Ptolemy's Gate

was still a glum outsider, panting for recognition. It had been during the middle of the golem crisis, when London was being beset by the clay monster and Honorius the afrit, that my path crossed Kitty Jones's for the second time. She had impressed me then both with the force of her .personality and with her fierce idealism, qualities rarely mingled in magicians. She was a commoner—scarcely educated, ignorant of everything that had conspired to create her world, but nonetheless defiant and hopeful of change. And more than that too: she had risked her life to save that of her enemy, a despicable lowlife, someone unfit to so much as lick her boots.[5]

[5] My master, this was. Did you guess?

Yep, she'd made an impression on me. And on my master too, come to think of it.
    I grinned. "So you liked what you heard, eh?"
    "You set me thinking, Bartimaeus, with all your talk of civilizations come and gone. Above all, you said there were patterns to look out for, and I knew I had to find them." One finger jabbed down as she made the point, almost touching the red chalk line. It was close, very close. "So," she said simply, "I went looking."
    Ptolemy adjusted the corner of his loincloth. "All very well, but t hat's a different thing from cruelly ripping an innocent djinni from his place of rest. My essence is in sore need of respite. Mandrake's kept me in service"—I made a rapid finger-and-toe calculation—"for six hundred and eighty-three days out of the last seven hundred. And that has its effects. I'm like an apple at the bottom of a barrel—sweet and fair to look at, but bruised to a pulp beneath the skin. And you've taken me from my place of healing."
    Her head was tilted; she looked up at me from under her brows. "The Other Place, you mean."
    "That is one of its names."
    "Well, I'm sorry to have disturbed you." She spoke as if all she'd done was rouse me from a little nap. "But I didn't know I could even do it. I feared my technique might be faulty."
    "Your technique's fine," I said. "In fact it's good. And that leads me to my biggest question. How have you learned to summon me?"
    She shrugged modestly. "Oh, it wasn't so hard. You know what I think? The magicians have been exaggerating the difficulty for years, just to put the commoners off. What does it take, after all? A few careful lines drawn with rulers, string, and compass. A few runes, some spoken words. Popping down the market to get some herbs. . . a bit of peace and quiet, a little memorizing. . . do all that and you're sorted."
    "No," I said. "A commoner's never done this before, as far as I know. It's unheard of. You must have had help. With the languages, the runes and circles, that noxious plant mix—all of it. A magician. Who?"
    The girl twizzled a strand of hair beside her ear. "Well, I'm hardly going to give you his name. But you're right. I have been helped. Not to do this, exactly—that goes without saying. He thinks I'm more of an amateur enthusiast. If he knew what I was doing he'd blow his top." She smiled. "Right now he's fast asleep two floors down. He's rather sweet, really. Anyway, it's taken time, but it's not been too bad. I'm surprised more people haven't given it a go."
    Ptolemy gazed at her from under hooded lids. "Most people," I said meaningfully, "are a little nervous of what they might summon."
    The girl nodded. "True. But it's not so bad if you're not scared of the demon in question."
    I started. "What?"
    "Well, I know that terrible things can happen if you get the incantation wrong, or misdraw the pentacle or something, but those terrible things are more or less up to the demon—sorry, I meant djinni, of course—the djinni in question. Aren't they? If it was some old afrit that I'd never met, I'd obviously be a bit worried, in case we got off on the wrong foot. But we know each other already, don't we, you and I?" She gave me a winning smile. "And I knew you wouldn't harm me if I made any little mistake."
    I was watching her hands, which once again were gesticulating in the vicinity of the red chalk line. . ."Is that so?"
    "Yes. I mean, we more or less teamed up last time, didn't we? You know, with that golem. You told me what to do. I did it. Good partnership, that was."
    Ptolemy rubbed the corners of his eyes. "There was a small difference then," I sighed, "which it seems that I must spell out for you. Three years ago we were both under the heel of Mandrake's boot. I was his slave, you were his quarry. We had a shared