It occurs to Magnus, abruptly, that he's calling back to a conversation they had nearly three weeks -- four weeks? In Mansion time? Twenty days -- ago. Oh well, nothing to for it; Laertes is the one who really got him thinking about this in the first place, so Magnus is going to tell him. "How--" old he is? Long he's been dead? "--long I've been around," he says. "Aziraphale told me what year it was, back home."