“No one could know more about Ralphie than Jacob.” He took her hand in his.
They raced down the stone corridor in search of Jacob and the small child in danger, keeping their footfalls as silent as possible.
“This way to the menagerie.” Graham motioned to an opening so narrow, it almost looked like a boarded arrow slit.
Instead, it was a little pocket that ran parallel to the corridor, then divided in two directions.
They crept along the outer edge sideways for about a hundred meters before the crevice widened again. They were now above a wide, ill-lit chamber full of large iron cages and the unmistakable scent of animal dung.
Graham tugged her hand. “Stairs are over here.”
Jacob wasinsideone of the cages, its iron door ajar behind him. He was lifting a small…large…Well, there was no way to judge its appearance when Kuni hadn’t the least notion what she was looking at.
The creature appeared to be some sort of cat-sized rat thing with furry legs, a bald head and back, long pointy ears, and an even longer and pointier snout with pig nostrils at the tip.
“What does that thing have to do with Ralphie?” she asked.
Graham cleared his throat. “Er…itisRalphie.”
“What?”
Jacob pressed the cat-rat-pointy-pig-thing to his waistcoat. He began to wrap an enormous scarf around them both, swaddling the creature to his chest.
“Ralphie…isn’t human?” Kuni managed weakly.
Jacob glanced up from his swaddling. “Ralphie is an antbear.”
“Well, now I’ve bought a cat in the bag.” She spun toward Graham. “I thought we were rescuing a child!”
He held up his palms. “I said ‘menagerie’!”
“I don’t know what a ‘menagerie’is!”
She took a longer look around her. Her guidebook mentioned a display of wild beasts in the west tower. She’d paid little attention because there was no chance of the royal family visiting livestock. She couldn’t imagine what the Wynchesters were doing here, either.
“Ralphie needs us,” Jacob said. “What could be more defenseless than a baby antbear who—”
“Of all the waggish flummery…” Kuni pointed at the odd-looking creature. “That thing is not a client!”
“We help the helpless, full stop. No living thing in need is undeserving of aid.”
She turned her disbelieving gaze to Graham, whose lips were clamped shut as though to hold back a tide of laughter.
His eyes showed his amusement. “If you find Ralphie peculiar, I have bad news for you about all the other animals living on the Wynchester estate.”
“Oh, very well,” Kuni said. “Which way do we go?”
“Back the way you came?” Jacob suggested.
She shook her head. “There is no getting back into the Jewel House. The guard was responsible enough to secure the door I slipped through. I checked for weaknesses. How did you two enter?”
“Scaled the wall,” Graham answered.
Of course he had. She could see how doing so in reverse with an antbear clutched to one’s chest might prove difficult.
“We can go out through the west entrance.” He gestured at a bag of tools strapped to Jacob’s side.
She raised her brows. “Won’t we risk being seen?”
