Chapter 2 #2
Another chime. Then another. Then a cascade.
In the dining room, the Copy Reveal Device on the sideboard was lighting up like a lantern as witches and warlocks across the world felt their cats' confidentiality come unmoored all over again.
Hildegard Voss screaming from the glass.
Marco of Tuscany shouting. A warlock from Marseille sobbing.
Eight faces cycling in the mirror and more pushing through.
Every witch who had ever trusted a familiar to hold a private thing was suddenly standing in her own kitchen or her own shop or her own bed knowing that private thing was being told aloud by someone who loved her but could not stop.
The parlor cats wailed. The calico keened. The sisters from Marseille poured out the multiple-husband situation in French. Pepper, who had meant to keep her mouth shut on principle, began to weep and spill at the same time.
"Mom…" Honey said. She had never seen anything like this. Her skin was crawling. "Mom, what…"
"I know."
"What do we…"
"I don't know, sweetheart."
In the dining room, Edgar searched the mirror.
Faces stacked on faces, witches he had known for decades weeping into their hands, an entire world of bonded people shouting over each other on the other side of the world.
He tried to quiet them with the calm voice that had worked all his professional life, and his calm did nothing.
The magic of the room was running over, and nothing was going to slow it.
Edgar Hadwin was not one to raise his voice.
He hadn't done it in a long time. But he had no choice.
The house was coming apart at its seams between the cats and the callers.
His daughter was frightened, and his wife was gray-faced in the wing chair, and their friends from all over the world were shrieking in a mirror six feet from his hands.
"STOP." Edgar yelled. It was not a shout. It was a warlock's voice, the full force of him, and the lavender of him flared up his forearms and leapt out through the parlor and the hall and the front door in a wash of pale purple that rode the air like weather.
Every cat in the house stopped mid-word. Every face in the Copy Reveal Device froze with its mouth hanging open. The silence that followed was enormous.
Rhoda looked at her husband from across the way. Her mouth had opened a little.
Edgar set both palms on the sideboard, and spoke into the glass. "My friends," he said. "Your familiars are safe. We are working hard to sort this out. Please. Stay where you are."
The faces in the mirror nodded, one at a time, like children nodding at a grown-up who had finally gotten their attention. The glass dimmed. The chiming did not start again.
Edgar exhaled. His shoulders dropped. He turned back toward the parlor.
Into the absolute silence of the house came a knock. Three polite taps on the front door. Nobody had heard anyone come up the drive. There had been no glow on the porch of a transport arriving, no footsteps on the boards. There was simply a knock, cordial and unhurried.
Rhoda rose from the wing chair, setting the old book on the seat in her place.
She had not slept properly in days. She had just read a thing aloud that she had not meant to read aloud to anyone ever.
And now somebody was knocking at her door at a perfectly civilized hour in the middle of the worst working night of her life.
She crossed the parlor, past Honey and past Roam, past the hushed cats, and into the front hall, and she opened the door with one hand on the frame to steady herself.
A man stood on the porch. He was tall and he was old, warlock old, which is to say, he was elegant.
His hair had gone white but the cut was still sharp, swept back from a high forehead.
He wore a traveling coat of navy wool, the kind Rhoda's people wore in the mountains, and he carried a leather case in one hand.
His eyes were silver and tired. His smile, when he saw her, was slow and warm and full of a very old friendship.
"Rhoda," he said.
She heard herself breathe out. "Lazlo." Relief rushed out of her in a smile.
She stepped out onto the porch and put her arms around him.
He hugged her back with the quiet strength of a much younger man.
Rhoda let her forehead rest against his shoulder for one beat.
The wool of his coat smelled like pipe smoke and a library and a country she had not been to in a long time.
Thank Goddess, she thought. Thank Goddess he's here.
Then she straightened, kept an arm through his, and turned back into her own hall.
"Edgar," Rhoda called.
Edgar came quickly around the corner, his posture softening the moment he locked eyes with their old friend. He clasped Lazlo's hand in both of his own. "You didn't call."
"I didn't call," Lazlo agreed. "Three dozen cats vanished from the province in a single evening, Edgar. I don't call when the air tells me where to go. I come."
Edgar smiled and clapped Lazlo on the back. "Come in. Come in. Meet our girl."
Lazlo stepped further into FACTS & FIBS.
And at his side, taking two neat, elegant steps onto the parlor rug, came a cat.
She was long-haired and beautiful. Himalayan with a silver-cream coat, dark mask, blue-water eyes.
She did not look at any of the other cats when she came in.
She sat at Lazlo's heel and curled her tail around her paws and surveyed the parlor with polite disinterest.
"Oh Lazlo, we were so sorry to hear about Soot." Rhoda touched his arm. "What a fine familiar."
"Yes. I miss him. Thank you. But this is Duchess," Lazlo said.
"Duchess," Rhoda said warmly, and bent to touch the cat's head. "It's lovely to have you here, sweetheart. Make yourself at home."
"A pleasure," Duchess said. Her voice was silk, but she did not quite look at Rhoda.
Honey stood and crossed to the trio in the hall. Lazlo took her hand in both of his and smiled down at her.
"Honey Hadwin," he said. "I have heard so much. Welcome to the family, dear. Or rather. Welcome me to yours. I've known your parents longer than you have been alive."
"Hi, sir," Honey said.
"Oh, none of that. Lazlo, if you please."
"Lazlo," Honey agreed.
"And this must be the young man." Lazlo turned to Roam. "The Panther Shifter. I've read the reports."
"Roam O'Reilly, sir." Roam gave Lazlo the once over with his normal Panther Shifter curiosity.
"Very good." Lazlo turned back to Rhoda. "Now. What on Goddess's earth do we have on our hands."
"Come sit," Rhoda said. "I'll show you."
She led him back to her wing chair where the bayou book still waited. Honey moved to follow too, and that was when, down near the wood basket by the fireplace, Duchess spoke quietly enough that the grown-ups across the room did not hear.
Honey heard.
The calico had lifted her head when Duchess walked by. She was a soft brown-and-cream thing and her eyes were still wet from her fertilizer spill and her fur was rumpled from the basket. She looked up at Duchess with the open face of a cat in distress.
And Duchess, in a small, sweet mocking baby voice, leaned down over the basket and cooed, "Oh, look at this wittle scared kitty. Did oo lose oo's mommy? Did oo lose oo's daddy? Poor wittle teeny-tiny baby."
And then she laughed. A soft, silky, private laugh. And walked on.
The calico sat up. Her mouth opened. "My witch has been letting her boys grow that pumpkin patch with stolen fertilizer FROM THE DOWN-THE-ROAD WIDOW WHO LOST HER HUSBAND LAST YEAR."
From the rug, a tabby sat bolt upright and spoke. "My witch has three husbands, and they do not know about each other."
Lady Grey's head whipped around. "Hildegard is NOT wearing her own teeth."
The Persian, who had been dignified until this moment, howled out a long and bitter aria about her warlock's financial troubles.
The second wave rose. Lazlo raised one eyebrow. "My word," he said.
Rhoda was already moving. A hand going up to quiet the nearest cat. Another to signal Edgar. Her eyes already back on the bayou book.
"Come, Lazlo," she said. "I will tell you everything. Come with me."
"Of course." His hand brushed the inside of his coat. Dropped again.
They crossed the house together to the little room off the pantry, Rhoda's study, with its one window and its shelf of strange books and its quiet.
Honey watched her mother tuck the bayou book under her arm as they walked, and Lazlo rest a steady palm on Rhoda's shoulder, the touch of an old friend when his friend was bearing a hard thing. The study door closed behind them.
Honey bent down again to peer behind the bookcase, the old black tom hadn't moved. His copper eyes stared through the gap at the room in chaos. He did not speak. The wave of spilling cats washed around him like water around a stone.