“Well, what do you expect me to say?” she demanded.
He continued to stare at her, and she could tell just by the nature of the look what he was thinking. “Oh, all right,” she said. She sighed and turned back to the Gnomes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. I’m just frustrated by everything.”
And suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps the cat wouldn’t speak to her unless they were alone. Hadn’t that been the way things had worked last night? “Poggwydd, would you and Shoopdiesel wait for me over there by the trees?” She gestured toward where she wanted them to go. “Just for a few minutes.”
The G’home Gnomes trooped off obediently, and she knelt down in front of the cat rather like a humble supplicant. “Now will you speak to me? Please?”
“Since you ask so nicely,” said the cat, “I will do so. But not in front of anyone else. You would do well to remember that in the future. That way we won’t have to go through this charade again.”
“Believe me, I’ll remember.”
“Excellent. Now then, what is it that you want to talk about?”
She took a deep, steadying breath, submerging her lingering thoughts of strangling him. “Where is it that we’re going?”
He cocked his head. “That would be up to you. I promised to take you safely away from Elderew and your grandfather, and I did. I assumed you had a plan. If so, now is the time to implement it.”
“Well, I don’t have a plan!” she snapped. “I just need to go somewhere my father can’t find me while I think this thing through! Mostly, I need to get out of the open!”
She was frustrated and angry by now, suddenly afraid that Edgewood Dirk had taken her from the frying pan into the fire. Dirk, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned.
“Princess,” he said quietly. “While you are with me, no one can find you by use of magic. Because I am a fairy creature, I am able to shield those who travel with me. Your father can look for you until next winter, and he will not be able to find you while you are with me unless he comes looking for you himself.”
She stared at him. “Are you sure?”
“Cats are always sure. Look at me. I seem an ordinary cat at first glance—though of a particularly lovely sort. But I am much more. I am a Prism Cat, Princess. We possess special magic and are of a unique character.”
She frowned, not knowing whether he was serious or not. “I don’t think I understand. Can you explain?”
“I can, but I don’t choose to. Another time, perhaps. Now, back to the plan you don’t have. Where is it that you want to go?”
She sighed. “Somewhere I won’t be found, whether you are with me or not. How’s that?”
“Poorly conceived and expressed. You will be found quickly, if you are not with me. Which means, you must encourage me to come with you by showing some modicum of intelligence in making your choice of where you might go. Otherwise, I am wasting my time on you.”
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded indignantly. “Why do I have to encourage you?”
“Because, Princess, I am not here by chance and I am not bound to stay. I chose to help you in the same way I chose to help your father and your mother. But I need a reason to stay. Cats are curious creatures, you might have heard. But if we lose our curiosity about something, we tend to move on to other, more interesting things. At the moment, I am curious about you. But that could change if you don’t find ways to keep me interested.”
She sat back on her heels, seething. “I have to keep you interested in me?”
“You do. How do you plan to do that?”
“The pleasure of my company isn’t enough for you?”
“Please be serious.”
“I have other friends, you know,” she declared. “I have lots of other friends, and they would all be happy to help me.”
“You have two G’home Gnomes, and neither has the least idea what to do about your situation. You have no one else. You don’t even have your mud puppy anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
She stared at him in disbelief, and then after looking around quickly began calling for Haltwhistle. But the mud puppy did not appear.
“Where is he?” she demanded, a bit frantic.
“I sent him home to the Earth Mother,” said the cat. “It wasn’t difficult. You forgot to speak his name, so he would have left anyway.”
He was right. She hadn’t spoken Haltwhistle’s name at all yesterday, and she knew what that meant. If she failed to speak the mud puppy’s name at least once each day, he would leave and go back to wherever he had come from. She didn’t even know where that was because she had never thought about it. She had always been careful to say his name so that she wouldn’t have to worry. But last night, absorbed in her own troubles, she had forgotten.
“Well, I can find him again,” she declared bravely.
“Not before your father finds you.” Dirk’s remonstrance was maddeningly calm. “Now tell me where it is that you are going.”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably.
“Somewhere you won’t be found …,” he nudged.
“Why won’t you just stay with me? Then it wouldn’t matter where I went. Why won’t you do that?”
Edgewood Dirk licked his chops and closed his eyes. “I know myself too well to make a promise I cannot keep. My nature requires that I be interested in your actions. For that to happen, you have to make interesting choices. Now think. Where could you go that would interest me?”
She shook her head helplessly.
“Put it another way. Where is the last place your father would think to look? Because sooner or later he will give up on talismans and wizards and come looking for you himself.” Dirk paused. “Or perhaps he will send someone in his place, someone more effective at finding what is hidden. Perhaps he will send the Paladin looking for you.”
Mistaya froze. She knew about the Paladin, of course, even though she had never seen him. Everyone knew about the Paladin. They whispered of it when they thought she couldn’t hear, and Questor Thews had talked of it quite openly. They were all proud of its service to the throne, but they were also quite afraid of it: huge and dark of purpose, all armored and armed astride its charger. There had never been anything in memory that had been able to stand against the Paladin.
The last thing she wanted was something as implacable as that searching for her.
“Think, Princess,” the cat pressed. “Where will your father look last for you?”
She thought. The Deep Fell was a good choice because magic couldn’t penetrate its mists.
“The Deep Fell?”
“He will look there first.”
“The Fire Springs!”
“He will look there second. He knows how the dragon feels about you.”
“Not Rhyndweir? I won’t go there!”
The cat waited. Suddenly Mistaya realized what answer he was looking for. “No!” she said at once. The cat cocked his head. “No! Absolutely not!” she repeated.
“When you wish to hide, the best place is always the one those hunting you are certain you will avoid.” Dirk gave her one of those patented looks. “Isn’t it?”
“You want me to go to Libiris,” she declared.
“I don’t necessarily want you to go anywhere. It isn’t up to me. The decision is yours. Please make it. I grow bored with this.”
She saw the logic to Dirk’s reasoning. Her father would never think of looking for her at Libiris. He would look for her almost anywhere else before he looked for her there. But if she went, she was doing exactly what he had asked her to do in the first place. What sort of sense did that make?
“At least you would be going of your own choice and for your own reasons,” Edgewood Dirk offered, as if reading her mind.
She toughened her resolve so that she could accept what she now realized she must do. “All right, I will go to Libiris with Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel.” She paused. “Are you coming with us or not?”