Once in the marketplace, a man came running up to the palanquin with something cupped in his hands, shoving it inside just before he was pushed away by Affa. Visions of knives and worse chilled Bartimaeus' essence as certainly as silver. But within the palanquin, Ptolemy laughed; when Bartimaeus looked in, a fluffy brown gosling sat on Ptolemy's palm, peeping as it was stroked by a single withered finger.

OR

Ptolemy's breath rattled in his lungs, irritated by the cool night air, but still he sat awake, occasionally pausing in his work to stare out the window at the darkened city beyond the palace.

"Perhaps," he finally murmured to Rekhyt, reaching out a shaking hand to rest upon the djinn's shoulder, "we might rest."

Buried within the suggestion was a request Bartimaeus could not deny; he lifted Ptolemy's fragile body and carried him to bed, sitting beside him until he slept.

OR

Ptolemy's slender fingers took hold of Bartimaeus' mane, holding him still for a moment--just long enough to stare into his lion's eyes and nod. The dismissal was goodbye and thank you and, in its way, I love you, but that look was entirely selfish. He wanted to remember Bartimaeus for the few moments he had left, to hold in his mind the face of the slave as well as the knowledge that they would have died together if not for the stubbornness of the master.