However, I had a task to perform today. As soon as the procession set off for the second field, I ducked through a thin place in the hedge and ran back to the house.
On the way, I passed the place where I had seen the big wild cat the night before. The Mooncat—I had started calling it that. Had it even been real? I stopped and looked around the place where I thought it had happened. Something large and heavy had run across the pasture here. I wasn’t a good enough tracker to say what it.
Focus, woman! I told myself. A light night puffball vision was not important today. I had more important things to think about. If I could find this letter for Klea, and she kept her promise to take us up to Elayison, that would be so much easier than keeping Shadow hidden while we travelled on the canal boat. And Klea was always good fun. Maybe she would take me down to Crystalline for a little visit after we’d dropped off Shadow.
Although most of the mages were at the Blessing ceremony—the retainers were always expected to show up—Great Uncle Nate and Cousins Illuminus and Scintillant had not attended, which meant I needed to be careful. I avoided the kitchen, too. Most of the servants were out with the Blessing procession, but I could hear Tane pottering around; if he caught me, he’d want to tell me of all Hilly’s heinous crimes against him. So I crept into the house through the small door in the side of the Eyrie.
Three of the local servants were standing round a pile of sheets in the centre of the Great Hall. Luckily they were too absorbed in gossiping to notice me creeping past.
“Lord Scintillant always gives babies,” crooned one of them, rubbing her belly.
Curse Scintillant. Of course he’d found someone else to tread the Blessing path with. Probably several someones, knowing him.
“Well he’s not going to do so right now, is he? So how’s about you help me with this?” replied another.
At least I knew where Great Uncle Nate was. I could hear his snores echoing down the Eyrie. He snored so loudly that he slept during the day so as not to disturb anyone else’s sleep. In the gaps between his thundering grunts, all was silence as I crept up the stairs. The doors to Illuminus’ and Scintillant’s rooms were closed. This meant nothing, of course; Scintillant especially was notorious for never sleeping in his own bed.
The mages brought extra furnishings when they came to inhabit the Eyrie. Though we did our best, Willow’s furnishings had become very threadbare in the twenty-five years since they’d been bought. I stopped to admire the tapestries on the stairs and wondered if I might be able to scrounge some of the old ones. The house was draughty in winter.
Despite arriving late and without warning, Chatoyant and Glisten had been given rooms befitting their station at the top of the Eyrie. Eff was good at organising a noble household into correct rankings, which was ironic considering all her years of radical pamphleteering.
Chatoyant’s room was hung in elegant green silk, as luminous as cat’s eyes and as delicate as their paws. The hangings felt lovely, but I only stroked them for a minute before I set to searching the room. I quickly found her small treasure chest. Unfortunately it was locked with a fiendish little mage-proof lock. Nothing could actually keep a mage out of your things, but if the chest was not opened using the correct combination, a mage-proof lock leaked a sticky coloured powder that stained everything inside, so at least you knew when someone had been prying. No chance of getting at Toy’s valuables discreetly, but in the hopes she hadn’t put Klea’s letter in her treasure chest, I began searching the rest of the room.
I was keeping an ear open for approaching footsteps, but I heard nothing until suddenly Great Uncle Nate’s snores became louder. I looked up from where I was crouched on the floor, my hand feeling under Chatoyant’s mattress. Hagen Stellason, the supposed secretary, stood in the doorway smiling at me. Then he closed the door between us and left me to it.
In a fright, I rushed out into the hallway.
“What are you—?” I cried, seizing his arm.
He turned and clapped his hand over my mouth.
“Shhh, you’ll get yourself caught,” he hissed.
I glared at him and pulled away the hand.
“You should show more respect to one of the lineage,” I muttered. “What are you doing here?”
He sighed. “The mages asked me to keep watch on their possessions while they were here. There’s been pilfering in other places. I heard a noise and came up to check.”
I found that very hard to believe. The mages would never have been so easy-going about pilfering. They’d have struck back so hard I would have heard of it even here.
“Is that what you were doing last night?” I hissed back at him.
His glance hardened. “Do you want me to tell your cousin you were searching her room?”
“I could tell Lord Impavidus about you in my Aunt’s room,” I said, feeling even as I said it that it was a weak threat.
To my surprise he grinned. “You’re a feisty one,” he said. “What if nobody told anybody anything? I promise you, I’m doing nothing that would harm the family and I’m doing it for a good reason.”
“Very well,” I said, trying to be dignified.
“Have you finished your search?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped. “I was simply straightening the bed.”
“Of course you were, O woman of the lineage. I’m sure you make all our beds.” Despite myself, I liked the teasing look in his eyes. “Have you finished your ‘tidying’?” he continued. “I could keep watch for you while you finish. We mundanes should try to help each other.”
“Thank you, I’m fine.”
He took my hand and kissed it. Something about that kiss, or maybe it was the way he looked up at me over my hand, went right to my belly and made me tingle. Impressive.
“Go back and tidy up and I’ll keep watch.”
I almost went. Then I turned and said, “I don’t think I will.”
“What? Don’t trust me?” He smiled. “Very good. You’ll go far.”
He stepped around me, opened the door of Chatoyant’s room and looked inside.
“A nice neat search. Very good for a beginner.”
He pulled the door closed again and leaned against it.
“How are you planning to spend the rest of this Blessing day? Might I be a part of it?” he said softly.
His gall was arousing. I could almost picture us...
I shook myself.
“As if anyone would believe an ambitious man like yourself would even look twice at me,” I sneered, more strongly than I intended.
“That’s a sad way of thinking,” he said. He came up close and his fingertips rested gently on the edge of the door by my cheek. “You’re extremely lovely. The man who finds himself in your bed...”
At that moment Katti let out an ear-splitting yowl of anger and fear inside my head.
“Katti!” I cried. I’d never heard her thoughts from such a distance before. I ran headlong down the corridor and leapt down the Eyrie stairs two at a time.
There were no servants in the great hall to see me. I found them all gathered in the corridor around the door of my room.
Katti was crouched on my bed, tail lashing, hissing at anyone who approached. Her ear was bleeding and so was her leg. Her mind was full of a huge evil yellow-fanged monster that had to be slashed, and slashed good.