They watched me. I watched them.
And then the creature stood, and I saw what I was looking at.
It was a cat.
Now it was bones and patches of petrified fur, stiff with age and falling out in clumps.
Its ribs showed through its hide, each one distinct, casting shadows on the shadows beneath.
Its skull was visible through the fur on its face, revealing the sharp shape of cheekbones, the hollow sockets, the jaw that should have been covered with flesh and wasn’t.
It was dead. Obviously, undeniably dead.
And it was walking toward me.
I should have run. Any sane person would have, would have scrambled backward through the door and slammed it shut and never returned to this cursed tower.
But I wasn’t a sane person. I wasn’t even, properly speaking, a person at all.
And the cat smelled like me.
Grave-dust and old stone and the absence of warmth. The scent of things that should have ended but didn’t. The perfume of the void.
It stopped at my feet. He regarded me with ancient intelligence.
And then it rubbed its exposed ribcage against my leg.
A purr vibrated through its body. It was a strange sound, a hollow, rattling sound. But it was unmistakably a purr. The sound of contentment. Of welcome.
My knees gave out.
I sank to the dusty floor, and the cat, dead and impossible, crawled into my lap. It curled there like it belonged, like this was where it had always been meant to be.
Its purr intensified. Its bony head rested against my palm when I reached out to touch it.
Tears spilled down my cheeks.
I never felt tears anymore. I only knew I was crying because the creature fixed its gaze on mine and made a noise that hovered between acknowledgement and indifference.
“You’re stuck too,” I whispered. “Aren’t you?”
The cat purred.
“Existing when you shouldn’t. Walking around when you should be at rest.” I stroked its patchy fur, felt the bones beneath. “How long have you been here? How long have you been waiting for someone who understood?”
No answer. Just the rattling purr. Just the weight of its skeletal body against mine.
I buried my face in its dusty fur and cried.
The light came without warning.
One moment I was alone in the dark with my impossible companion. The next, lantern-glow was flooding the tower chamber, yellow and warm.
“What in the name of the old gods?—”
I looked up.
The Raven King stood in the doorway.
