#''I rather think he knew anyway'' from Bartimaeus

[atlantic-riona]

actually I'm very curious to know what lines and/or live rent free in everybody else's head

[eizneckam]

"Bartimaeus... The thought was very faint.

Yes?

You've been a good servant...

What do you say to something like this? ...wearily, wishing we had some kind of maudlin sound track, I played along. Well, um, you've been just dandy too.

I didn't say you were perfect...

What?

Far from it. Let's face it, you've generally managed to cock things up.

WHAT? The bloody cheek! Insults, at a time like this! With death bearing down, etc. I ask you. I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves. Well, since we're doing some straight talking, let me tell you, buddy—

Which is why I'm dismissing you right now.

Eh? But I hadn't misheard. I knew I hadn't. I could read his mind.

Don't take it the wrong way... His thought was fragmented, fleeting, but his mouth was already mumbling the spell. It's just that... we've got to break the Staff at the right moment here. You're holding it in check. But I can't rely on you for something as important as this. You're bound to mess it up somehow. Best thing is... Best thing is to dismiss you. That'll trigger the Staff automatically. Then I know it'll be done properly. He drifted. He was having trouble keeping awake now—the energy was draining unhindered from his side—but with a final effort of will, he kept speaking the necessary words.

Nathaniel—

Say hello to Kitty for me.

Then Nouda was upon us. Mouths opened, tentacles slashed down. Nathaniel finished the Dismissal. I went. The Staff broke.

A typical master. Right to the end, he didn't give me a chance to get a word in edgeways. Which is a pity, because at that last moment I'd have liked to tell him what I thought of him. Mind you, since in that split second we were, to all intents and purposes, one and the same, I rather think he knew anyway."

—Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud

[avinrydarchive]

hallow’s eve, saint’s day

Author: AvinRyd Fandom: The Bartimaeus Sequence Rating: G Pairing: Gen Word Count: ~8500 words

When in Prague...

--

Some lighthearted spooky shenanigans for you this October.

Written for the Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2020. Check out the collection on AO3 to see everyone else’s awesome fics!

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Somewhere: Sometime

 22,643

“...”

“Hello, glad to see you’re awake.”

“Um, hello. Where am I? How long was I...asleep?”

“Well, twenty-two thousand, six hundred and forty three spirits have passed by since you arrived, so I’d assume about five days on the mortal plane? Hard to say exactly, but I’ve had a while to put a model together. “As to where you are? Stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Stuck. I have many theories as to where and how, but the fact is that we’re stuck here between the two dimensions known to my people—and yours, I’m assuming, since you came from the same direction I did.”

“Oh…

“You said you’ve been here for a while? Is it permanent, then? This being stuck?”

“In theory? No. I believe it’s possible for us to leave, should the right situation arise. However, in practice? I’ve yet to see a situation that would afford an exit so...it might be permanent, yes.”

“...”

“...”

“How long have you been here?”

“I lost count a few centuries ago.”

 1,962,573

“Hey, the gates haven’t done that before.”

“Oh, that usually means someone on the mortal plane came up with something interesting. What… Oh. That’s  very interesting. I wonder…”

“What? No. No, stop—whatever you’re ‘wondering’ it’s a bad idea.”

“Hmmm, doubtful.”

     4,747,821

    “...”

“Finally! That was way too long, don’t do it again.”

“How long?”

“Thirty thousand, six hundred and fifty seven. I didn’t think you were going to form back up that time.”

“I was  so close though. It closed just a fraction of a second too soon. Next time—”

“Next time?! Did you hear how long I said you were gone? You’re going to get yourself dispelled at this rate, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work!”

“It will.”

“Oh, so when I say stuff like that, it’s arrogant, but when you do it’s just fact?”

“It’s not arrogance when my previous hypotheses have all been correct. It’s based off the same knowledge, there’s every chance I’m right. I  know I’m right. I—

“Wait, there’s another one.”

“Ah, no. Hold on—”

“I’m going to do it. This time for sure.”

“Wait! What if it doesn’t work? What if it  does?  Will you— That is, I’ll be…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll work out the method, then come back for you. I promise, my friend.”

“Friends? Is that what we are? I—wait, no!”

“...”

“...”

“I didn’t even ask his name…”

Chapter 2: Prague: Hallow's Eve

“—so there’s no need to worry about it. Piper and Harold can badger me all they want, send all the nastily worded imp messages they like—it’s not like I’ll run out of 'fuck,no's. I’ve got an unlimited supply.” Kitty sighed and shifted, trying to ease the ache in her back without smudging chalk lines. Sitting on the hardwood floor was murder on her over-taxed body, sending sharp spikes of discomfort up the curve of her spine and into her creaking hip joints, but this circle was so fragile she didn’t dare risk throwing a chair into the mix. The ringing at the base of her skull wasn’t terribly comfortable either, but it was a side effect of this spell they’d been unable to mitigate. Over the slight resonance, Bartimaeus’s voice replied, “Alright, alright. And since you’ve left Bruges they’ll probably have a time finding you for a while, at least. How’s Prague?” “Beautiful. Old. Rainy. A bit spooky, but I suppose that’s to be expected.” The laugh ringing through their connection wasn’t just one voice, but many. That was the interesting thing about this; she was speaking to Bartimaeus, but he was only separated from the Other Place just enough to exist as “Bartimaeus”—the rest of the Other Place was nearly an equal part of their conversation, which had taken some getting used to. “See, that’s the appropriate response. Certain modern magicians I’ve known—particularly young, bratty, British ones—have no appreciation for the old magic that city is steeped in. And speaking of magical detritus from a thousand failed spells, you did bring your instruments with you when you left Belgium, right? This is the longest we’ve ever had the portal open, and—” Kitty sighed again, much put-upon. “Yes, Bartimaeus. I have them and they’re set up and everything is stable. There was a tiny spike a few minutes ago, but everything is normal otherwise. I left Bruges to get away from the hovering protective people, you know. Please don’t you start being one now.” Bartimaeus scoffed, but the humming presence behind him was at least half on Kitty’s side, she was sure. “Fine, far be it from me to care about silly humans doing insane experimental magic with minimal education. I place full faith in your absolute knowledge and will immediately cease worrying that the portal will explode in your face and leave a Kitty-sized crater in one of the oldest standing magical cities of the mortal realm. I wash my metaphorical hands of it.” It was Kitty’s turn to laugh, bright and clear in a way it’d taken years for her to get to. “You do that. Anything in particular I should know about the city: places I should go, things to avoid?” “Eh, just keep your wits.” Kitty got a strong, almost visual impression that, had Bartimaeus been in a material form, he’d be looking on with an unimpressed twist to his mouth. This was such a weird spell. “If you’ve got that aura-viewing skill on tap still, keep a sharp eye out. Avoid any bridges without auras—they’re most likely falling apart internally. And costumed men with ‘distinctive’ candles!” “O-o-okay? That’s highly specific, should I be concerned?” The suggestion of a shrug and his words came through crackled with interference. “Not really, he was just a bit creepy by human standards, and that candle… Not a thing for polite company. Thought you’d prefer to steer clear of anyone similar. Don’t go to graveyards tonight, either.” The ringing at the back of Kitty’s mind was escalating to a high whine and she reached up to massage the base of her skull. One of the glass phials outside the circle, sealed and full of swirling gas, was starting to pulse with a faint glow. “Alright Bartimaeus, we’ve got to stop. The spell’s starting to break up. I’ll try again after I’ve spoken with the print master, okay?” “Good, this was probably too much strain on you anyway. Have fun bullying old men into changing books!” The djinni’s voice sounded further away than before, and before Kitty could reply, the connection snapped off. There was a sharp pop and a flash of sparks in the air above her as the spell collapsed—another issue to work on. She’d love to reach out to Button for ideas on a fix, but that would invite more pleas to return to London and Kitty was so, so tired of those. Government was not for her, not even a little bit. Even her drive for activism had waned, though she suspected it was simply burnout—and as Bartimaeus and Jakob and everyone else had said, this was some well deserved burnout indeed. Standing up was a process for Kitty these days: gingerly uncross legs; wait for the shriek of pain to stop; get knees under herself with careful movements; press up using stiff wrists to stand with popping knees; roll slowly upright, feeling every sore vertebrate slot into place. Painkillers. She had a couple left from the drugstore in Burges, right? She hoped so. She was far too tired to be exploring the city for a drugstore—or an apothecary? Who knew what this place had. Her travel bag lay on the bed, flap sagging open to reveal her essentials. The white plastic of a drugstore bottle peeked out from under the sweater Mrs. Hyrnek had made for her, and she’d just reached for it when— “Did you know that, when a djinni is dismissed, the gates between our world and the Other Place are open for precisely eight-point-five-two seconds?” Kitty whipped around. The room was empty; the disembodied—familiar?—voice already just an echo bouncing off the window panes. Light from streetlamps flickered strangely through wavy glass and water droplets. Somewhere, thunder rolled. “Second—” There it was again, but there was nothing to see, no matter how hard Kitty looked. “—and you must know some of this, having visited the Other Place yourself—but did you know that a human soul is, pardon the pun, in essence the same composition as any spirit? Though with a deep affinity for the earth element that other spirits abhor. And that, if sufficiently stimulated and accustomed to the act, a soul can exit the body—voluntarily or not—and bridge the worlds; even following another spirit on its way away from our earthly plane?” The voice was familiar, and yet...not. Kitty could swear she’d never heard this person speak—a boy with an absolutely unfamiliar accent. And yet? And yet, in her mind she heard an echo… What do you presume…?   “And thirdly: did you know that your absolutely ingenious bit of spellwork holds the Elemental Gates open longer and with more stability than any spell used in the last two thousand years? And that, if a spirit were somehow stuck in a crevice of those gates, your spell provides an opportunity for escape not given in those same two thousand years?" The voice came from behind her now, and this time Kitty turned slowly—mindful of the crick in her neck her last turn had caused, and also not near as fearful. She knew now that there was nothing to fear from this voice. On her bed—or rather, floating slightly above it—sat a teenage boy, visible at last. Yellow lamp light and the watery orange glow of the street lights did not bring up warm highlights on his dark skin as they should have. He was nearly transparent and so washed out the ends of his curly hair faded out of sight. Seemingly unbothered by this, he grinned up at her, flush with the satisfaction of solving a millenia-old conundrum and shining with an emotion Kitty suspected might be gratitude. Cautiously, she returned the smile and—in a very steady voice, thank you very much—quipped, "Ptolemy. Are you aware you're floating three inches above the bedspread?"

Chapter 3: Prague: Hallow's Eve  

“Ptolemy. Are you aware you’re floating three inches above the bedspread?” Ptolemy’s face twisted. “Am I? Irritating. Rekyt made this material form business look so much easier than it is.” “Well,” Kitty said reasonably, moving to sit on the bed as well, “he has had quite a bit more time to practice. And human souls aren’t terribly used to having to keep themselves in a form, are they?” Brows drawn in concentration, Ptolemy drifted downwards about an inch and muttered a distracted, “I suppose so,” before managing to drop the remaining space. Now he was flush with the worn bed quilt, but didn’t make so much as a wrinkle in the fabric. Kitty watched in fascination as, with experimental movements, Ptolemy brought his hand to the bedspread, then pushed it into the bedspread, then waved it in and out a few times. In a sudden flash of mischievous inspiration, she grabbed the drugstore bottle she’d reached for earlier and turned to Ptolemy, lobbing the rattling object with a quip of “Catch!” The boy’s reflexes were not quick—even in the best of circumstances he would have ended up bonked in the nose—but it didn’t matter. The bottle phased through his fingertips, then through his face and chest to land with a clatter on the pillows behind him. Kitty met his unamused stare with a grin, absolutely unrepentant. “Had to check. Scientific method and all that.” Still looking a bit miffed, Ptolemy pulled his foot up to “rest” on the bed and wrapped his arms around the bent-up knee. “If you hadn’t built that spell, I’d be tempted to say you’re the least scientific person I’ve ever known.” Kitty rolled her eyes and leaned back to reach around Ptolemy for the bottle she’d thrown—her joints really did ache after that long conversation’s worth of sitting on the floor. Pulling herself back upright after the extension wasn’t exactly painless either, but she was very sure it would be rude to reach  through her visitor to grab something, especially since she’d been the one to throw it through him in the first place. Deftly, she twisted open the puzzle cap and tapped two tablets into her hand before closing it and trading it for a waterbottle in her travel bag. When she’d done, she met Ptolemy’s interested stare with grin. “You’ve only just met me, but you are pretty close to the truth. I didn’t do much with the technicalities of inventing that spell. It was my idea, and I know how it works and how to monitor it, of course, but the construction was a collaboration between Bartimaeus and two magicians I know back in London. They did most of the actual science.” The water tasted strongly of mineral and metal, filled at the last petrol station her bus had stopped at, but it wasn’t awful and got the job done. The moment also gave her time to consider how the hell to move on from here. There was a boy dead more than two thousand years sitting in her boarding room, and she had no idea how he’d gotten there. He seemed to have minimal purpose other than just...arriving—not indicating he had any message or any particular reason for not being able to move on. If his opening remarks were to be believed, he was back on the mortal plane because of a magical glitch in the system. He’d gotten sucked away before death had fully taken hold. Her musings were interrupted by Ptolemy moving, reaching to pull a book from her bag, then huffing when his fingers slipped right through the corner. “This is not going to work,” he muttered, focus completely on the stubbornly stationary book. He made two more swipes at it before giving up that approach and staring intently at it instead. Nothing happened and he flopped back dramatically to stare at the ceiling, hair falling right through the bed. “This is not at all workable. Kitty, I think I need your help.” “I don’t know why. You seemed to be doing quite well on your own.” “Are you always like this?” Kitty snorted in a very unladylike fashion. “Pretty much. Why do you think Bartimaeus likes me so much?” A moment of contemplation, then: “That does make an unfortunate amount of sense. Still, I really would appreciate a moment of sincerity, this is a matter of utmost importance.” “Utmost importance, huh?” Kitty laid back on the bed with a groan. “What’s that, then?” Ptolemy’s face was solemn as he looked over at her. “There’s someone else who’s stuck, and I promised I’d get them out.” “They can’t just...fall through? Same as you did?” Ptolemy snorted a laugh, serious moment broken. “They could, but they won’t. Too unsure of the results. If we’d had physical forms, I’m pretty sure they would have tackled me to keep me from doing something this reckless.” A day’s hard travel and spellwork dragged Kitty’s eyelids down—an inexorable pull. She hummed in exhausted consideration, then said through a yawn, “I don’t suppose a normal summoning would do the trick, would it?” Her jaw cracked mid-yawn, nearly drowning Ptolemy’s reply of, “Probably not…” Then, “I sense we may need to continue this conversation in the morning?” “Mmhm…” She’d given up the fight to keep her eyes open. “Well then.” His laugh was softer, almost fond. “Until the morning, Kitty.” She tugged her feed up onto the bed and shifted a bit, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress. “G’night, Ptolemy.” Kitty’s last thought before slumber was a deep confusion as to if this was not all just some elaborate dream, caused by magical backlash-induced unconsciousness. Quietly, she hoped not.

Chapter 4: Prague: Saint's Day  

Early morning sunlight cutting across her eyes pulled Kitty to consciousness. She’d forgotten to close the curtain before going to bed. Odd. She was usually quite conscientious about that—woe betide wherever woke her up too early, up to and including the sun itself. Still, last night had been quite strange, hadn’t it? Her fuzzy brain struggled to remember. Movement in the room drew her gaze. A boy, crouched next to the circle she’d forgotten to clean up. Habit moved her mouth before her brain caught up; she mumbled, “Bartimaeus, we don’t do magic science early in the morning, remember?” His face turned, familiar in shape but not in expression, and everything clicked back into place. Ptolemy looked rather bemused. “Does Rekyt take my form often? Or are you just so unused to any company other than his?” Oh. Right. “...both.” Kitty scrubbed at her eyes and pushed messy bedhead from her face as she sat up, the last night’s events reordering themselves in her mind. Two thousand years’ death seemed to have little effect on the boy sitting on the dusty floor of her sleepy, second-floor boarding room in the middle of Prague. He looked at her expectantly, fingers sketching circles on the floor and making no trace in the scuffed dust. With a groan, she flopped back onto the bed. Ptolemy’s intent gaze was still trained on her, she could  feel it, but her too-tired brain wasn’t up to meeting it and thinking through the morning’s problems at the same time. She stared at the cracked plaster ceiling for long moments before sighing heavily. “Alright then. We’ve got your business of ‘utmost importance’ to get to, right?” An affirmative sound, so she continued. “Well, I’ve got some business of importance to get to today as well. You’ve obviously been awake, thinking about this. What do you want to do?” A glance over at Ptolemy proved Kitty’s suspicions—the boy was practically shaking with the effort of not simply spilling all the plans he’d made overnight. Ghosts, apparently, didn’t sleep. She quirked an eyebrow and he immediately began: “We need to summon Rekyt. You said he helped design this circle, and I want to use it as the basis for mine, but I don’t understand a good third of how it’s build. Magic has moved on and—oh, but Kitty this is fascinating, I never could have dreamed—” He stopped, catching Kitty’s second raised eyebrow and pulling himself back on track. “Right. Between us and Rekyt and some intensive research, I think I can put together a spell that will do the trick. So. First: Rekyt; second: library.” Pushing upright once more, Kitty shook her head. “Other way around. Library first, Bartimaeus second.” She continued ahead before he could interrupt. “A summoning, a real one like that? That isn’t a small undertaking for me. I’ll be knackered for the rest of the day afterwards so—unless you figured out how to conduct an entire summoning while insubstantial last night?—we’ll go to the library and printers’ first, then come back with your research and summon Bartimaeus. Agreed?” Ptolemy studied her closely, quietly, and she felt a blush threatening to flood her cheeks. Ridiculous, really. He’d barely been able to  stand  after his trip to the Other Place; she had no business being embarrassed by her trip’s cost of physical stamina in front of him. A long, long staredown later, he nodded. “Agreed.” Good. She stretched and swung her legs off the bed to stand at last. There was a washroom just down the hall, communal for the boarders but Kitty was the only guest at present. She was glad of it—sharing washing up space with strangers was  not  something she wanted on top of everything else. After digging out her toothbrush, she turned to Ptolemy. “Stay here. We don’t know if anyone can see you yet. I’ll be back in a second.” Ptolemy looked just the slightest bit abashed. “Actually, I do know. A little after midnight I may have...taken a stroll? No one else can see me, or hear me.” “Oh. Well then. That’s good to know. I’ll...still be back in a second.” And she stepped briskly into the hall.

***

Ten minutes later—longer than her usual habit but hell if she didn’t need a good five minutes of overwhelmed solitude—Kitty returned to her room to find Ptolemy floating cross-legged a foot off the bedspread, exactly level with the windowsill so he could look out. At the creak of the door, he didn’t turn so much as roll backwards, ending upside down with curls falling to and fading through the bed. Inane as it was, she couldn’t help but grin. Bartimaeus held such a reverence for the memory of his old friend; Kitty wondered if that was the source of his gravitas in the guise, or if the new freedom of insubstantial spirithood was breathing new mischief into an otherwise solemn boy. The grin stayed as she moved to pack up her travel sack once more. She saw the grey chill outside the window around Ptolemy’s inverted form and tugged her jumper from the side of the bag where it’d gotten jammed. It was grey-blue wool and knitted by Jakob’s mother—a gift. She saw Ptolemy’s eyes catch on the textured fabric as she finished tugging it on and offered her arm. “Have you figured out how to touch things yet?” He shook his head but reached out anyway. As expected, his fingers swiped right through it. Less expected was the world-wringing sensation of his fingertips passing through her wrist. Early on in their experiments with the communication spell, Kitty had directly touched their “spectral conduit” to the Other Place, as Mr. Button had called it. Before Bartimaeus had snatched her back, she’d felt her self, her essence, tenuously bound to her body at the best of times, begin to be siphoned out and up and away. It felt like that, except in reverse. Connection was made and into the vacuum of her not-quite-full body flowed another gust of person. She felt him for a moment, entranced and inexorably drawn to the lure of earthen control once again before she was able to batten down all hatches and shove the presence away. With a jerk, Kitty yanked her arm back. She could feel her eyes popped wide in panic as she stared at Ptolemy, who was also wide-eyed but in fascinated joy. “Kitty,”  he breathed, wonder under his words, “Kitty, let me try that again. That. It was… I could have— we could have—”   “No!” Her voice was too loud in the quiet room and Ptolemy flinched. “What? Why? I just want to try it. If we were a bit more careful, I might be able to—” “You might be able to do quite a lot! And you won’t be trying, thank you very much.” His brows furrowed in consternation. “Alright, then. I can try it with someone else, I suppose. I wonder if you need their true name to—” “No, Ptolemy.” She didn’t yell that time—her voice was as flat and cold as London pavement. She cut off Ptolemy’s next attempt at speech with a harsh, chopping motion of her hand. “No. That is an invasion of self no commoner can even attempt to consent to, even if you did ask, which it sounds like you weren’t going to do.” Hideous silhouettes danced behind her eyes, though she tried to push them back. Glowing, demonic eyes in the faces of helpless puppets that haunted her nightmares. Breathe. She just had to breathe through it, just like she did all the other times. Through sheer force of will, her heart rate slowed down to something resembling healthy and she was able to bring her vision back into focus. Ptolemy was staring at her—very human, but also not quite. She forced down a shudder. “Come on. We’re going to the library. I’ll explain why you can never, ever do that, but I’ve only got it in me to do it once, so you’ll have to hear it along with the master printer.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned, snatched up her satchel, and headed out the door, closing and locking it behind her. Ptolemy was a ghost, he’d be able to follow just fine. He did. She couldn’t hear him coming behind her, but she now had a disturbingly unerring sense of his location that she hadn’t possessed a moment ago. Possessed. With a shudder, she rubbed the skin of her wrist under the jumper, trying to scrub off the sensation even as she mentally tracked Ptolemy’s progress behind her back. They went in silence like that—Kitty walking at a brisk pace with Ptolemy trailing behind—for nearly ten minutes of winding through dreary streets. Kitty had a map, and directions from the proprietor of the boarding house, which she trusted more. Concentrating on the confusing tangle of twists and turns busied her nervous mind into calm—calm enough that when Ptolemy cleared his throat, her quiet “hmm?” was genuinely amicable once more. “Where is this?” His voice was soft, awed. “I know I’ve...been gone a while, but I’m fairly sure this not Alexandria.” Kitty snorted and replied, “Prague,” before snapping her mouth shut. The street wasn’t busy by any means, but there were still people about who might look sideways at the out-of-place British girl talking to thin air. Quickly, she stepped from the sidewalk to stand under the awning of a cafe. The map made crisp sounds as she unfolded it and brought it up to her face, hiding the movement of her lips as she whispered, “We’re north of Alexandria, by a lot. Across the sea, past Rome, up where we call Eastern Europe, now. I’ll find you a map when we get to the library, yeah? For now, I can’t be talking to myself all the way across the district.” “Right.” He agreed with a quick nod, already distracted by the pastries displayed in the cafe window. Rolling her eyes, Kitty folded the map once more and headed off. The grey above threatened more rain and she quickened her pace. It wasn’t a short walk to the Holy Roman Archive and she’d rather not have to make the last third of the trek getting dripped on. Ptolemy was at her side now, gasping and exclaiming every other second at some new thing he’d glimpsed, and she had to actively suppress a wide smile. Grinning inanely at nothing wasn’t a look she wanted to project either. As they began to emerge from Old Town’s winding alleys, though, the city’s mood began to pick up and match Ptolemy’s joy. They stepped onto the larger, more toured streets around the great Charles Bridge, where tourists and business people alike made their way on foot regardless of the weather. Ahead, the bridge’s towers loomed and, just off to the left, Kitty saw the large buildings of the Klementinum. She made straight for it. The tourist traffic was, thankfully, a bit dimmed by the unpleasant weather and it was only another few minutes walk through ornate, baroque halls and courtyards blanketed in autumn-hued ivy before they reached the Holy Roman Archive. Home of what was left of Prague’s magical lore, it was  also adjacent to the most influential of the Czech Publishing Guild’s members: Petřín Printers. They handled all of the magical texts to come out of Prague; all of the magical knowledge of Eastern Europe flowed through this print house and into the Archive. Kitty stepped past the enticing hush of the Archive, hoping Ptolemy would follow since she couldn’t physically drag him like she was afraid might be necessary. A glance to the side showed the boy’s feet were indeed dragging, eyes gazing with longing at the doors. “Soon. We’ll go there next.” He followed with an insubstantial sigh. “Yes, alright.” Kitty blinked. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It was so quiet in these halls, anyone could hear. The lobby of Petřín’s was unassumingly quiet, but Kitty wasn’t fooled. The walls hummed with the aura of a spell, most likely a silencing charm to keep the workings of the printers from disturbing the immediately nearby library. At a desk just inside, a man sat scribbling in a ledger with a fountain pen but he looked up at Kitty’s approach. His cheerful greeting was in Czech—thankfully one of the phrases she’d picked up staying with Jakob and his family. She replied in kind, following up with a somewhat abashed, “English? That was about all the Czech I know.” The man laughed and nodded. “How can I help you?” “I need to speak with Mr. Pavel Vlastislav? I’m here on rather urgent magician’s business, as well as with a delivery from Karel Hyrnek, of Hyrnek and Sons. I think he sent word ahead that I was coming?” “Hmmm, let me take a look.” The clerk flipped through his ledger, then ducked behind his desk to grab another book. As he did, Kitty looked around and saw Ptolemy studying a world map to the left, artistically rendered and nearly as large as the wall it was painted on. She couldn’t see his face, but she had an idea as to what it might look like, and what he was going to sound like in three…two...one… Right on cue, as the clerk popped back up into view, Ptolemy’s voice flooded into her ear as if he were standing right next to her and not ten feet away. “Kitty. Kitty this is— Is this the whole world? The entire globe? Have people truly been to all of these places?” The clerk was chatting at her as he flipped through his notes with Kitty nodding along distractedly, trying to pay attention as Ptolemy continued, “—and this map! It’s nearly as good as the cartographers of Alexandria’s work! Rekyt described many of these places to me, but they were not all in places I could plot on an available map… You said we’re in...Europe? To the east—oh! Yes, this must be it! You’re right, we are much, much further north. I wonder—” “Ptolemy! A minute? I need to focus,” was what Kitty thought to herself in a moment of irritation, mouth clamped tight over the words, but the boy stopped rambling immediately. “Ah, my apologies.” Well, that was fun. Maybe that mishap back at the room had been good for something after all? It was the only thing she could think of that might have caused such a strange phenomenon… Distracted, she had to once again refocus on what the clerk, Radim, was saying. Frankly, she’d missed what he’d last said, but then he was standing and ushering her through a door on the right and chattering about the privilege of being able to see inside the prestigious print house and Kitty was tuning him right back out. She was here on business, not to see the inner workings of yet another magical publishing shop. This was her third one in the past year; they all sort of looked the same at this point. Pavel was in his office when they arrived, Radim knocking a quick rap on the doorway before entering. The man inside stood, head still tilted towards a jet black sparrow perched on his shoulder—the imp’s presence explained ease with which he greeted her, a heavily accented but cheerful “Ms. Jones!” before Radim even had time to speak. He and Radim had a quick exchange in Czech too fast to catch, then Radim stepped out and Pavel gestured her to enter. “Come in, come in, Ms. Jones. You have news and a package from old Karel in London, hm? Please, sit down and tell me why he needs send such a lovely lady friend, rather than this news in the post.” Kitty swallowed. This was the hardest part, always the hardest part, and she’d already done it twice. Out of her bag she pulled a plain book, bound in brown cloth and printed on scrap: a manuscript printed by Mr. Hyrnek. There was also a pamphlet. Assuming today went well and Pavel accepted her request, she would need write her friends back in London and request him to send her another copy before she left Prague. Hands shaking, she set the book on Pavel’s desk and took a deep breath. Ptolemy perched on the edge of the desk, invisible to Pavel and watching her intently. Another deep breath, trying to dislodge the shaking behind her breastbone. Her trimmed down, bare bones narrative of the London Disaster was practically recited by rote now. Only by keeping it clipped, clinical, and precise was she able to get through the worst of the story without stuttering, but she’d told the story before and she’d tell it now. Unfortunately, the shuddering terror of the hybrids needed to be the focus of the tale—that’s why she was here. Magicians, the humans who practiced the enslavement of spirits, needed to know what happened from a first-hand source, told with compassion and urgency, or they would simply take the whole incident as either fairytale, or use it as a way to further demonize both the British Empire and the spirits themselves. If this came out wrong, the enslavement of spirits would worsen, not move closer to eradication. When she’d finished, wrapping up with a quick note of the Interim Council’s formalization of an integrated Parliament and the supposed plans for the country, both members of her audience were silent. Staring. This was a normal reaction, she’d gotten it from the print masters in both Paris and Madrid, and she didn’t blame them or Pavel. It was a lot to hear. It’d been a lot more to live through. Eventually, Pavel spoke. “That is...a harrowing tale. We’d heard of some horror from across the channel when the empire broke two years ago, but to think…” He swallowed. “Yes, this needs to be recorded. I assume this manuscript is the account?” Kitty nodded. “Yes, originally published by Hyrnek and Sons, but we all agreed that something like this should be shared. If nothing else, please, we request you bring this to the Archivist and have it included in the archive. If you are willing to print and distribute it, that is for the best, but I understand—” “I will, of course, do my best to ensure it is placed in the archives. And we will see what can be done about distribution.” Reaching out—just missing Ptolemy, who jumped away before his arm could be brushed—Pavel picked up the pamphlet. “And this?” “A list of the spirits who perished in the disaster, to update the newest editions.” And maybe a few others, but who was to know? Pavel flipped through it and Kitty stood, scooping up her satchel once more. Alarmed, Pavel stood as well. “Ms. Jones! Surely you don’t mean to leave so soon?” Exhaustion weighed her voice, two haunted years dogging her steps. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vlastislav, but I need to be going. I’ll leave the address I’m staying at with Radim and I’ll be in town for a few weeks. Find me there if you need anything.” That was the nice thing about her situation—after all the horrors and all the insanity and quite literally visiting another plane of existence, social niceties were near the bottom of her priority list. With a parting nod, she let herself out of the office without another word. Ptolemy was silent as she retraced their steps back to the lobby, still silent as she left her contact information with Radim, silent all the way until they’d reached the Archive once more. He didn’t suggest a book to start with, so Kitty made her way to one of the study tables and pulled another book from her satchel, rather than any of the shelves. Delicate pages with scorched edges crinkled as she turned them, scanning the handwritten translations in the margins. She’d been offered a fresh copy of Ptolemy’s Apocrypha with an English translation printed in, but Button’s book was special, and translating it with Bartimaeus’s help was a good memory. Credit to his perturbation, when Ptolemy finally spoke it wasn’t about the book she held. “I’m sorry. What happened… I can’t imagine. I didn’t realize the kind of trauma what I did would cause you.” “You couldn’t have,” Kitty replied diffidently, blithe tone slicking her thoughts to icy smoothness. “Like I said, it’s something no commoner would be able to understand, and most magicians too. The only ones who could come close are those of us who were there, and even then… The one who would best understand the bond you were trying to attempt is— Well, he’s dead.” Silence again, then: “And you? Would that make you the closest living authority?” “Actually, no.” She was able to look up and smile. “That would be Bartimaeus, so let’s hit the books and then you can ask him yourself, yeah?”

Chapter 5: Somewhere: Sometime 

 4,752,256

Dread emptiness pressed in around him. Is this how his friend had felt, all those years alone? When the spirits passed—back and forth and back and forth—he could sense their movement, know their passing, but there was no sound to hear, no sight to see. Even this place he was stuck, a place he felt should have something of substance to perceive was just...nothing. To stave back the madness, he began to study the passing spirits with whatever senses were available to him. Thousands upon thousands passed before his examination, and on every few he focused his attention. Going one way, they seemed to mournfully coalesce from liquid freedom into a speeding, aerodynamic form to rocket through the other side of the gate; coming the other, solid misery flared and flittered out in joyous reaching for the far bank. Nowhere did the strange, fluid channel appear again. Only cold, clinical, slippery-walled openings to pull the beings to and from. He’d reached out to one once, only to find himself sliding off, lacking whatever was needed to be included in the transference. Probably for the best. Once the temporary madness left him, his logic reasserting itself over the crushing loneliness, he drew away from the traffic in fear. To be loosed in the fearful current without anchor or guide? No, he couldn’t… Or at least he thought that. And thought that. And thought that until he came to the point—singular and horrifying—that he could.   His watching took on a new edge: analytical, searching. Time barely existed here, but some amount of it had passed before something caught his attention. Another direct stretch, calling for a specific being, but something about it was...softer. It was inviting but wary, familiar but fearful, like a stranger singing a long-buried song from childhood. Carefully, not flinging himself with abandon like someone had, he approached. It was tenuous, as all of these were—temporal and not meant to last long, unlike the fluid path they’d seen before—and this one was even more ephemeral than most. Holes in the weave, it could have been described. From one end, movement came, barrelling closer and closer and...familiar. Yes, the being speeding down was definitely a construction of substance he recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Names were hard here. Names were hard, but suddenly decisions were not. As the spirit sped past, he impressed some effort upon the pulling force, imposing himself on the construct until he fell through in a flurry of movement that he could suddenly feel, not just perceive in an abstract sort of way. He could feel it and he still felt it as he tumbled through. The portal did exactly as all the others did. He felt himself being compacted and compressed, separate from the being it was actually meant for thankfully, as he’d hopped in a good moment past it, but the bonds were ill-fitting. A familiar word that wasn’t his word. And so, when both he and the other tumbled out the other side, he felt himself spinning and drifting, formless and dazed as his traveling partner took form in a circle.

Chapter 6: Prague: Saint's Day  

In a brilliant bit of foresight, the first thing Kitty asked Bartimaeus to do once he’d arrived was cast a nexus about her room to silence all noise coming from within. A good move, as her explanation of the situation first garnered her a bemused “what?” Followed by some silence. Then some contemplation of the figure who was making a concentrated effort to appear on the mortal plane to more than just Kitty. Then followed by a roar of the same word that had come before. There was a lot of yelling for a short time. Possibly some crying as well, not that Kitty would ever tell. But when it was done, and all explained and settled and understood, she might have asked Bartimaeus to remove the nexus. Absentmindedly, she forgot. This turned out to be a good thing as, five hours later, both she and Bartimaeus stared at Ptolemy over their sketches of runes, figures, and half-circle diagrams in consternation. Together, their query was definitely loud enough to have been heard by the good matron downstairs. “You don’t have their name?! ” Kitty groaned and set her pencil aside. They’d been at this for hours, and only now did Ptolemy mention he was lacking this key piece of their puzzle? Bartimaeus looked just as crestfallen in his guise of a young, dark skinned man, wearing a traditional desert kilt and bedecked with a necklace of amethyst, but also not terribly surprised. “Ptolemy, my friend. I always knew your disinclination for names would come back to bite us in inconvenient places. Admittedly, this is the furthest situation from what I could have imagined, but still.” The ghostly boy in question was not meeting either of their gazes. He was staring at the bedspread he sat on, stunned silent. Then quietly, obviously not in reaction to what either of them had said, he breathed a word Kitty had never heard in her life. Bartimaeus, however, choked on his non-existent spit, indicating that it was probably something foul. After a few more moments of unintelligible invective that had Bartimaeus’s jaw on the floor, Ptolemy muttered, “I can’t believe I forgot. We were there for what must have been years, how did I not ask? I promised. I’m a magician, I know how important names are. How could I have forgotten?” Kitty winced. They had maybe been a bit harsh. “It’s alright, I’m sure we can figure something out…” Ptolemy stood up and began to pace, making circuit after circuit of the tiny room. Amusingly, every time he turned a corner, he also stepped upwards about an inch, beginning to spiral upwards as he muttered to himself. Kitty glanced over at Bartimaeus, who shrugged, leaned over and whispered, “Don’t look at me, this is new. He didn’t used to pace.” “Hmm…” A ghost pacing was a strange phenomenon in that you couldn’t hear them, the fact that they were pacing of above your head at this point notwithstanding. It was painfully quiet. Kitty and Bartimaeus went back to fiddling with their designs, pencil and quill scratching loudly in the silence, but still working around a glaringly blank space where, in all of them, a name had to be placed. “I need a calendar!” Ptolemy’s voice, loud in the room, had Kitty jumping nearly a foot out of her chair. He was suddenly right next to her, face intent and determined. “I had a formula, I just need to do the calculations and we can figure out when my friend arrived. From there— Well, only a few specific circumstances could cause this, so maybe someone will have heard about it happening?” “Well, it’s somewhere to start…” Bartimaeus hedged, and Kitty agreed with the hesitant tone. How on earth were they going to sus out a single death of magical happenstance, even if they could narrow it down to an exact date? Kitty caught Ptolemy’s gaze again. There was a light, one she felt mirrored in her own past. Hope. And hell if she could ignore that. She’d wrestled demons, ransacked governments, and crossed dimensions for a hope like that, and well—Ptolemy had been the source of a lot of that hopeful vision. It was the least she could do to try and help him in turn. As Ptolemy still hadn’t managed enough substance to actually touch anything, Kitty was the one to walk to her duffel and dig out yet  another   book. She was becoming quite the librarian herself, these days. This one was worn, thick, full of cramped handwriting with a ribbon bookmark between the last few pages. Returning to the small table, she set it down. “Not a calendar, but close. My journal goes back two years, almost. Think your friend showed up in about that timeframe?” Ptolemy nodded firmly. “It couldn’t have been longer than that. Now, let me just…” He trailed off, fingers tracing invisible numbers on the table. With his brows drawn together in a focused frown, Kitty thought privately that he’d never looked less like Bartimaeus’s replication. Similarly, the fond expression Bartimaeus watched him with was a brand new thing to see on the spirit’s face, and something warmed in her. For the span of about an hour, a long time ago, Kitty had cared about a djinni and a boy more than anyone else in her probably-about-to-end life. This wasn’t the same, couldn’t ever be the same, but she liked it anyway. Across the table, Ptolemy was now rattling off numbers to Bartimaeus, who flipped through the journal pages—first in large swaths, then fewer and fewer at a time. Closer and closer to the front cover until— “That’s the end of it.” Both of them were staring down at the first entry on the first page of Kitty’s journal—a date, five words, and a tiny shard of glass taped to the paper. Bartimaeus continued, “How much further back?” “Two days.”   Kitty looked at them blankly. They both looked back—Ptolemy glowing with the triumph of a puzzle solved, Bartimaeus with...something. Probably the same something building somewhere in the pit of Kitty’s stomach. “There’s no way,” she managed eventually, voice hoarse, throat suddenly dust dry. Bartimaeus’s reply was just a nervous chuckle while Ptolemy glanced between them, his high fading into confusion. “What’s the matter?” It took Kitty two tries to clear the lump from her throat. “Erm, well. You remember what I said about the only person who would understand possession by a spirit being dead? And what Bartimaeus said about the Glass Palace?” “Yes?” “That all happened two days before my first journal entry. I didn’t think to start recording events until— I was a right mess, basically, until then.” Understanding dawned on Ptolemy’s face and brought a smile to his face. The smile grew, bit by bit as he looked between his two friends. “Well then, shall we try? It’s our best guess, and the worst that will happen is it doesn’t work.” They both watched as he breezed over to where Kitty and Bartimaeus had left their sketches. A moment of careful study, then he pointed to Bartimaeus’s page—the djinni smirked at Kitty, who stuck out her tongue. “This one. Let’s try this one.” He bounced on his toes, each bounce taking him higher into the air. “Come on! I still can’t hold the chalk, help me draw this!” So they did. The dingy, dusty boarding room was a flurry of activity for long minutes. Bartimaeus did most of the kneeling and drawing while Kitty held the string guides and lit the few candles they needed for the spell. Ptolemy supervised, directing them in drawing a half-circle diagram. Lines stretched out from it in rays, similar to Kitty’s communication spell, but with a few slight adjustments. More geometric than ornate, the completed spell was chalked innocuously on the floor as Bartimaeus scratched out the last few runes. At the apex of the arch, a blank space had been left. Almost reverently they all knelt, Bartimaeus handing Kitty the chalk as she regarded the bare patch of floorboards before bringing the chalk down. Her handwriting was nowhere near as calligraphic as Bartimaeus’s—her chicken scratch legible but not beautiful as she spelled the name out: Nathaniel   Chalk still in hand, she traced under the letters with a finger, the spell still cold and not yet activated. Together, Ptolemy and Bartimaeus reached out as well—and then another transparent finger traced along the top of the word. Glancing up, her gaze met with blue eyes, happy and calm in a way she’d never seen them while he was alive. “That’s what it was. I guess I just needed someone to write it down before I could form up properly. Took your time about it, didn’t you?” Surprise jerked her hand and brought her in contact with all three of the other beings in the room. Her vision spun and everything was very mixed up for a very confusing moment. Kitty was, for seconds or hours, not just Kitty anymore. Four souls rushed around and around in a feedback loop, bringing nausea to a body that wasn’t even really hers to experience it. It was like being back in the Other Place. Actually, it felt exactly like that, and the similarities echoed through their loop loud enough to bring the chaos to a balance. Carefully, they all extracted themselves from the morass—all but Nathaniel at least understanding the mechanics of the feat—and another moment brought Kitty solitude in her mind once more. She had fallen onto her backside, legs twisted awkwardly, and three beings of unearthly substance lay sprawled nearby. On seeing their mess, pushed up on her elbows, a giggle bubbled up from her throat. Then another, and another, until she couldn’t hold them back and collapsed onto the dusty floor, laughing until their was no more breath in her body. Around her, Ptolemy joined in first, then Nathaniel, then Bartimaeus, until they were all cackling like maniacs for long minutes.  Good thing the silencing nexus is still still up, Kitty thought faintly, which sent her and her friends off into more gales of laughter. They laughed until all their surprised energy had been spent in joy. Jittery adrenaline rush settled to a wondrous warmth in Kitty’s chest as she looked at her friends. There was no telling what they would need to do now. But as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter. They were together, no one was dead in the traditional sense of the word, and the world hadn’t tried to end for two whole years. She didn’t get sappy often, but today seemed like the day to try—the most pleasant Hallows Eve and Saints’ Day she’d ever experienced, by far.

[angelofrainfrogs]

Mirror, Mirror

Fandom: (Crossover) Lockwood and Co. and The Bartimaeus Trilogy

Pairing: None

Description: One night during an investigation, Lockwood and Co. come across a suspicious mirror. However, the Agents soon discover something much stranger: the mirror is a portal, and on the other side of that portal is a young Egyptian boy with piercing golden eyes.

Rating: K+

Genre: Mystery/Humor

Read on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15990740

"What is that thing?"

"Dunno, Luce." Lockwood flashed a grin. "Looks like a portal of some kind."

"It makes me uneasy..."

"Oh, come on! It's interesting!"

"'Extremely sketchy' is the term I would use." This was George, who paused to wipe his glasses on his shirt before focusing again on the strange, ethereal hole in front of us.

We were on yet another paranormal case, investing yet another supposedly haunted building. The owner had bought the property but wanted to clear the area of any wayward Visitors before he tore the original house down and replaced it with a swanky hotel. So far, two hours into the investigation, we'd encountered some loose floorboards, a jammed door that nearly broke George's already squashed-looking nose upon being opened, and a general feeling of unease. Though we hadn’t come upon any actual Visitors, that certainly didn't mean they weren't present. The fact that we had just stumbled upon a plethora of spiders suggested quite the contrary, in fact. However, all we had uncovered so far was a strange, unnaturally dark mirror that, when accidentally jabbed with the tip of my rapier as I turned to leave the room, began to emit an ominous hum and project an image of the entryway to the house upon its surface.

This is what we were all staring at with rapt interest. Lockwood's grin widened.

"I say we go through it!" he exclaimed, gesturing to the mirror. I raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"We don't even know what this really is," I pointed out. Lockwood let out a small chuckle.

"And we won't know until we investigate, will we? Maybe this thing leads to the Source!" Gently, he reached out towards the surface of the mirror. To George and my surprise, his pointer finger slipped right through it, as if the surface was made of water.

"Lockwood, I don't think that's wise-"

"Come on! It probably has a false back and was designed to look like a solid object. I can only sense a vague energy coming through it, anyway; certainly nothing to be concerned about." He cut me off with another grin, much to my dislike. I narrowed my eyes.

"You should know by now that Lockwood isn't famous for his wise decisions," George commented, causing me to train my glare upon him. He shrugged and pulled a cookie from the god-knows-how-deep recesses of his pocket. He took a huge bite and continued in the midst of chewing, gesticulating wildly with the cookie in hand. "If he wants to investigate something, he's going to do it. Besides, his leg's already halfway through."

"What?!" With a start, I whirled around to find George's statement somewhat true: Lockwood had indeed stepped into the portal, but at this point his entire leg was consumed by the rippling surface. He turned to me and jumped through with a wink, rapier held in front of him to ward off any unwanted things that might be waiting to greet him on the other side.

"I don't believe this...," I muttered, taking out my rapier as well. I was about to step through the surface when I realized that George hadn't moved. He seemed particularly transfixed by a brick at his feet; obviously, he had even less of a desire to jump through the mirror as I did. Still, that didn't mean he got a free pass.

With a resigned sigh, I grasped George's shirtsleeve and gave a forceful tug, plunging us both into the strange, water-like surface of the mirror.

***

We emerged in the entryway of the house. Everything seemed just the same as when we originally entered a few hours ago, save for the fact that we took a nonsensical shortcut to get there. Lockwood stood at the bottom of the grand staircase, rapier still in hand but no longer held out in front of him.

"What were you thinking?!" I began, marching up to him. I still had George by the sleeve, a fact which I quickly remedied by letting go with a light shove.

"You made me drop my cookie!" George exclaimed indignantly, righting himself and brandishing his empty hand towards me.

"I'm sure there's a whole candy store in those pockets of yours," I snapped back, not in the mood to listen to his whining. He replied with some sarcastic retort but I ignored this, continuing my walk until I planted myself right in Lockwood's view. I placed my hands on my hips and stared straight into his face. "Anyway, that was the stupidest decision! Why would you just go through like that?! For all we knew, it could've closed on you and... well, I'd hate to think of the ramifications of that!"

I shivered at the thought, and then quickly turned to the portal- or, where it should have been. There was no mirror in sight- an odd thing, since we'd just walked through it-, but I assumed it was resting against the wall just around the corner where we had found it in the first place. Still, I'd made a valid point; what if it could close, and more importantly, what if it already was closing? I opened my mouth to voice this concern, but Lockwood held up a hand.

"Hold on, Lucy," he said, softly. I wanted to give him another piece of my mind for putting a hand in my face to quiet me, but I could tell that he was serious. He sensed something. His eyes met mine for a brief moment and he asked, even softer, "Listen; do you hear anything?"

I opened all of my senses then- outer and inner. Sure enough, there was a dull noise, like faint whispering. It seemed to be coming from somewhere upstairs. We all turned towards the staircase- even George, whose senses weren't nearly as good as ours, knew that something was amiss. He and I quickly held out our rapiers as well, matching Lockwood's readied stance.

Suddenly, a small shape darted out of a room at the top of the stairs. We all tried to focus on it, but the thing disappeared almost as soon as it appeared. That tiny shape wasn't the most intriguing being in the house, however.

To our surprise and extreme confusion, a boy emerged from the room as well.

Though it was hard to tell from this distance, he appeared to be a little younger than me. His dark skin and jet-black hair countered his bright, golden eyes, visible to us even in the dim moonlight shining through the window atop the grand staircase. He wore nothing but a white skirt-like garment- the type of thing you would most likely picture the ancient Egyptians wearing. This was especially surprising due to the fact that it was a whopping 49 degrees in the house and dropping steadily.

"...Who in the blue blazes is that fool?!" George muttered, to an immediate chorus of shushes from Lockwood and me. The boy certainly looked foolish, I had to admit- and apparently normal, for that matter, especially if George could see him with no trouble at all. However, something about him unnerved me. I could sense a vague outline surrounding him, but as usual, my Sight was less than fantastic.

The boy turned to us when he heard George speak, and the whispering suddenly got louder. It was strange; usually, the whispers I hear either come from one distinct voice or, more commonly, a plethora of lost souls all vying to talk to me at once. This time, however, the voice definitely originated from one place. It sounded almost as if this same voice was layered on top if itself, like the one voice contained a second, constant stream of thought separate from its main dialogue, but still running at the same time.

...It's rather hard to explain, in all honesty.

"Hey!" the boy suddenly shouted from atop the staircase, breaking my concentration. Instinctively, I raised the rapier higher in front of me as the boy descended the steps. As he came closer, I got a good look at his expression.

"Well, he seems rather miffed," George commented, putting his rapier back onto his belt. Obviously, his sense of danger had passed, for he began rooting around in his pocket for another treat. I remained on my guard.

"Hello!" Lockwood said cheerily, lowering his own rapier as the boy approached. I noticed that he did not, however, put it back onto his belt. Maybe he saw something that I couldn't. "We're sorry, we didn't realize that anyone else was here!"

The boy came to a halt in front of us, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. Getting a closer look at his face, I saw thick, black outlines of make-up around his eerily golden eyes. He really looked as though he'd stepped out of a picture of an ancient Egyptian child, though he definitely didn't carry himself like one. The air around him was thick with a foreboding sense that there was quite a lot more to this boy than he let on.

"Neither did I," he responded curtly, eyeing us one at a time before finally settling back on Lockwood. "In fact, there wasn't supposed to be anyone else here... Please tell me you're just some crazy kids who dared each other to explore a creepy old house and not some secret agents I should be worried about..."

The term "agent" made my hand twitch in surprise, though thankfully I kept the rest of my composure in check. For some reason, I wasn't sure the boy would recognize us for what we were so easily.

"...We were just exploring the house," Lockwood responded, effectively side-stepping the boy's accusation. I glanced over and could see him squinting, as if he desperately wanted to put on his sunglasses. His Sight was obviously working at full capacity.

So was my Hearing, now that I focused even more. The whispering sounded much louder than before, like the Source was right in front of me. I looked back at the boy curiously.

“What in the world are you doing here?” George asked, his eyebrows creasing unfavorably. Lockwood, in turn, began rummaging around in his coat until he pulled out a pair of dark sunglasses. I frowned as well, mirroring George’s expression; it seemed that whatever Other-light that Lockwood could detect had finally become too much for the naked eye.

“I should ask the same,” the boy responded, crossing his arms and jutting out a hip in a manner inherent of someone with a serious attitude problem. His deep gaze swiveled between the three of us and when he focused on me, the overlay of a faint voice swelled and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“Well… we’re investigating,” Lockwood spoke up, an easy smile stretching his lips upward. Almost hesitantly, he placed his rapier back in his belt. “This building is very, very haunted, you see, and we’ve been called upon to sort it out. I’m Anthony Lockwood, leader of Lockwood and Company, and these are my associates, Lucy and George.”

Lockwood thrust out his hand. The boy stared at the proffered limb for a moment, then slowly uncrossed his arms and gave Lockwood’s hand a light shake.

“Bartimaeus,” the boy responded with a smile, pearly-white teeth gleaming in the dim lamplight. George let out a noise that seemed a cross between disbelief and mild offence, but otherwise said nothing intelligible.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Lockwood released Bartimaeus’ hand and cast his gaze around the atrium. “By any chance… are you a free-lancing Agent working the case as well?”

I had assumed the same. It was much more likely that this boy was an independent Agent as opposed to someone randomly wandering around a spooky house in the dead of night with absolutely no protection against wayward spirits. However, to our surprise Bartimaeus merely raised a curious eyebrow.

“What in the world are you on about?” he questioned. Lockwood opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it again with an equally curious expression, scanning his gaze around the boy’s figure. Bartimaeus let out a laugh and shook his head. “Don’t worry your dull minds about what I am.”

“Excuse you,” I spoke up, hands planted firmly on my hips. “There’s no need for insults!”

“Yeah!” George said, and I was astounded that he was actually backing me up for a change. “Call Lockwood whatever you'd like, but only we’reallowed to insult Lucy!”

“Hey!”

“George, Lucy, please.” Lockwood held up a hand and I managed to bite my tongue before spouting off an even ruder comeback. There was an awkward silence, in which we all studied each other with equal hints of wariness and uncertainty. Finally, Bartimaeus spoke up.

“…As charming as you all are, I have my own tasks to attend to that I’m certain have absolutely nothing to do with you, so-” Bartimaeus cut himself off, realizing that Lockwood had suddenly frozen in place and was staring slack-jawed at a spot a few feet higher than his head. A sly smile spread across Bartimaeus’ face. “…See something interesting, Anthony?”

Instantly, I worried that Lockwood would have an adverse reaction to the use of his first name. However, by the expression on his face, that seemed to be the least of his concerns. His breathing was shallow and his wide eyes caused George to give my arm a concerned tug.

“What’s wrong with him?” George asked, and I shook my head.

“No idea- Lockwood?” Gently, I shook Lockwood’s arm. He jumped so violently at my touch, rapier suddenly in his hand, that I swear I almost lost a finger. “AH! Lockwood, it’s me!”

“Wha- oh! Luce, I’m so sorry!” Quickly, Lockwood hooked the weapon back in his belt. Then, in a change of mood so abrupt that George and I suffered mild whiplash, Lockwood grinned and turned back to Bartimaeus.

“Fantastic to meet you,” he said, including his head towards the boy in the loincloth. I surreptitiously checked my temperature gauge; it was now thirty-eight degrees. I shivered and pulled my cloak tighter around myself. Gaze still trained on Bartimaeus, Lockwood started backing towards the hallway containing the mirror-portal, grasping George and my hands along the way. “But we really must be going; lots of Sources to find and Visitors to subdue, haha!”

“Lockwood-” George began, but his protestation was cut off by a forceful tug on his hand that caused him to stumble and put all his attention towards remaining upright. I could not see the expression in Lockwood’s eyes, but I knew that it must be intense.

Lockwood never backed down; something about this situation had to be very, very wrong.

As Lockwood continued to drag George and I away from the strangely-silent Bartimaeus, I made a last-ditch attempt to refocus my Sense and discover the source of the muted voice. The more I tried to find it, the more I realized it was indeed emanating from Bartimaeus himself, or at least from something directly on his person- which seemed unlikely, seeing as he was wearing very little in the way of clothing. For a few seconds, I only caught brief fragments of speech, but then a few sentences came into focus.

“-so incredibly idiotic. Humans still don’t know a real threat when they see one, do they? Especially children… They should be tucked into their beds, listening to a bedtime story-”

“What…? Did you... did you say something?” I muttered loudly. The voice sounded exactly like Bartimaeus’, though that was impossible- the boy’s mouth was closed. Well, it was for a second, and this his lips split into another wide grin.

“Oh, you heard that, did you?” he said, a mild hint of excitement in his tone. “I'm not entirely sure how, but... Congratulations; you just got a glimpse into one of the most brilliant minds in history!”

Before I had a chance to respond, there was a harsh tug on my hand and I was pulled around the corner of the hallway, forcing my gaze away from Bartimaeus. To my relief, the portal was still there, and I wordlessly followed Lockwood and George through. While I was certainly curious to figure out what exactly was happening, I had to admit that I was beginning to feel rather uneasy.

Despite George’s protestations, Lockwood refused to let go of our hands until we were standing in the mansion's atrium on our side of the mirror.

“What’s gotten into you?!” George asked, once Lockwood had determined it safe enough to let us regain control of our own limbs. Lockwood took a deep breath, his gaze flickering between George and I before finally settling onto me.

“You heard something in there, right, Luce?” he asked. I nodded, and Lockwood mirrored the gesture. “Thought so. I definitely saw something, too… I’m not entirely sure what it was, but I didn’t have any inclination to stay and find out.”

“Well, regardless of whatever supernatural things you two sensed, that boy was certainly full of it,” George commented, blinking rapidly as he cleaned off his glasses. “’Bartimaeus’… ridiculous!”

“Should we know why that name has any significance?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No, not unless you’ve done a bunch of historical research… which I highly doubt, Lucy, since it’s a struggle for you even pick up a newspaper most days.” I sucked in a breath, readying a retort, but George continued. “Bartimaeus is the name of a supposed ‘djinni’ that apparently caused a lot of strife throughout various times in the past. ‘Course, that’s under the assumption that magical beings are real, which they obviously are not.”

“Whatever the case may be, there was definitely something off about him,” Lockwood spoke up, suddenly removing his own glasses, apparently forgetting that they had still been covering his eyes this entire time. He then lapsed into silence, and neither George nor I had any further comments to make, each of us lost in various thoughts and questions about our recent encounter.

Finally, Lockwood straightened up and gave George and I a matching pat on the back.

“Well, no use worrying about it now; in fact, I say we seal up the portal and move on with the investigation,” Lockwood proclaimed. George and I spared each other a glance and nodded, agreeing that this was the most suitable course of action. “Great! We can tell DEPRAC about the mirror at the end of the night- once we find the real Source of this mansion’s haunting.”

“Good plan,” I agreed, and George simply shrugged. With that, we walked back to the mirror, a little more cautiously than before, and quickly surrounded it with salt and iron chains. As soon as the end chain links were placed together, my focus in the house instantly shifted; whereas my attention had previously been directed to the hum coming from the dark glass in front of me, I now detected a faint moan from the upper floor of the mansion. Lockwood stared upward as well, as if he could see the faint echo of a death-glow through the ceiling above.

Flashing equally bright grins to counteract George’s vaguely annoyed pout, Lockwood and I made our way towards the grand staircase located in the entryway. I swore that I heard a faint voice call for me, but when I glanced back to the mirror, its surface was as dark and still as it should be. I shrugged this off and ran to catch up with my fellow Agents, the thought of the strange Egyptian boy quickly pushed to the back of my mind.