Chapter 28
I slept little the next few days, and poorly.
I also spent far too much of my time crying.
While I kept the shelter open and my checklists up-to-date, because I would not fail the cats, no matter what calamity had befallen me, I kept having to remove myself to the back room so as not to upset our visitors with my tears.
People continued to pass through our doors in large numbers, even if it was mostly to gawk at the epicentre of the greatest magical drama the city had seen in years.
élise did what she could to comfort me. “Surely she’ll return him,” she said. “Once she realizes what he is, and how little Havelock cares for him. No doubt that’s why she took him in the first place.”
This last I believed, despite being unable to conceive of a more unlikely hostage than His Majesty, nor one less desirable for Havelock to ransom.
Valérie had taken him out of desperation—her plan of breaking into Havelock’s workshop having gone awry, she had stolen what she could.
Perhaps she’d taken the violence of His Majesty’s attack as evidence of some mutual regard with Havelock, rather than merely the manifestation of the cat’s diabolical nature.
élise’s voice grew quiet, and she touched my arm. “You don’t know that he isn’t still alive.”
I allowed her to pull me into her shoulder, my tears falling once more. Of course it wasn’t just that keeping me from sleep. His Majesty had been Robin’s cat—he’d never truly been mine. And I’d lost him.
I’d never realized before how entangled my feelings for His Majesty were with my feelings for Robin, the invisible webwork holding them together.
I will not say that I felt as if I’d lost Robin all over again, because nothing could be so destructive as that, but certainly it was as if the half-healed wound had been pierced, and the pain was exquisite.
Havelock repaired the shelter within an hour of Valérie’s attack, and then he vanished through another door, this one made of glittering bronze, which he summoned from the blizzard that had descended upon the city.
But wherever Valérie had gone, Havelock could not track her, and he eventually returned to his workshop to sulk, or perhaps to scheme—I was too distraught to concern myself with him.
I was also disagreeably busy. Not only did we have to endure endless questions from the public, but two police officers I did not recognize turned up on our doorstep not long after Havelock completed his repairs.
I would not have thought that any explanation could have appeased them, but I should have known better than to underestimate élise.
She invited the police in with a desperate warmth, as if nothing could have come as a greater relief than their presence.
Valérie’s interest in our shelter—which naturally dozens of witnesses had confirmed, even if none had overheard our conversation—she blamed on the baker who had fled some months ago, who, élise had heard, had been given to welcoming strange visitors, some of whom continued to turn up on our doorstep regularly, to much mutual confusion.
Valérie had asked for the baker by name, élise claimed, and refused to believe he was no longer in residence.
Somehow—the logic escaped me, but élise was nothing if not a consummate storyteller, and made even leaps of logic perfectly convincing—she made clear her suspicions that the baker may have been Havelock Renard in disguise.
élise furthermore insisted that the police search the shop from top to bottom to clear it of any hazardous Artefacts this supposed baker may have left behind.
Naturally I quailed at this, and made to argue with her, but élise only shot me one of her brief, murderous looks, and I fell silent.
They marched in, their gruffness markedly reduced after listening to élise’s wide-eyed fabrication, one of them even pausing to compliment our cats. We offered them almond croissants from the batch I’d rescued from the oven the previous night, and they accepted with pleasure.
Naturally they found the trapdoor, and I watched them descend the stairs in a kind of frozen panic, certain that this was the end of everything I had worked for.
But it was gone. The workshop, the Artefacts—everything.
The officers came marching back upstairs looking perfectly unperturbed, one brushing a stray cobweb from her hair.
I stared through the open trapdoor, which revealed a cellar barely high enough to stand in, containing mostly empty shelves, two broken chairs, and a few half-empty bags of flour.
“How did you know?” I murmured to élise.
She shook her head. “I didn’t. It was a gamble. But given the number of ridiculous enchantments Havelock has placed on this building, I guessed he might have come up with one to pull the wool over the eyes of the police.”
I hadn’t expected the officers to believe us and go away, particularly given the rumours floating around about our shelter, but go away they did, though their belief did not seem absolute—they spent considerable time muttering to each other out of earshot.
Initially I had wondered why Laurent had not been part of the investigation, but as the days passed I forgot all about him—until he sent a telegram reminding me of our festival date, together with a meeting place and time.
“I can’t,” I said to élise, showing her the telegram. “I can’t imagine dudding up and going out, not with everything that’s happened. I will have to cancel.”
She grimaced. “I won’t try to force you, dear.
But what will he think? Can we afford to increase his suspicions even further?
Also, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a way to get Laurent on our side.
Would he help us, if he knew all? Yes, he’s with the law, but he’s also a man, and he obviously cares for you. ”
I had no answer to this, because the possibility hadn’t occurred to me. We hadn’t yet opened the shelter for the day, and Gabriel had accompanied élise so that we could all breakfast together. Despite her admonishing him for lingering, I could see that his presence fortified her.
He shook his head slightly, looking even more dubious than I felt.
“I wouldn’t advise that, my love,” he said.
“The referendum was a strong win for the ‘yes’ side. And I can tell you that city council is very close to passing the bylaw—it could happen as soon as next week. When it comes to the police, I advise you to tread very, very carefully.”
I put down my forkful of scrambled egg, no longer hungry.
Given the tumult of my present situation, I’d paid little heed to the referendum, which had asked the city’s inhabitants if we wished to approve sweeping new powers for the police to investigate the crimes of magicians, including by searching businesses and homes suspected of Artefact trafficking without warning and with the aid of magic, which would certainly reveal at least the presence of Havelock’s wards, and likely his workshop too.
It had been introduced in response to the disorder wrought by magicians, particularly since the arrival of Valérie and her apprentices.
“That bylaw isn’t even legal,” élise said, spearing a pancake.
“The courts will overturn it, referendum or no. Allowing the police to raid any business they feel like, just because they catch a whiff of magic—it’s too much power, and it will be abused, mark my words.
I can’t believe we’re even considering it. ”
“There’s some debate about what the courts will think,” Gabriel said. “Either way, the idea is popular. People want something to be done to stop these magicians from running amok. Yes, the legislation may be overturned eventually, but in the interim, the shelter will be at risk.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “You’re right. I must go, mustn’t I? But surely Laurent can’t believe we’re trafficking Artefacts, or mixed up with Havelock in any way, otherwise he wouldn’t ask me to step out with him.”
“I think that’s precisely what he would do—it’s what I’d do, if I were him,” Gabriel said.
Given his affability, many assumed there was an innocence to Gabriel that did not exist. He had a core of pure cunning that one only saw when his guard was down, as it was now.
“To see if you’ll come to trust him enough to let the truth slip out.
The police are certain Renard is in the city now—and make no mistake, they’re determined to catch him, dangerous as that may prove. ”
élise pressed my hand, and we lapsed into a gloomy silence until Ambulance’s aggressive purring became too great to ignore, and I went to his cage to rub his head.
It was his latest tactic for soliciting affection, as he’d learned at last that hysterical yowls were more likely to earn him a scolding.
Only a few of our original cats remained, mostly the more difficult cases, but we’d been regularly resupplied by Pierre and by our volunteers, who had also grown in number and had been able to expand their search area to the outskirts of the city.
At present, we had eighteen cats on offer between both locations, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if half were snapped up by closing.
A smile pulled at my mouth. Under different circumstances, I would have been beside myself with glee—we had rescued and found good homes for more cats in a month than we had in the last two years.
Our donations had more than tripled, money we’d used to have several of the most ambitious ferals at the largest cat colony neutered.
And yet, if Les Amis des Chats was shut down, all of our hard-won gains would be erased.
I noticed that Banshee was napping in the oven yet again, and I shooed her out, ignoring her voiceless protests—since learning of the oven’s enchantment, I had been trying to dissuade the cat from her new favourite bed. What if the thing decided to make pastry when she was inside?
I felt a strange urge to go and hide in the basement with Havelock, although this should have seemed the furthest thing from a place of refuge.
Since I had kissed him, we had barely spoken, nor had he seemed to have any interest in addressing the matter.
I hadn’t the slightest idea what was going through his mind in the wake of Valérie’s attack.
But what else could I expect from Havelock Renard?