She'd been able to forget about it all, just for a few moments. It had helped that Bartimaeus had obviously been deliberately difficult, because at several points he'd clearly just been saying the same thing twice and pretending it was two different sounds - those dots over the o and the u are there for decoration, she's quite certain, and no matter how many times he kept hooting away they still sounded exactly the same. For a few moments, the disagreements had been delightful; she'd felt a bit like her old self again, the bull-headed energy rising up in her.

But it does have to end, of course. Is it silly that what she feels, most of all, is disappointment? Oh, anxiety is there, make no mistake. And anger. But mostly she's disappointed. She could have reached out to him in all those months - could have been sitting with him like this, squabbling over nothing, learning from him. Perhaps her summoning would even have saved him; perhaps it would have ensured that his new master's pentacle would have stayed cold and empty. It could have been so much better, if only...If only she'd been willing to try.

"What I'm wearing is fine." She wants to laugh for a moment over him clucking like a hen - you're the wrong sort of bird entirely for that sort of brooding, Bartimaeus. But instead she just smooths down her trousers, adjusts her tunic - she knows they quite flatter her figure, which has led one or two young men to shoot the spry and trim old lady looks of confusion as she walked down the street - and smiles at him. "Come on, then. Before your master gets anxious and starts wanting to take it out on you."