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.

Zealots: Wild eyed persons afflicted with incurable certainty about the workings of the world, a certainty that can lead to violence when the world doesn't fit.

Check out that one at the end. He's taken the form of a footstool. Weird...but somehow I like his style." "That is a footstool.

Watch where you leave your victims! I stubbed my toe on that.

And sure enough,the youth in question was not his usual dapper self. His face was puffy, his eyes red and wild; his shirt(distressingly unbuttoned)hung over his trousers in sloppy fashion. All very out of charactar: Mandrake was normally defined by his rigid self-control. Somthing seemed to have stripped all that away. Well, the poor lad was emotionally brittle.He needed sympathetic handling. "You're a mess," I sneered "You've lost it big time. What's happened? All the guilt and self-loathing suddenly get to you? It can't just be that someone else called me, surly?

One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

When I was young, I kept a diary for about 10 years and I had to write in it every day. Even on days when nothing seemed to happen, I made myself think of something to put in it.