The dark boy pauses there at the door, one hang set on the latch. The look he fixes her is, in a word, withering.

"I'll find my own way, thank you Kitty. Like I said. I'd rather save that favor for when it might really count." Never trust a magician's overtures of charity.

He flips his hood up. With a whisk of the cloak's edges, Bartimaeus is out of the room, across the landing and descending the stairwell.