Reserved for the Cat

And neither of you will have anything left to fret about if you don’t put your mind to discovering who it is that wants to be rid of her and why! the logical part of his mind protested. Really, you had better set your priorities . . .

He stopped, then; looked up and blinked in shock. No wonder the pavement had felt somehow familiar—

He had gotten from where he left Thomas all the way to the building that contained Nigel’s flat without having any memory of the intervening space.

15

“WELL,” said Nigel, over breakfast. “What are we going to do about this situation?”

No one had to ask “What situation?” since none of them had slept particularly well last night. After many attempts to trace the homunculus back to its source, both Nigel and Arthur had to admit defeat. Jonathon had not even tried; “Fire,” he had said distinctly, “is not an element conducive to bloodhound work.” Nigel had hoped that the Air Elementals might have a memory of the creature’s passage, but evidently it had not come out into the open until it reached the building that housed Ninette’s flat.

“Guards, for one thing,” Jonathon said, slowly chewing a mouthful of toast. “Wards, for another, since I am not sure we can rely on Air Elementals to remember they are supposed to guard her.”

Nigel groaned. “Wards. Do you know how much that is going to attract attention to her? We might as well set a beacon on the top of her building! Better yet, why don’t we simply just send invitations to every dark mage we know of, and let them all appear at once?”

“Oh come now, Nigel, it isn’t that bad,” Wolf said, leaning down over Arthur’s shoulder and helping himself to a generous bite of Arthur’s scone. “After all, I wrote an entire opera that revealed I was an Elemental Master, and look how long it took the dark ones to puzzle it out!” He held the bite in one claw and ate neatly, as Arthur gazed ruefully at the place where all the jam had been until Wolf took it. “Poor Salieri. He went quite mad after that. Convinced himself that he was the one that killed me.”

“Wolf—it was a disease homunculus that did you in, wasn’t it?” Nigel cast the parrot a sharp glance. “I don’t suppose it would be the same mage—”

“After all this time?” Wolf made a sound like a snort. “I think not. Besides, the creature was clearly after our dancer, not me.”

Nigel sighed, and went back to contemplating his kipper. “Well, nothing is simple, is it?”

“We could set a trap . . .” Wolf continued, wiping his jam-sticky beak on Arthur’s dressing-gown, much to the latter’s exasperation. “Not anything that would actually catch the next creature that attacks her, but something that would allow us to trace it back?”

Jonathon shook his head. “If we were the same power, yes, but for an unlike and an antagonist power? It would take us years to work out how.”

“I would rather know why,” Nigel said thoughtfully. “The girl seems so inoffensive. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Then it has to tie back to her father somehow.” Jonathon pursed his lips. “I believe I will send some messages out via Elemental to the other Fire Masters that might remember Helen Waring and Dupond. Nigel, you do the same. Perhaps if we can unravel the mystery from that end, we’ll be in a position to do something for Ninette.”

“It might turn out to be someone that Miss Waring scorned,” Wolf said, with relish. “Someone who blamed Dupond for it. That could be very useful actually. So long as he isn’t utterly mad, we might be able to show him that rather than being jilted, he had a narrow escape!”

Nigel rolled his eyes. “Trust you to think of that. It sounds like a plot for one of your operas.”

“Speaking of which,” the parrot said brightly, “I have the plot for Nina’s next vehicle! It’s very Ruritanian, and if we can manage it, I think we can even get a swordfight into it! It’s about a princess who is engaged to marry a prince she’s never seen, and only wants to be a dancer instead, so she disguises herself as a maid and runs away to London, where she becomes a sensation.”

“And I suppose that the prince she was supposed to marry only wants to become a stage magician,” Jonathon drawled sarcastically.

“Not at all. The prince has been going to university here, sees her on the stage, and not knowing who she is, falls instantly for her and begins wooing her. She doesn’t know who he is, she only knows he’s a very rich student and is probably noble, and doesn’t take him very seriously at first.” Wolf looked triumphant. “Then we can have an evil cousin who has plans to usurp the throne, and kidnaps the princess to use her as bait for the prince. We can have a grand melee sword fight and end with a triumphant wedding scene when they all realize who they all are.”

“I think you have been reading too many sensational novels,” said Jonathon dryly.