She lets out a small breath. She could keep delaying, she supposes. Kick her feet over in your old age - not least because she suspects that Bartimaeus actually wouldn't know whether she really was old or not, given his odd ideas on human anatomy. Interrogate him about...what he's been doing, what happened with Nathaniel, how he escaped, and she does want to know all those things. She really does. But longer she takes, she expects, the worse it'll be for him.

So she smiles at him. Her brows are knit together just a bit - she can't help but be a little anxious, honestly she can't - but she does smile at him.

"Yeah, all right," she says. "Teach me one or two. Not bad ones, mind. I certainly don't need a mouth quite as foul as yours."