“Fifty years isn’t too bad. With luck you might see it happen when you’re a sweet, old granny, dandling big fat babies on your knee. Actually”—he held up a hand, interrupting Kitty’s cry of protest—“no, that’s wrong. My projection is incorrect.”“Good.”“You’ll never be a sweet old granny. Let’s say, ‘sad, lonely old biddy’ instead.”

“Did Lovelace's forces find you? Did Jabor break in?"He spoke slowly through clenched teeth. "I went to get a newspaper"This is getting better and better! I shook my head regretfully. "You should leave such a dangerous assignment to people better qualified: next time ask an old granny, or a toddler-”

“Believe me, I know all about bottle acoustics. I spent much of the sixth century in an old sesame oil jar, corked with wax, bobbing about in the Red Sea. No one heard my hollers. In the end an old fisherman set me free, by which time I was desperate enough to grant him several wishes. I erupted in the form of a smoking giant, did a few lightning bolts, and bent to ask him his desire. Poor old boy had dropped dead of a heart attack. There should be a moral there, but for the life of me I can't see one.”

“And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened.”

“Much has happened since last we met, Bartimaeus," he went on. "Do you remember how we parted?""No." I did."You set light to me, old friend. Struck a match and left me burning in a copse."The crow shifted uneasily beneath the cleaver."That's a gesture of endearment in some cultures. Some hug, some kiss, some set each other on fire in small patches of woodland...”

“It's the same with spirit guises; show me a sweet little choirboy or a smiling mother and I'll show you the hideous fanged strigoi it really is. (Not always. Just sometimes. *Your* mother is absolutely fine, for instance. Probably.)”

“Not bad in short, though the last one [understanding the language of animals], isn't half as useful as you might expect, since when all's said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: a) the endless hunt for food, b) finding a warm bush to sleep in the evening, and c) the sporadic satisfication of certain glands. (Many would argue that the language of human kind boils down to this too)”