Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
EPILOGUE
Raves for Reserved for the Cat:
“The fifth in the series involving the mysterious Elemental Masters, this story of a resourceful young dancer also delivers a new version of a classic fairy tale. Richly detailed historic backgrounds add flavor and richness to an already strong series that belongs in most fantasy collections. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“The Paris of Degas, turn-of-the-century Blackpool, and the desperation of young girls without family or other protection come to life in a story that should interest a broad readership.”
—Booklist
“This most recent entry in Lackey’s series is a nicely paced, pleasant read. Nina is a sympathetic protagonist readers will root for, and the story holds together well.”
—Romantic Times
“A fantastic cat-and-mouse game among a shape-changing troll, Elemental Masters and a gifted dancer in Victorian England makes Lackey’s latest Elemental Masters installment a charmer. This is Lackey at her best, mixing whimsy and magic with a fast-paced plot.”
—Publishers Weekly
RESERVED
FOR THE
CAT
NOVELS BY MERCEDES LACKEY
available from DAW Books:
THE HERALDS OF
VALDEMAR
ARROWS OF THE QUEEN
ARROW’S FLIGHT
ARROW’S FALL
THE LAST HERALD-MAGE
MAGIC’S PAWN
MAGIC’S PROMISE
MAGIC’S PRICE
THE MAGE WINDS
WINDS OF FATE
WINDS OF CHANGE
WINDS OF FURY
THE MAGE STORMS
STORM WARNING
STORM RISING
STORM BREAKING
VOWS AND HONOR
THE OATHBOUND
OATHBREAKERS
OATHBLOOD
THE COLLEGIUM
CHRONICLES
FOUNDATION
BY THE SWORD
BRIGHTLY BURNING
TAKE A THIEF
EXILE’S HONOR
EXILE’S VALOR
VALDEMAR
ANTHOLOGIES:
SWORD OF ICE
SUN IN GLORY
CROSSROADS
MOVING TARGETS
Written with LARRY DIXON:
THE MAGE WARS
THE BLACK GRYPHON
THE WHITE GRYPHON
THE SILVER GRYPHON
DARIAN’S TALE
OWLFLIGHT
OWLSIGHT
OWLKNIGHT
OTHER NOVELS:
THE BLACK SWAN
THE DRAGON JOUSTERS
JOUST
ALTA
SANCTUARY
AERIE
THE ELEMENTAL
MASTERS
THE SERPENT’S SHADOW
THE GATES OF SLEEP
PHOENIX AND ASHES
THE WIZARD OF LONDON
RESERVED FOR THE CAT
And don’t miss: THE VALDEMAR COMPANION Edited by John Helfers and Denise Little
Copyright 2007 by Mercedes R. Lackey.
All rights reserved.
DAW Books Collectors No. 1417.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
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First Paperback Printing, October 2008
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
eISBN : 978-1-101-14373-5
S.A.
http://us.penguingroup.com
To the volunteers of the Emergency Animal
Rescue Service (EARS)
who are selflesslty going into disaster areas to
save our best friends.
http://www.uan.org
1
NINETTE Dupond lined the toes of her pointe shoes with lambswool carefully, making sure there were no little bits of grit or near-invisible lumps that would make themselves known in the middle of the performance. Then she took surgical tape and bound her toes, so that if the inevitable blisters did break and bleed, the blood wouldn’t seep through and stain the pink silk of the shoes. It did not do for a pretty little sylph to have bleeding feet. It spoiled the illusion.
She had already spent half an hour pounding on the toes of her shoes with a hammer to break up the glue just so. Old shoes for practice, new shoes for performance. It was a mantra, like so many other mantras of a ballet dancer. Ninette was only a sujet, a soloist, and a new-made one at that—one step up from the coryphées, and two from the quadrilles of the chorus, but not yet to the exalted status of the premier danseurs and as far from the etoiles as she was from the stars in the sky. Coryphées did not often have new shoes; one could see them backstage at rehearsal covering their old shoes with new silk, reblocking and reglueing the toes. A soloist, yes, as a soloist she got a pair of new shoes for every new production.
Ninette did not get the sort of pampering that the etoiles got. But as a soloist, she could, at last, do what she was here to do in the first place.
Not to become a star performer, oh no. Her goal was more oblique. To catch the eye of a rich old gentleman.
Her mother Marie Dupond had made no bones about it when she had enrolled her daughter in the ballet school of the Paris Opera. There were not many options open to a pretty little girl like Ninette, alone with her mother in Montmartre. She could become a washer-woman and starve, and possibly marry some poor workingman who would overlook the fact that she had no father, and bear a dozen children, bury most of them, and die young. She could work for the painters, as her mother did, and also starve. With them she would have no reputation, and go to bed with them because at least they had beds and food most of the time, and were always generous if improvident. She could simply become a whore, because no respectable man of any means would marry a girl with no father. Never mind that her mother had a marriage license and all; such things could be faked and when there was no live father and no grave—