"Stay where you are!"

Nathaniel's heart nearly stopped in fright. He froze with one foot lifted. His master's eyes had opened and were gazing at him with an awful anger. With a voice of thunder, his master uttered the seven Words of Dismissal. The fire in the corner of the room vanished, the pile of papers with them; the candles were once again upright and burning quietly. Nathaniel's heart quailed in his breast.

"Step outside the circle, would you?" Never had he heard his master's voice so scathing. "I told you that some remain invisible. They are masters of illusion and know a thousand ways to distract and tempt you. One step more and you'd have been on fire yourself. Think of that while you go hungry tonight. Get up to your room!"

Further summonings were less distressing. Guided only by his ordinary senses, Nathaniel observed demons in a host of beguiling shapes. Some appeared as familiar animals—mewling cats, wide—eyed dogs, forlorn, limping hamsters that Nathaniel ached to hold. Sweet little birds hopped and pecked at the margins of their circles. Once, a shower of apple blossom cascaded from the air, filling the room with a heady scent that made him drowsy.

He learned to withstand inducements of all kinds. Some invisible spirits assailed him with foul smells that made him retch; others charmed him with perfume that reminded him of Ms. Lutyens's or Mrs. Underwood's. Some attempted to frighten him with hideous sounds—with squelchy rendings, whisperings, and gibbering cries. He heard strange voices calling out beseechingly, first high—pitched, then plummeting deeper and deeper until they rang like a funeral bell. But he closed his mind to all these things and never came close to leaving the circle.

A year passed before Nathaniel was allowed to wear his spectacles during each summoning. Now he could observe many of the demons as they really were. Others, slightly more powerful ones, maintained their illusions even on the other observable planes. To all these disorientating shifts in perception Nathaniel acclimatized calmly and confidently. His lessons were progressing well, his self—possession likewise. He grew harder, more resilient, more determined to progress. He spent all his spare waking hours poring through new manuscripts.

His master was satisfied with his pupil's progress and Nathaniel, despite his impatience with the pace of his education, was delighted with what he learned. It was a productive relationship, if not a close one, and might well have continued to be so, but for the terrible incident that occurred in the summer before Nathaniel's eleventh birthday.

In the end, dawn came.

The first grudging rays flickered in the eastern sky. A halo of light slowly emerged over the Docklands horizon. I cheered it on. It couldn't come fast enough.

The whole night had been a wearisome and often humiliating business. I had repeatedly lurked, loitered, and fled, in that order, through half the postal districts of London. I had been manhandled by a thirteen—year—old girl. I had taken shelter in a bin. And now, to cap it all, I was crouching on the roof of Westminster Abbey, pretending to be a gargoyle. Things don't get much worse than that.

A rising shaft of sunlight caught the edge of the Amulet, which was suspended round my lichen—covered neck. It flashed, bright as glass. Automatically I raised a claw to cup it, just in case sharp eyes were on the lookout, but I wasn't too worried by then.

I had remained in that bin in the alley for a couple of hours, long enough to rest and become thoroughly ingrained with the odor of rotting vegetables. Then I'd had the bright idea of taking up stony residence on the abbey. I was protected there by the profusion of magical ornaments within the building—they masked the Amulet's signal.[23] From my new vantage point I'd seen a few spheres in the distance, but none of them came near. At last the night had ebbed away, and the magicians had become weary. The spheres in the sky winked out. The heat was off.

As the sun rose, I waited impatiently for the expected summons. The boy had said he would call me at dawn, but he was no doubt sleeping in like the layabout adolescent he was.

In the meantime I ordered my thoughts. One thing that was crystal clear was that the boy was the patsy of an adult magician, some shadowy influence who sought to deflect blame for the theft onto the kid. It wasn't hard to guess this—no child of his age would summon me for so great a task on his own. Presumably the unknown magician wished to deal a blow to Lovelace and gain control over the Amulet's powers. If so, he was risking everything. Judging by the scale of the hunt I had just evaded, several powerful people were greatly concerned by its loss.

Even alone, Simon Lovelace was a formidable proposition. The fact that he was able to employ (and restrain) both Faquarl and Jabor proved as much. I did not relish the urchin's chances when the magician caught up with him.

Then there was the girl, that nonmagician whose friends withstood my magic and saw through my illusions. Several centuries had gone by since I had last encountered humans of their sort, so to find them here in London was intriguing. Whether or not they understood the implications of their power was difficult to say. The girl didn't even seem to know exactly what the Amulet was, only that it was a prize worth having. She certainly wasn't allied to Lovelace or the boy. Strange… I couldn't see where she fit into this at all.

Oh well, it wasn't going to be my problem. Sunlight hit the roof of the abbey. I allowed myself a short, luxurious flex of my wings.

At that moment, the summons came.

A thousand fishhooks seemed to embed themselves in me. I was pulled in several directions at once. Resisting too long risked tearing my essence, but I had no interest in delay. I wished to hand over the Amulet and be done.

With this eager hope in mind I submitted to the summons, vanishing from the rooftop…

…and reappearing instantaneously in the child's room. I looked around.

"All right, what's this?"

"I order you, Bartimaeus, to reveal whether you have diligently and wholly carried out your charge—"

"Of course I have—what do you think this is, costume jewelry?" I pointed with my gargoyle's claw at the Amulet dangling on my chest. It waved and winked in the shuddering light of the candles. "The Amulet of Samarkand. It was Simon Lovelace's. Now it is yours. Soon it will be Simon Lovelaces again. Take it and enjoy the consequences. I was asking about this pentacle you've drawn here: what are these runes? This extra line?"

The kid puffed out his chest. "Adelbrand's Pentacle." If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn he smirked, an unseemly facial posture for one so young.

Adelbrand's Pentacle. That meant trouble. I made a big show of checking the lines of the star and circle, looking for minute breaks or wiggles in the chalk. Then I perused the runes and symbols themselves.

"Aha!" I roared. "You've spelled this wrong! And you know what that means, don't you…?" I drew myself up like a cat ready to pounce.

The kid's face went an interesting mix of white and red; his lower lip wobbled; his eyes bulged from their sockets. He looked very much like he wanted to run for it, but he didn't, so my plan was foiled.[24] Hastily he scanned the letters on the floor.

"Recreant demon! The pentacle is sound—it binds you still!"

"Okay, so I lied." I reduced in size. My stone wings folded back under my hump. "Do you want this amulet or not?"