Reserved for the Cat (27 page)

There was something going on that no one was talking to her about. Ninette could tell by the way that Arthur, Nigel and Jonathon would look at her when they thought she wouldn’t notice. And it wasn’t the “we are suspicious of you” look, it was the “we are really worried for you” look. That made her uneasy, and it made her even more uneasy to think that whatever was going on probably had a great deal to do with magic.

She really didn’t want to think about magic. Despite that there was a very helpful brownie living in her flat. Despite that Jonathon was producing all manner of magical—the real sort, not legerdemain—effects on stage. Despite the fact that she was half friend and half slave to a talking cat. She just would rather not think about magic at all. Rather than growing easier about it over time, knowing about it, knowing it was real, actually had the effect of unnerving her further. It was as if the solid and understandable world she knew was just a thin shell over something impossible and deadly, something she could not see nor guard against. All her childhood fears of night-hags coming through the windows and demons up through the floor
could be real.
And what was more,
she
had no way to protect herself against these creatures.

It was horrible, every moment of it, and so she thought about it as little as possible.

Ailse astonished her. The little Scots maid was as practical and level-headed as any Parisian landlady, and yet, she not only accepted all of this, she seemed to have no particular difficulty in doing so. She put out a little food and drink for the Brownie every night, and pretended to ignore the shy little creature whenever it happened to get caught in the open. Although she said she could not hear Thomas unless he spoke to her directly, she spoke to him at all times as if to a human being. And Wolf, whom she certainly
did
hear, she flirted with in a sort of dry, ironic manner. The practical and level-headed nature would seem to preclude any belief in magic. And yet . . .

All this glancing and looking worried had begun about a week ago. Ninette finally got fed up with it. It was making her more nervous than thinking about magic. So she decided to accost the one person of everyone in the group that was likeliest to give her the truth.

“Ailse,” she said that night, as the maid was combing out her hair, “why is everyone so on edge this past week? And why do they keep looking at me?”

The maid was silent for a good long time. Her hands kept moving automatically, but looking in the mirror, Ninette could see a very thoughtful expression on her face. “Well, ma’amselle,” the girl said thoughtfully, “They wouldna like my tellin’ ye, but I’ve been thinkin’ ’tis a sin and a shame to be keepin’ ye in the dark.”

“I knew it!” Ninette said fiercely. “I knew there was something amiss!”

“Well, it’s that summon tried to burn down the theater, d’ye ken? And they be thinkin’ it has sommat t’ do with you,” Ailse said reluctantly.

“Me?” Ninette’s mouth fell open with surprise, and she turned and took the brush from the maid’s unresisting hands. “How could that have anything to do with me?”

“Because, ma’amselle, they’re thinkin’ it’s all of a piece, that you have a strong enemy, a magician—well, not you, but your Papa that’s gone.” The girl nodded. “They’re thinking that the wreck of your friend’s wee boat, the laddie that tried to set fire to the theater, and the accidents are all at the hand of this magician, d’ye ken. Because they’re unnatural for certain sure. There’s thousands as wouldna believe that tale yon Harrigan told, of the hole in the street opening up under his feet, but
I
do, and more’s the point, so do Master Nigel and Master Jonathon.”

Ninette listened to this with astonishment, not the least because Nigel and Jonathon were hanging their theory on a slender thread indeed. That their entire “chain of events” began with a shipwreck that never really happened—

She bit her lip and was about to turn away from the maid, feeling a terrible load of guilt, when suddenly from the direction of the kitchen a commotion erupted that sounded like a cross between a cat-fight and a drunken brawl, punctuated by the crash of crockery.

Both young women hesitated a moment, then Ninette leapt up from her seat and ran for the door. She stopped long enough to grab a poker from the fireplace tools, and flung open the door of her bedroom.

It was easy to see the cause of the noise. Thomas and the brownie tumbled together on the floor, tangled up with something else, both of them fighting, both of them screeching. The brownie was shouting something incomprehensible, while Thomas sounded like a perfectly ordinary cat in a towering rage.

The thing they were fighting, strangely, made no noise at all.

Ailse went straight for the kitchen, as Ninette stood by looking for an opening in which she could bash the thing with her poker. She couldn’t tell what it was; it was a sickly, muddy-earth color, and had four limbs and a head, and that was all she could tell for sure. But as she set eyes on it, she felt a creeping horror, absolute revulsion, and her hands shook as she clutched the poker.

Ailse came back with a big iron pot and a lid. Before Ninette could ask what
that
was for, she shouted, “Stand aside! Cold iron!” and in a flash, both the cat and the brownie freed themselves.

Ninette, who had been waiting for just that, took the opportunity to bash it with her poker. Incredibly, she connected with it. Even more incredibly, she stunned it. And while it was stunned, Ailse clapped the pot down on top of it, then slid the lid underneath, and flipped pot and creature back over. Ninette slid her poker through the pot’s two handles, locking the lid down tight.

And a good thing she did so, too, for a moment later the creature recovered, and the pot began gyrating as it tried to batter its way out. Ninette, went quickly to the fireplace, then put one of the fire-dogs on top of it just to be sure; this stopped the pot from bounding, but a furious hammering came from inside as the creature beat on the lid and sides.

The brownie stood there, panting, staring at the pot. “Damme! Wha’ be that?” he asked, the first time that Ninette had ever heard him speak.

That
, Thomas replied grimly,
is an homunculus, and it means us no good, I promise you. Don’t, on your lives, let it out. I am going to get Nigel and Jonathon.

Limping slightly, the cat leaped out of the window, leaving the two young women and the brownie staring at one another.

“Well,” Ninette said, finally. “Do you think we ought to put more heavy things on top of the pot?”

“I’m thinkin’ it wouldna hurt,” Ailse said, and went in search of something heavier than a fire-dog.

An hour later, Ninette sat on the bed in her room, seething. It was quite bad enough that Nigel, Arthur, Jonathon
and
Wolf had all come rushing up the stairs to her flat, acting as if she and Ailse didn’t have the sense the Lord gave a goose, but it was worse that they all but shoved her maid and herself into this room and barred the door with a chair to keep them in!

Ailse sat primly in the chair staring a hole in the door. When she glanced over at Ninette and saw that the dancer was looking at her, she grimaced.

“You are thinking,” Ninette said, and marveled a little at how firm her own grasp of English had become. Then she shivered. That was magic again. Creeping into her life, little by little. Making such tiny, helpful changes—until the moment when some shapeless thing, some awful monster that was terrible all out of proportion to its size, got into your own flat and—

And what? Why was it here? Preying on the Brownie? She didn’t think so. Something told her it had come for
her.
Thomas had said it meant them no good, and she could well believe it. Had it come on its own? Had it been sent? If it had been sent, who had sent it?

Was this somehow tied to the person who had tried to set fire to the theater?

“I am thinkin’ ma’amselle, but ’tisna my place t’say—” Ailse said with great reluctance.

She grimaced. “Oh please do speak your mind. I think it will be the twin of my own thoughts.”

Ailse looked at the door again. “Men,” she said, slowly, and with great deliberation. “Now an’ then, they be as a’mighty as they think. But ’tisna often.”

Ninette was surprised into a giggle, and some of her nervousness ebbed. “What do you suppose they are doing out there?”

Ailse shrugged. “Some mess of magic, do ye ken. And we shouldna see it on account of we have no magic of our own, and we’re puir weak women besides. We shouldna fash oursel’es. Let the braw laddies handle it.”

Ninette nodded, flushing. “Forgetting who it was caught it in the first place.”

“Aye.” Ailse looked back at the door. “But nivver mind. I’d be guessin’ we’ll find oot soon enoo—”

And at that moment . . . something indescribable happened.

If you could have a soundless explosion, that was the closest that Ninette could come to the experience. She felt the concussive impact of
something
out in her sitting room, even though not even her handkerchief fluttered. She felt as if she
should
have been driven back against the counterpane. She was left feeling slightly disoriented, exactly as if she had been struck by something, and from the look of her, Ailse felt the same.

Out in the sitting room, Jonathon began to curse.

Ninette was feeling too dazed to react, but Ailse shook off her shock and jumped up out of the chair she had been sitting on. She stalked straight to the door and pounded on it. “Ye might as well let us oot!” she said fiercely.

“Yes, yes, all right,” Arthur said, sounding distracted—or maybe just as dizzy as Ninette felt. “I’m coming!”

There was a scraping sound as the chair was pulled away from the door; Ailse opened it, and held it open for her mistress. Ninette got up, slowly, afraid to find her pleasant little sitting room in ruins.

But in fact, the sitting room was fundamentally intact, except for the few things the Brownie and Thomas had broken in their struggles with the homunculus.

But there was a very nasty stench in the air, and the iron pot was empty.

“I would be rid of that, if I were you,” Jonathon said, seeing that her eyes were resting on the container. “It won’t be fit to use for anything for a long time, perhaps never.”

“Why—” Ninette began.

“Because this thing was a pestilence-bringer,” Nigel replied wearily. “Anything you cook in that pot for a while will make people sick.”

Ailse peered closely at him, as if to ascertain whether he was joking or not. “’Twill still work as a trap for the uncanny, noo?” Ailse persisted.

“I suppose it will,” Nigel began.

“Good. Then we’re keepin’ it,” Ailse said in triumph. “I’ll be puttin’ it somewhere safe. But it’s no bad thing, havin’ a trap for uncanny evil wee things. What was it here for?”

“Not what,” Jonathon corrected. “Who. It was here for Nina. And I would very much like to know how she managed to attract the attention of so practiced an Elemental mage.”

Her father—
the cat began.

“Bosh. Humbug,” Jonathon interrupted. “This was a very
personal
enmity, as you very well know, cat. You felt it. We all did. That thing was pestilence and hate, and whoever created it did so for the purpose of being rid of Mademoiselle Tchereslavsky.”

“Who sent it?” Ninette whispered, a feeling of terrible dread coming over her.

“Well, that would be the problem,” Arthur put in, scratching his head with one hand, while with the other he scratched Wolf’s. “It fair disintegrated when we tried to find out. Violently.”

“So that is why we would like to know, Mademoiselle, just how you managed to make a personal enemy of so powerful a mage,” Jonathon went on. “Particularly as you have no magic yourself, and profess that you do not much care for it . . .”

Helplessly, Nina looked at the cat. The cat shook his head, as if to say,
Be quiet! Say nothing!

But Ninette was tired of the subterfuge—and she greatly feared that if it went on for much longer, it would get in the way of—well—everything.

“I have been deceiving you,” she said with a sigh as the cat looked frantic. “And I am very sorry. But I do not know why a powerful mage would want me dead, because until a few weeks ago I knew nothing of mages and Masters and Elementals. That is because I am not Nina Tchereslavsky, prima ballerina with the Imperial Ballet. I am Ninette Dupond,
coryphée
of the Paris Opera Ballet.”

There. It was out in the open. And all of them but the cat stared at her with their jaws dropping.

The cat only groaned and dropped down to the floor to cover his face with his paws.