“What choice?” Lambert asks, raising his voice. “You’re not even listening! I want you to leave it alone! Or is this just another thing only the great magician Jonathan Strange, yet again, knows what’s best for?”

There’s something familiar about how this argument feels, less like a fight with a friend, more like talking with someone he doesn’t know, with an agenda and motives so totally divorced from his own. Something that stirs at the back of his mind as a half-formed thought, and makes its way past his lips before he can even think about taking it back.

“You’re acting like we’re back in Portland. Do you care, or do you just care about being right?”