“It's the new me," I explained, waving my hands jazz-style in greeting. "Matthew Swift, Midnight fucking Mayor - I've got multicoloured highlighters and everything.”

“I got dressed. You can't be Midnight Mayor in your underpants.”

“I was the apprentice of Robert James Bakker. I'm sure you've heard of him. I am a sorcerer. I was there when Bakker died. We... made it happen. I too have met death, and did not have to peel the bones away from my chest to survive the encounter. I am also, and incidentally, the Midnight Mayor, the blue electric angels, the fire in the wire, the song in the telephones, and we are having a bad week. Be smart; fear us.”

“He glanced up as I entered, and for a moment, looked almost surprised."Mr. Swift!""Ta-da!" I exclaimed weakly."You're still...""Still not dead. That's me. It's my big party trick, still not being dead, gets them every time.”

“Me?" Penny's voice, surprised. "Well, I'm Penny Ngwenya, Matthew's butt-kicking, life-saving, totally awesome apprentice. Um. Hi.”

“Are you aware, Mr Mayor, then when casually scrying the streets of London, you stand out like a giraffe on roller skates, yes?”

“I spent the day with the pigeons, on a bench in Trafalgar Square, my bag of belongings huddled to my chest in case someone thought of taking them, and a pile of breadcrumbs at my feet. I let the pigeons congregate around me ... Eventually a local warden came up to me and said , "Sir, we ask people not to feed the pigeons," with such an expression of civic determination that I pretense not to understand English. Instead, I listed my way through various "eh?" sounds until, having exhausted his two words of French and three of Spanish, he concluded that since I was neither nationality, I wasn't worth the bother.”