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He saw her every morning on the Tube, at ten to eight sharp. Earphones on, sometimes a book in her hand, dark hair down or up in a ponytail. Sometimes they were far from each other, other times so close they could brush against each other’s elbow, but Nathaniel had never spoken to her. He wasn’t the guy who chatted up girls on the Tube, especially if it wasn’t even eight in the morning and if the girls had a quite resolved face to deter anyone who wanted to accost them. Rightly so, said Nathaniel to himself.

His flatmate, who in some mysterious way always managed to get told everything, had laughed for five good minutes and then said: «That’s so you, Nat. Falling in love with a girl on the Tube. Very romantic».

«I’ve not fallen in love at all» Nathaniel had retorted crisply. «She’s got an interesting face, that’s all, and the books she read seem so, too».

«So, ask her something about them, why don’t you?».

Actually, trying to talk about books would have been the simplest thing, but Nathaniel didn’t want to. Or rather, he did not dare. And in the morning there was always confusion, most of the times he didn’t even see where she got off. No, it wasn’t a good idea making a slimy impression.

It was really a chance seeing her on the platform one evening, and not in the morning; it was late, at the office it had been a hellish day and Bartimaeus had texted him to say that he wouldn’t have been home for dinner and so Nathaniel had to make do; that meant turning to some frozen food.

While he was contemplating the desolation of his life, his eyes had moved to his right, and there she was.

She seemed tired too; she carried a paperback from which emerged a blue bookmark.

They got in the coach together; the rush hour was gone and there were seats for both.

Nathaniel sat in front of her. She didn’t have her earphones and didn’t seem to feel like reading: she kept the book on her lap and stared into the void with an absent face. She looked like she was struggling against sleep.

The train stopped abruptly. The book tumbled down from the girl’s knees and landed just at Nathaniel’s feet.

He bended down automatically to pick it up; he didn’t know the title nor the author, but he could guess it was one of those historical novels that were mainstream. He couldn’t remember the last time he had read a novel.

He held out the book to the girl; her pale face opened up in a polite smile. «Thank you».

She had a nice voice, a little hoarse. Nathaniel smiled back. «You’re welcome».

A voice that sounded bewilderingly like Bartimaeus’ echoed in his head: Talk to her! Make conversation!

«Is it good?» he ventured, gesturing towards the book, back on the girl’s lap. She looked surprised, but not bothered.

«Rather, yes. Some inaccuracies, but in the end it’s fiction, not an history essay».

Nathaniel nodded. He realized that he hadn’t tried to talk to a girl since Jane’s ages. For heaven’s sake.

«Your stop is a few minutes away, isn’t it?» she surprised him. «I’ve noticed you, some mornings. In the end, you learn to recognize the faces you see almost every day».

Nathaniel didn’t know what to answer except for «Ah. Really?».

She smiled at him with the corner of her mouth. «Yes. You look always very pissed off, if I may say so, but I must look like that, too» she sighed and, as talking to herself, she added: «But I’ll miss it. Even the Tube».

«Are you leaving?» Nathaniel asked impromptu. He corrected himself immediately: «Sorry, that’s not of my business». He didn’t even know her name, after all.

She didn’t seem offended, though. «I am: academic trip. In Egypt. Can’t wait, but I like London too much to not miss it, I know that. Isn’t this your stop?».

Nathaniel suddenly lifted his head. Shit. He said a rushed hi and hurried off the coach.

It was only when the train took off again that he realized that he didn’t ask her anything: her name, what she was studying, for how long she’d have stayed in Egypt. Nothing whatsoever.

Next morning, Nathaniel got in the train at ten to eight. There were a lot of girls and women, as always, but no one had a paperback with a blue bookmark.

Chapter Text

Being a magician, Mr Button did not have children or family of any sort, nor even he missed it. He could have married, of course, but why? He was fine as he was. He had his books, occasionally his assistants, who then returned home without bothering him. He hadn’t been particularly fond of any of them anyway.

Lizzie was the exception. Well, first of all, she was not Lizzie, but Kitty; it mattered little, he himself didn’t know his true name anymore. So, Kitty, who had been a wanted terrorist, then an alleged dead terrorist, who in some way had succeeded in saving everyone. He was fond of her. He could easily say that, since he had given her a room in that old mansion, until she’d have found another accommodation (her flat was in a very bad state).

What he did not expect was her bringing some friends with her.

It was late, Mr Button was still awake to check the minutes of the last Council meeting (why on Earth did he accept?) and had heard her opening the front door. And, over her steps, he had heard an unknown voice.

«Kitty? Is that you, dear?».

Kitty appeared in the living room, her marked face even more tired; surely she must have been in the hospital again, for that boy, the young Mandrake, who insisted on staying in-between life and death.

«Evening, Mr Button».

And behind her shoulders appeared a kid’s brown face. «Hello!».

And who was that?

«And who is this?».

«Bartimaeus. He’s…».

«I have many names!» the boy interrupted her with a glare. «Sakhr al-Djinni, N’gorso the Mighty just some of the humblest. I have spoken with Solomon and Ptolemy and, many times, unfortunately, with the magician who saved London the other day. Actually, you could say that he wouldn’t have saved anything without my assistance».

Kitty took a deep breath. «As I was saying, Bartimaeus».

So this was the djinni who had accepted to be summoned inside a magician’s body, shared with him the control and in the end saved his life, or at least tried to. Anything Mr Button could have imagined, except that this spirit would choose the guise of a bony kid.

«He has been thrown out the hospital» Kitty explained tartly. «I’m sorry, Mr Button, it’s difficult sending away a djinni when he’s given free will».

«Free will so to speak. And anyway I just wanted to see if I could wake him up a little faster. He’s spending days in a coma. Why dragging him out the rubble if he’s just laying there, I wonder?».

«Excuse me» Mr Button cut in «Maybe the djinni here present would let me ask some questions. About the experience of inhabiting a human body, and not only that, seen his antiquity…».

The boy’s brown face opened up in an incredibly pleased smile. Kitty sighed.

Mr Button wasn’t surprised at all when girl and djinni brought to his home a young man, emaciated and beaten up. At least, he was alive.

Mr Button was dying to ask him questions (he wanted his version of sharing a body with a spirit and surviving the experience) but he decided it could wait.

The boy was already sleeping on the worn couch, after lavishing thanks for the hospitality and admiration for the book collection. Kitty, awake and reading, seemed to hold him up with her shoulder: they were very close. Curled up between them, a sand cat was softly purring.

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How he loved fire. Fire was inside him, always, but when he conjured it and wrapped himself with it, was even better.

The most beautiful thing was setting things on fire. Especially human things: fragile, little humans, who made things as insignificant as them.

It was a joy setting fire and then watching them running around, trying to save what they could. Trying to save themselves.

Setting things on fire was a little like fighting, the only thing that mattered when he was on Earth, that drowned the pain out, because he was the one inflicting it. Defeating his adversary was pleasant, of course, but never as the fight itself.

It was because of that that he did not like fighting Bartimaeus: he flied and ran, he bent and never broke. The fire inside Jabor was yearning to crumble that ridiculous djinni, but he could never catch him. He was always faster.

But he’d have caught him, one day. He could run on the roofs, the trees, wherever he wanted, but in the end Jabor would have seized him. And Jabor would have burnt him.

Chapter Text

The question was merciless, hammering; it cut out the intrinsic harmony of the Other Place with its jarring, piercing sound.

What had happened to his body?

I couldn’t not imagine those poor limbs, already frail before his journey, thrown in some mass grave between criminals, nameless people, lepers. Or maybe had they dragged him out as he was, exhibited before people to show what happened if you played with magic and challenged the king’s son?

I did not know. I’d never have known.

I didn’t understand why I cared so much about the body: thrown in the Nile, buried in an anonymous grave or surrounded by frankincense with all the honours, Ptolemy would have stayed dead. Because he was dead, that I knew.

His blood on the temple floor, his head against the wall, his breath more and more wheezing.

My fellow spirits did not understand. They tried to call me to join their endless dance, as always when I came home, but I refused them all, rabidly. What did they know? About anger, about pain that seemed to devour my essence, a lot more than the dull pain I felt on the Earth. Nothing would have been like before, it couldn’t.

In the Other Place, time do not exist, so I don’t know how much I stayed there, focused on sending away anything that wasn’t emptiness.

When came the strain of a Summoning, I welcomed it: on the Earth suffering, that was my place. Remembering that Ptolemy wasn’t there anymore because I hadn’t been able to save him. The harmony of the Other Place couldn’t save or heal me anymore: it was fair cruel Earth took me with it, in the same way it had swallowed Ptolemy.