INTERLUDE.

The bronze statue stands at the centre of the square. The figure – a young man in a long, billowing coat with a long staff held in a muscular, outstretched arm – surrounds himself with an air of mysterious purpose, face set permanently in an expression of hardy determination. He is strong. Implacable. Invincible.

The memorial plaque, complete with dry things like names and dates and nothing about the hot, sweaty, human fear associated with it by anyone that was actually there, is currently obscured because Bartimaeus* is sitting on it, wondering when he became such a glutton for punishment.

[He has taken the form of an elegant spaniel, fur shining golden in the dying sunlight, though exactly why he couldn't say.]

Once, some years ago now, he had had vague plans to vandalise it in some way. One night, after Kitty had fallen asleep, he'd even come here, arms full of spraypaint and anger, with that express purpose. But something – some feeling – made him pause, and he spent that night cleaning the damn thing instead.

He had never told Kitty that.

There's a lot he's never told her.

Like how beautiful she is to him. Even with her lined face and her bone deep tiredness and her aura that shone like none he'd ever seen.

That was his biggest regret, those everlong moments in the Other Place when he thought he'd lost her.

He shuts that thought down. No matter how many humans and djinn he'd dallied with over the years – and there had been more than he'd like to mention – it didn't do to have squishy feelings about anyone. It only lead to moments like this, with the pain of incarnation only secondary to a deeper sadness about the damned transitory nature of it all.

Clumping footsteps in too-big shoes let him know he's not alone.

He turns his round, sad eyes up to take a look at this intruder on his morose reverie. A child, dirty and possibly female, stares down at him.

"You're a demon," it says, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

The elegant spaniel cocks its head to one side, doing its best to appear confused. "I can assure you, I'm not," he replies smoothly.

"You are." The child crosses her (he's ninety percent sure it's a she) arms across her skinny chest. "You've got a big shiny light all around you."

The magic-mongering magicians of London may have been overthrown, but it appeared that people like Kitty were still popping up all over the place. "I'm no demon, kid." The spaniel turns its nose up. "I'm a djinni."

"Oh." The child nods. "What's a jinny?"

Bartimaeus bares his teeth in a not completely unthreatening doggy grin. "Don't you have parents you can ask about that?"

"Mum's busy." The child points towards a pub on the other side of the square.

He takes a moment to consider something. "What's your name, kid?"

"Daisy."

Appropriate. She looks like she'd barely crawled out of the dirt. "I am a spirit," he says smoothly, "ancient and terrible, drawn from my home of chaos against my will, to fulfil whatever sordid little charge my current master devises for me. Good enough answer for you?"

Daisy looks him up and down, critical the way only children can be. His form is perfect, as they always are, but his long-haired tail twitches hither and thither like the tail of an irritated housecat. "I suppose," she says and, rather presumptuously, sits down next to him on stone still warm from the afternoon sun. "Is that why you're here, then? Doing some job for some stuffy old magician?"

'Your charge is thus: to go to Kitty Jones, and listen to whatever suggestion she makes. Um, that's it. Just listen.'

"Not... Exactly." The charge was vague, anyway. And he had listened.

They sit in silence, watching the sun gently setting behind London's ancient architecture. Bartimaeus is the one that breaks it.

"Kid." He sounds much less brash than he intended. "If you knew someone – and really knew someone, like for over thirty years knew them -"

The girl gives him a disparaging look. "I'm nine."

"Oh, use your imagination." He takes a deep breath. It isn't necessary, but it helps. "So you know this person. Inside and out. And you're happy to call them a friend, despite certain misfortunes of birth that mean she'll never be anywhere near you intelligence wise..."

"Get to the point, jinny."

No nonsense. Bartimaeus decides to go ahead and like her. "I'm not sure there is a point. She died. She got better. Now she wants to to the worst thing possible to an old friend of mine, and I know she won't understand why she can't." He laughs, mostly at himself. "She's not the type to do as she's told."

The kid looks confused, and Bartimaeus doesn't blame her. She's a tiny human speck with no capacity for understanding.

"At least she's not dead."

Bartimaeus drags his eyes away from the sky to look over at her.

"My dad died," she explains. "Now mum drinks. So I'm glad she's not dead. At least you can talk to alive people."

Later, after he's sent the kid home with her terrified and rapidly sobering up mother, he flies back to the hospital to properly fulfil his charge.