“Do you smell that?” Her nose crinkles from the smoke now billowing from under his front door.
“Goddess be, it is on fire!” Bertie leaps back, his hands tangled in his hair.
“No! We cannot leave them!” She opens a box to find a pair of newborn black kittens. Their eyes barely open.
Fire engulfs the porch, catching along the crates with a crackle.
“Here, Bertie!” She reaches out with one of the kittens when the front door bursts open, shaking her legs until she stumbles. “Go, ready the secret path! I’ll meet you inside!”
Bertie tears off into the night.
“Come on, babies.” She scoops the first kitten, the smallest, into her arms and is about to go for the second baby when the Hound Master grips her hood and shoves it off.
Smoke and heat choke her lungs from his shift in the direction of the fire.
“What do you know?” Fire coats his body like he has become the Abyss monster he tries so hard to embrace. “Fucking bitch just can’t stay away. If you were anyone else, I would skin you alive and feed you to all these shits you think need saving.”
She lunges toward the open crate, ignoring the searing pain of the flames licking at her arms. The second kitten squeals as her hand tightens around its tiny body, lurching it from the fire.
“I got you.” She kisses its tiny head while stumbling away with both babies clutched in her hands.
The Hound Master laughs. “I will burn my whole damn house to spite you. Mark my words, you come at me again, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Her feet pound into the earth, and the lights from the North Tower twinkle like beacons of hope. The tiniest of heartbeats flutter against her palms.
Do not give in, sweet ones. We are almost to salvation.
Glowing slivers illuminate a square opening as they near the door. When Bertie appears, she allows herself to breathe again.
“Shadow!” He runs out to meet her, untangling one of the kittens from her hands and nearly shoving her inside. “Are you well? Are you hurt?” He examines her burned-off sleeves and most of her right arm hair. A few licks from the flames along her arms would heal in time.
But not the animals they lost that night. Either to the fire or to him, it did not matter. Because of the Hound Master, their lives were unnecessarily taken or left to his wicked maltreatment.
She and Bertie set the kittens on a dusty, old armchair in the deserted servant quarters, and then she collapses to her knees. The one she grabbed just as the Hound Master accosted her lay still. Haggard exhales emit from someone, and it takes her a moment to realize it is her.
“No, little kitten, come on.” She strokes her palms along the length of its limp body.
Gods, hear my prayer, please, do not let them die for nothing.
Her sight becomes increasingly clouded the longer she stares at the breathless kitten. “I will take care of you, I promise. I will give you a happy life.” Tears drip onto the little corpse.
She feels arms wrap around her shoulders as Bertie settles to the floor at her back. “Shhhh. Shadow. You have done more than anyone else has for these creatures.”
She continues to brush the kitten’s hair with her two forefingers. “I failed them.”
Her head falls into her hands.
They were living beings in her care as Queen, and because she is not courageous or fast enough to take on the Hound Master, their lives ended too abruptly.
Because she let them down.
The other kitten wiggles with a little grunt. Bertie pulls away as her palms scoop the black kitten into her hands.
“Bertie, find me some milk and a hot towel!” The words barely leave her mouth when he runs out of the room.
“Hello.” More tears roll down her cheeks. “Hello, little Nellie. I promise I will never let anything happen to you.” She kisses her head.
11
