He was so angry.
Tears blurred my vision, but I blinked them away. “I am helpful. I’m going to help you get out of here.”
For a second, I thought he’d jump on me. Thought he’d give into the violent urges I could see behind his eyes, take a swipe at me with his huge paw, or snap at me again with his sharp teeth. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned his back on me. He walked away.
He dismissed me.
Defiance rose inside me. No. No, he was wrong. I was helpful. The pale lady had told me so. I’d helped the witch lots of times.
I narrowed my eyes. And I would help Bas too. Whether he liked it or not.
My claws dug into the ground as I tensed my body, coiled my energy until every muscle was a loaded spring. Without a sound, I leapt forward, hitting the ground at a dead run. Bas didn’t hear me coming, and this time when I dug my claws into his bandages, I put a paw on either side of his neck, with my bottom legs digging into his back bandages for purchase.
Bas snarled in fury and spun around, but it was too late. I had kitten-sharp claws, and he was covered in convenient bandages—as well as skin the texture of beef jerky. I let him try to dislodge me for a minute or two, then raised my voice.
“The longer you take to listen to me, the more lives that wizard is going to burn through.”
Bas snapped his jaws closed, dragging his breath over his teeth in a sound that made my fur stand on end. I ignored him, focusing instead on scanning the cliff face on the other side of the lake. Cliffs usually meant caves. And caves meant shadows.
I stared grimly at the rock as I dug my claws in deeper, tugging at Bas until he broke into a run. I used my claws on either side of his neck to guide him toward the cliff face, searching for the cave I needed to get us out of here.
I was helpful. And I would prove it.
The pale lady had showed me the path through the darkness. Showed me the shadowy plane with all its twisting roads. Sound traveled differently here, she’d said. It echoed and moved. Everything said in the shadows got back to her. The pale lady had spoken cat—with the aid of magic—and I remembered every word.
Bas snarled and tried to buck me off when we entered the cave, but I wasn’t so easy to lose. The witch couldn’t hide from me, and Bas couldn’t shake me off. I was helpful.
The shadows closed around us, and I blinked my eyes, seeing the shadow plane as the pale lady had taught me. And this time, I didn’t just look for the path that led back to the bedroom and the human wizard. This time, I spoke.
I called into the shadows, giving my voice the feline lilt that no other living creature could manage. I screamed a battle cry. I called for aid. Called those I knew would come. They would come because we’d been family. Taken in by the same kind woman. The one who’d eventually delivered me to the witch.
As the pale lady had told her to do.
I didn’t wait for them, just trusted they would come. Trusted they would follow my voice into the shadows. The pale lady would hear. She would open the path for them. I believed.
The pale lady had said she was helpful too.
The closet in the wizard’s room might have been enchanted, but the closet of the room next to that one was full of mundane darkness. And Bas was angry enough that the flimsy sliding door didn’t stand a chance. He hit the door like a battering ram, barely slowing enough to get his bearings before tearing out the door and around the corner into the room with the wizard, the desk, and the enchanted closet.
The human wizard gaped at us as we burst into the room through the same door we’d entered the first time. “You,” he spat at Bas. “How did you get back here?”
Bas ground his teeth, resisting the urge to try and speak—refusing to give the wizard the satisfaction.
So, I answered for him.
I leapt onto Bas’s head and hissed.
Another hiss sounded behind me. Then another. Then a pair.
I purred.
They had come.
The wizard took a hesitant step back as my allies filed in behind me. To my right appeared a pair of Siamese cats with beautiful blue eyes, pale bodies, and dark chocolate brown coloring in their ears, tails, and legs. They stepped forward in tandem, their eyes trained on the amulet around the wizard’s neck. Faconi shifted back and forth, but the two sets of blue eyes followed the amulet with unerring focus.
To my left, a tortoise shell cat paced forward until he was level with me, then stopped and stood with his head cocked to the side. He stared at the wizard for a moment before moving three inches to the left. Then he sat. Waiting.
A rough meow that was more like a cough came from farther back, announcing the arrival of my most intimidating ally yet—a huge alley cat with a knot at the end of her tail so big it looked like a mace with a curved handle. Most of her ears were missing, and one fang stuck out of her mouth even when it was closed. She had bald patches here and there on her body where the flesh was too thick with scars for the fur to grow back, and her face bulged on the left side as if the bones of her face had been broken and hadn’t healed properly. She looked hungry.
“Get the amulet,” I told my fellow felines. “He stole it from a man who cares for our kind.”
A group hiss rose from my brethren. The wizard ignored us, focusing on Bas.
“Go back to your master, and I will let you live. You and your minions.”
Every cat in the room stiffened.
It didn’t take an understanding of human speech to recognize we’d been insulted. The way the wizard had curled his lip when he looked at me and my brethren and used the tone the pixie used when she looked at a plate of steamed vegetables said it all.
No doubt as outraged as we were by the grave insult his feline allies had been paid, Bas leapt for the wizard with his mouth open, sharp teeth bared, his muscles underneath my paws tightening as he fired himself like a mummified rocket. Faconi tightened his grip on his staff and swung it at Bas like a club. The blow struck Bas’s jaw, and one of his teeth chipped off and flew to the side, skittering over the floor. Bas crashed to the rug just short of the wizard, and I leapt off to avoid being crushed as he threw himself into the roll and came up on his feet again.
I landed in the exact spot the tortoise shell cat had been standing before he’d moved.
Faconi was about to find out that none of us were as ordinary as we looked.
The alley cat leapt at Faconi, her jaws closing around the staff before the human could wind back for a second strike. The ball-tailed feline looked like a thirty pound cat, but she had the weight and the strength of an animal ten times her size. Which Faconi discovered when he tried to raise the staff and shake her off, only to narrowly escape dislocating his shoulder for his efforts. He released the staff with a confused grunt.
“Release me.” Rayaan’s raspy voice slithered from between the pages of the book. “I will help you. I am worth more than just my knowledge and memories. My power could be at your service.”
“No!” Faconi snapped.
The Siamese crept toward the human, parting to flank him where he stood just in front of the desk. A paw touched my shoulder, and I turned to see the tortoise shell cat gesture for me to follow him. I did as he beckoned, sitting in a spot he indicated on the corner of the bed. The bed sat perpendicular to the desk, and my new position put me closer to the wizard than I would have liked, but I’d heard stories of the tortoise shell cat’s abilities. His gift of future-sight. Nothing grand, but just enough that if he told you where to be—or not be—it was best to listen.