Chapter 19
Unfortunately, my plan to sort through Havelock’s daunting collection of Artefacts was forestalled the following morning, as we were forced to deal with something far more important than magic: one of the cats had fallen ill.
Additionally, someone had left a cardboard box on our doorstep containing three white kittens.
When I opened the flaps I found them curled up together in one shivering lump of fur.
“Let’s take them to the place on Rue Sainte-Sophie,” I told Mina. “Just feel their fur—they’re like rabbits. Mark my words, someone will want to adopt the lot, and the new cages are being delivered today. We’d best start filling them with cats.”
“I’ll take the tram over there now,” Mina said, grabbing the key. “Then I’ll check the ones in Parc Le Séraphin—some of them always survive the winter, and this could be our chance to put an end to at least one colony.”
I nodded. I knew the colony she meant; there were a half dozen scattered throughout the city, but the cats in Le Séraphin were mostly friendly, likely because they were used to being hand-fed by people in the neighbouring apartments.
She hefted the box, lined with three of our warmest scarves, black as ink, which I hoped would make the kittens’ wintry fur all the more striking.
The ill cat was Thoreau, to my dismay. I’d found him huddled in his bed in a miserable ball that morning, and he showed no interest in his breakfast. Fortunately, the vet arrived less than an hour after I sent the telegram.
“Poor dear,” she said, scratching his tufted grey ears. Dr. Noémie Para was a cheerful, unassailably calm woman in her fifties. Perhaps the most experienced veterinarian in the city, she had treated every cat we’d fostered, always at reduced rates.
“I don’t hear anything wrong with his heart,” she said, putting her stethoscope back in her bag, “and his temperature’s normal. Has he been under any stress recently?”
I silently cursed Havelock, thinking of the relocation spell. “We had to—move his cage,” I said, which likely represented the greatest understatement I would ever utter.
“That might do it,” she said sympathetically. “The old-timers are often upset by change. Just don’t move him again.”
“I won’t,” I said grimly.
We didn’t have any visitors for the first half of the morning, affording me plenty of time to sit with Thoreau by the oven, which was making the place smell of chocolate that day.
I was hungry enough that I couldn’t stop myself from poking my head in to check that there weren’t actually any pastries inside it.
Ambulance ensured I would not be oppressed by the quiet, keeping up a steady stream of yowls as I tended to Thoreau.
Eventually I had to let him out of his cage, though I knew His Majesty was prowling about, looking for a distraction.
Sure enough, the enormous cat came stalking over and leapt on Ambulance without provocation, clawing at him viciously.
I leapt to my feet to break up the scuffle, but in the same moment, Banshee came ambling into the fray.
Oblivious to danger as always, she wandered past the snarling His Majesty and seated herself beside Ambulance, who was huddled close to the floor, having managed to break free of the larger cat.
His Majesty was clearly not done with him, but Banshee took no heed, and began to wash Ambulance’s orange head.
I could see His Majesty considering his next move.
He would have to attack the oblivious Banshee to get to Ambulance, but His Majesty knew there would be no fun in this, for Banshee was as impervious to bullying as she was to common sense.
She would only stare at him uncomprehendingly before trying to lick his face.
After a fraught moment, His Majesty stalked away in disgust, off to seek his amusement elsewhere.
I gave a huff of laughter. After checking that Ambulance was all right, I gave Banshee a handful of her favourite treats. There had been times—few in number, mind—when I’d wondered if the tabby wasn’t quite so senseless as she appeared.
After an hour or so of being doted on, Thoreau began to show signs of improvement, and even ate a little of his breakfast. I had wondered if Havelock might make an appearance, now that he had no need to hide from me, but he did not, and I heard no noise from below—perhaps he’d bled out after all.
Serves him right, I told myself, even as another part of me debated how long I should wait before checking on him.
I still couldn’t work out why I was so concerned.
I assumed it was because I’d seen him at his most vulnerable, and cared for him, and thus some part of me had—ridiculously—filed him into the same category as the cats.
But I had also established that his irritating sarcasm was a mask for some fundamental awkwardness that was entirely incompatible with my prior impression of him.
I was beginning to wonder if the apocalypse hadn’t been Valérie’s doing, which she’d pinned somehow on Havelock.
Had that been the reason brother and sister had originally fallen out?
And what about Valérie? If Havelock was not bereft of kindness, was she?
Could she be made to see the error of her ways?
I was mulling all this over when a tall man bustled in, shaking snow off his coat.
“Rémy,” I said, recognizing the owner of the bakery down the street, from which élise was always buying bagels. I set down the cup of coffee I had been nursing. “How are you?”
“Agnes,” he said warmly, greeting me with cheek kisses.
Rémy was a well-dressed man in his fifties with close-cropped greying hair and a smattering of freckles across his brown skin.
He ran the bakery with his husband, Oliver, who handled most of the day-to-day baking, while Rémy oversaw the finances.
“Well, what’s all this?” he said, putting a hand playfully on his hip as he surveyed the shelter. “I hear you’re selling enchanted cats. Not getting into the Artefact trade, are you? Seems a tad inhumane.”
I choked on my coffee. “Enchanted cats?”
“That’s the word on the street. One of our regulars this morning was claiming you sold him a cat that cured his insomnia. Slept like the dead last night, apparently, for the first time in years.”
“Who was this?”
Rémy shrugged. “I don’t actually know his name. Older fellow, expensive briefcase. Between you and me, I think he’s just been listening to the rumours.”
I stilled. “What rumours?”
He gave me a puzzled smile. “You haven’t heard?
It seems you’ve been entertaining some odd characters—very, well, magician-like characters.
And the neighbours have been hearing mysterious noises in the night.
Funnily enough, there were similar rumours about Samara—she ran that scarf shop that was here before. ”
I let out a groan, leaning over the counter to press my hands into my face. This was just what I needed—the police would never leave us alone now! “How widespread are these rumours, Rémy?”
He laughed. “Oh, Agnes—don’t worry about it. Idle gossip will not harm you or the cats—it might even bring in a few gawkers. Speaking of the cats, Oliver’s won me over at last—we’d like to take her.”
“Really?” My spirits lifted a little. “That’s wonderful—let’s get you started on the paperwork. As I said before, I think Biscuit will make an excellent shop cat; her disposition is very genial.”
“Well, with that name, how could we say no? It’s as if she were meant for us. And Oliver was so taken with her. I’m planning to surprise him.”
As we were speaking, a boxy ambulance sped by the shop, siren blaring, nearly colliding with a horse-drawn cart plodding in the opposite direction.
“That’s the second one this morning,” I said.
“Yes,” Rémy said, shaking his head. “It’s those wretched magicians again. The ones who did a number on the train station—I heard it on the radio this morning. Absolutely no class. Imagine travelling to a foreign city just to cause chaos. Our magicians would never be so uncouth.”
I made a noncommittal noise. While most feared magicians, not everyone reviled them.
There were plenty who, like Rémy, appreciated living in a city with a reputation for magic.
Not in a way that implied affection, but in the manner of those who took pride in living in nonchalant proximity to dangerous animals.
He went to the window. “You can see the smoke from here.”
I peered out, then gasped. I stepped outside for a better look, bracing myself against the cold. A narrow column of smoke rose in the distance above the gabled roofs and church steeples.
“What happened?” I said, shivering.
“Apparently three of the louts visited Miette last night,” he said, naming one of the city’s most popular cafés.
“They performed a variety of tricks to entertain their table neighbours, though mostly it was to entertain themselves. They would not stop when asked, and refused to be thrown out; eventually one of their displays overturned a candle, which caught on a tablecloth. Rather than put it out, they worked the fire into their little performance, making it dance and hop about. You can imagine the rest. They lost control and the building went up. The fire department thought they’d doused it last night, but either they were in error or there was something strange about that fire, for it awoke again this morning and spread to the chocolatier’s next door. ”
I was shivering violently at this point, and we hurried back inside, but the cold lingered on my skin. It was all too close to what I’d experienced at the old shelter. “I expect the magicians weren’t caught,” I said bitterly.
Rémy shook his head. “Someone snapped a photo of them, though—it was in the papers.”
“Small good it will do.” It was difficult enough to jail magicians who acted alone, let alone those who travelled in gangs and considered themselves apprentices of someone as powerful as Valérie.
We wrapped up the paperwork, and though I was happy to see Rémy out the door with Biscuit, I was too distracted for the pleasure to linger.
The frigid morning became a cold afternoon; even the blue sky was frosted with ice crystals, and a winter wind tumbled down the street, rattling the windows and snatching up handfuls of loose snow.
Several of the cages needed cleaning, so I got out the bucket and soap and rolled up my sleeves, though I found myself pausing frequently to watch as people passing the windows tugged their scarves tighter or blew into their hands.
I should have been cheered by the additional shelter and the expanded capacity it gave us, but I found myself struck by a wave of pessimism, as if having my dream come to life had awakened me to its shortfalls.
It was not only the danger presented by Valérie; one additional shelter was not going to solve the problem that left me sleepless on winter nights—that is, the sheer number of cats still haunting the streets, who would not be there to watch the snows retreat from the city.
I scrubbed harder, and through my gloom, a plan began to take shape in my mind, like fire slowly catching in a dark hearth.