Ptolemy's Gate

fell from her grasp with a dull clang. A wave of nausea filled her; her muscles felt like water.
    Kitty's head fell back upon the cushion. Something about her weakness scared her. "Nathaniel. . ." she began. "What. . . ?"
    He spoke for the first time. "It's all right. Just rest there."
    "I want to get up."
    "I really don't think you should."
    "Help me up!" The fury was fueled by anxiety blossoming into sudden terror. The weakness was all wrong. "I'm not lying here. What is it? What's happened to me?"
    "You'll be fine if you just stay put...." His tone was unconvincing. She tried again, pushed herself up a little, collapsed with a curse. The magician swore in tandem. "All right! Here. I'll try to support your back. Don't try and take your weight. Your legs will—There! What did I tell you? Do what I say for once." He grasped her beneath her arms, lifted her up and swung her round, hauling her toward the chair. Her legs trailed behind her; her feet scraped across the lines of the pentacle. With scant ceremony, Kitty found herself dumped in a sitting position. The magician stood facing her, breathing hard.
    "Happy now?" he said.
    "Not really. What's happened to me? Why can't I walk?"
    "They're not questions I can answer." He stared at his boots—large scuffed leather ones—then across at the empty circle. "When I broke in, Kitty," he said, "the room was icy cold. I couldn't find a pulse on you, and you weren't breathing, just lying there. I thought you were—I really thought you were dead this time. Instead. . ." He raised his eyes. "So. Tell me. Did you really—?"
    She looked at him for a time without speaking.
    The tension in the magician's face loosened into blank astonishment. He exhaled slowly, and half sat, half slumped against the desk."I see," he said."I see."
    Kitty cleared her throat. "I'll tell you in a minute. First, pass me that mirror, would you?"
    "I don't think—"
    "I'd rather look," she said crisply, "than use my imagination. So hurry it up. We've got things to do."
    No amount of argument could dissuade her.
    "After all," she said at last, "it's nothing very different to what happened to Jakob with the Black Tumbler. . . And he was fine."
    "That's true." The magician's hands were growing tired. He adjusted the position of the mirror.
    "I can dye the hair."
    "Yes."
    "And as for the rest—I'll kind of grow into it."
    "Yes."
    "In about fifty years."
    "It's just lines, Kitty. Just lines. Lots of people have them. Besides, they might fade."
    "You think?"
    "Yes. They look a lot less bad already than when I first found you."
    "Really?"
    "Definitely. Anyway, look at me. Check out these blisters."
    "I was meaning to ask about them."
    "Pestilence did it. When I got the Staff."
    "Oh. . . But it's the weakness that really scares me, Nathaniel. What if I never—?"
    "You will. Look at you waving your hands about. You weren't doing that five minutes ago."
    "Wasn't I? Oh. Good. Now you mention it, I do feel a little stronger."
    "There you go, you see."
    "But it's just so difficult," she said, "to look in the mirror and see. . . a different face. To see that everything's changed "
    "Not everything," he said.
    "No?"
    "No. Your eyes. They haven't changed at all."
    "Oh." She peered dubiously at the glass. "You think?"
    "Well, they were fine before you started squinting. Take my word for it." He lowered the mirror, placed it on the table. "Kitty," he said."I have to tell you something. The demons have broken out across London. After I found you, I tried to set the Staff of Gladstone going, but"—he sighed—"I couldn't make it. It's not the incantations. I've got the knowledge that I didn't have before. It's just. . . I haven't got the physical strength to force my will upon it. And without the Staff, we can't face up to Nouda."
    "Nathaniel—"
    "There may be other magicians left alive and unpossessed. I haven't gone looking yet. But even if we can round up some allies and get their djinn on our side, Nouda's much too strong. The Staff was our only hope."
    "That's not so." Kitty leaned forward in the chair. (It was true what he'd said—she was moving a little more easily now. To begin with, everything had felt uncomfortable and misaligned, as if she were out of sync with her bones and sinew.) "I didn't go to the Other Place just for fun," she said primly. "You got the Staff, I found Bartimaeus. Now all we need to do is put them together." She grinned at him.
    The magician shook his head in vexation. "Meaning