persuade Nat not to be what every magician aspires to be: a complete tyrant. The fate of her soul rested in his manicured hands, and, if his behavior in the car was any indication, he didn't seem to care.

What a shock.

I preened my feathers and considered the situation. Kitty was going to have to figure out a way to reach him quickly, especially since she had the added complication of a mad, undead afrit on her tail. Which brought my thoughts back to the most interesting subject at hand: myself. I despise being summoned, but it's worse when I'm stuck sitting around doing nothing, and since Kitty had to follow the kid into the Tower to play conscience, I was now perched on a road sign twiddling my proverbial thumbs. Not that I thought Honorius would be able to get to her while she was inside the Tower, but I was slightly uncomfortable with the current circumstances.

Not that I cared much what happened to her one way or the other, mind. But my charge was to protect her, and if Honorius harmed her I would fail in said charge, leaving me at Nat's tender mercy. The nonchalance with which he was preparing to torture information out of some dock workers didn't leave me feeling very optimistic about my own chances if I slipped up.

So immersed was I in grim speculation that the chill breeze that suddenly ruffled my feathers barely registered; it fit my current mood so perfectly it was just part of the background. It kept up for longer than I expected, though, increasing in force until I had to curl my claws a little more tightly around the metal sign to avoid sliding off. I puffed up my plumage and my little bird head flicked left and right in consternation, scanning the planes for the source of the disturbance. It seemed to me that the wind carried traces of menacing whispers, the quality of the voice shifting with each syllable – a man's deep tones, then a woman's, then a child's – in an unsettlingly familiar manner.

The previously cloudless sky began to darken ominously as a particularly strong gust of wind pushed me to the very edge of the sign, my claws squealing against the metal.

"And where are your silver weapons now, little djinni?" asked a voice right next to my ear. A high, mad cackle rent the air as I lurched forward off the sign, wheeling around wildly in the air to face Honorius, currently a large black cat perched implausibly on the thin sign I had just vacated, an unstable gleam in its red eyes and mouth open in a gaping grin that revealed many sharp, wet, poisonous-looking teeth.

"Er," I said.

"The first time we met," the cat said, its casual tone offset by its unwavering stare and the slow, deliberate movements of its sinuous tail, "you fled from my scimitar like a coward. The second time, you attacked me with silver and tried to drown me in that turgid river. The third, you were in the company of the thieving mouse who robbed my crypt."

Honorius paused, a sharp red tongue flicking in and out of his mouth in a manner more serpentine than feline. He seemed to be waiting for me to respond. I didn't – I was trying very hard to think of a way out of this situation that didn't involve my own demise.

"And now," he continued softly after a strained silence, eyes flaring, "You're protecting that same little mouse, aren't you?"

"Interesting," I said in a slightly choked voice. "The way you put it, it almost sounds like a choice."

"Regardless…"

I had to hand it to Honorius – for a while there he had sounded almost sane. But the madness was creeping back into his tone now; those three syllables had all been uttered in completely different voices, and his already lengthy claws extended further outward. He tensed up on the sign, cat mouth grinning.

"Aren't you going to run again, Bartimaeus of Uruk? My impression in Prague was that it was a specialty of yours. Along with poorly constructed walls."

There is, of course, no shame in evasive action. But the little jibe ruffled my feathers all the same.

"I'm sure that if you'd been in my place, you'd have taken the scimitar to the jugular, no complaints."

"I would never have been in your place!" the cat spat, and pounced. I stopped beating my wings, dropping like a stone, and Honorius passed straight over my head. In the split second it took for him to land, turn, and launch himself at me again, I became a brawny gargoyle and swung out a stony fist, which connected with the cat's face with a satisfying crack. Honorius flew backwards towards the street; I sent a Detonation after him, and then flapped my wings and bore myself up, changing into a falcon as I went.

I tore through the air with the undead afrit in hot pursuit. I put up a Shield around myself that shattered under the first Detonation Honorius threw, and was forced into a straight-downward dive in order to avoid the Convulsion that followed. I doubled back, swerving to avoid another attack that I didn't have time to identify – it was just a bright flash I instinctively avoided – and traced a looping, dizzying path over the rooftops of London, leading Honorius farther away from the Tower and Kitty with every turn. Hopefully either she or the kid would put two and two together once I didn't return to them, and Nat would summon me as soon as possible. I just had to continue to hold Honorius's attention and evade his potent attacks until this happened. No big deal or anything.

The windows all along one side of an office building exploded outward, sending shards of glass into my path. Cursing, I swooped out in a wide arc, hoping to avoid the majority of the shards, turning around in the air to send an Inferno in my pursuer's direction. As I did so, I got a good look at his guise, which was pretty stomach-turning: a decaying eagle deflected my attack carelessly, dark clots of flesh and feathers sticking to the bones of its ribs, wings, and legs. Scarlet eyes stared malevolently out at me from the recesses of the skull. I hastily turned around, beating my wings with renewed gusto. The chase went on.

-

"Please don't."

Nathaniel felt Kitty put a hand on his shoulder. Her voice was quietly imploring, a tone he had never heard from her. Against his will, his resolve weakened a little. She had saved his life. Maybe he owed her a small display of compassion?

You have a duty, the magician in him reminded him sternly, but he couldn't ignore the cold pressure on his shoulder. Unexpectedly the face of his twelve-year-old self came to mind, his own reflection in the mirror of his first master's house. The briefest flash, but it made him suck in his breath. The four men in their Orbs watched him nervously.

Please don't.

"Would one of you like to explain," he said coolly, "what happened by the docks?"

The men shuffled, eyeing each other, then one of them spoke in a deep, slow voice.

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I'm not sure you'd understand our motives. Or if you did, that you'd feel inclined to listen."

One of the other workers sucked his breath in through his teeth and gazed up at the Orb that imprisoned him, as if expecting it to collapse upon him in that instant.

"Then tell me, how did you come to possess those weapons?" Nathaniel asked. "They were heavily protected."

"We didn't take them ourselves," another man with thick ginger hair and a beard said quickly. "A blonde bloke gave 'em to us. Said if we really wanted to make a point, we'd use 'em. Didn't take much persuasion – we were already riled up, see."

Nathaniel raised his eyebrows.

"And did this 'blonde bloke' happen to give you his name?"

"No, just said he was sympathetic to our cause."

Nathaniel was silent for a moment, considering.

"Please, sir," the red-haired man said desperately, "I swear I'm giving you the real story. And I've got kids I need to–"

The man's plea was drowned out by the wailing alarm. A second later a uniformed guard strode through the portal, stepping into a flagstone that rose until he was level with Nathaniel.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Mandrake," she said, leaning over to speak into his ear, too softly for the prisoners to hear, "but there's been a disturbance involving the demon that was with you earlier."

Nathaniel fought to keep his expression composed.

"What sort of disturbance?" he muttered back.

"One of our patrol foliots observed it being pursued by an afrit and raised the alarm."

An afrit. Honorius.

"I see," he said quickly. "I'll attend to this at once."

"I assume you'll wish to resume questioning the prisoners later?"

"Yes," he replied, and hesitated for a fraction of a second before adding, "but have them moved to the regular cells first. The one we want isn't in any one of those Orbs."

"Yes, sir."

He heard Kitty sigh with relief behind him, and she squeezed his shoulder before dropping her hand. The flagstone beneath them lowered, and as soon as it was back on the ground Nathaniel strode through the portal, intent on getting to Whitehall as quickly as possible. He fervently hoped they wouldn't be attacked on the way.

"I hope Bartimaeus can hold him off," Kitty said worriedly as they sped toward the center of the city.

"I think he'll last until I can summon him. If nothing else, he's unusually good at surviving," Nathaniel told her dryly. She looked at him for a minute, then smiled suddenly.

"Your spectral trail's looking better – it's almost all purple now."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You do realize that referring to my soul as if it's a gravely ill person isn't exactly heartening, don't you?"

"Sure. I just can't think of a better way to describe it. Can you?"

Nathaniel considered for a moment, lips pursed, and finally replied, grudgingly, "No."

-

Things that do not cause Honorius much concern. Top of the list: subtlety. My path was becoming increasingly erratic as he continued to throw all kinds of imaginative, nasty spells in my direction. A particularly violent Convulsion had clipped me on the wing earlier, nearly sending me plummeting to the pavement several stories below. I was becoming increasingly exhausted, not to mention I was beginning to get seriously irritated with Nat.

I mean, how long does it take to torture people? Surely he had to be nearly done by now. I knew that Honorius was drawing out the chase unnecessarily; I was worn down enough by now that he could have overtaken me if he'd really put those rotting wings to work, but he was hoping to have the satisfaction of knocking me out of the sky with a well-aimed attack before destroying me.

My consistently successful evasions were getting to him, though – he was cursing in his multitude of voices, a different language for each variation in pitch. Still, he was so intent on killing me that it didn't seem to occur to him that I was leading him farther and farther away from his true objective. Funny, how this failed to bolster my spirits. I arced out of the way of another Detonation, ascended to avoid a horizontal pillar of fire, and performed a really nice barrel roll that carried me out of the path of a Bind.

A savage screech sounded from very close behind me, and very sharp claws reeking of decay sunk into body, pulling me to an abrupt, painful halt.

Then we began to fall, Honorius turning himself so that I was under him, flapping his wings to speed up our descent. We smashed into a rooftop with tremendous force; the impact nearly broke through the concrete. The afrit left me dazed in the crater, drifting to the edge and looking down at me with eyes blazing with hatred.

"Enough," he hissed, his wings held back, ready to rush at me. "I should have ended this earlier – ah! I was too proud. Killing you will give me so much satisfaction."

As his claws flexed, I felt the sudden tug of summons, and not a moment too soon.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," I told him, and succumbed to Nat's call, once again vanishing a second before Honorius's blow hit its mark.

-

All recognizable characters and settings belong to Jonathan Stroud.