“I think so.” He stretched out his back paws experimentally and only then realized he was in the arms of the sorcerer. He started a little, but I heard the beginning rumbles of a purr.
“Cornelius.” I reached out my hand and stroked him under the chin. His eyes closed to little slits of pleasure. “Thank you.”
“I have not had a chance to examine him fully,” said Sylvester, “but he may have been hurt internally. Cats are good at hiding such things.”
“I feel fine,” said Cornelius.
I cupped the cat’s little head in my palm, my heart swelling with love and rage. “He had better be all right, or ...” I realized what a ridiculous statement that was. “Well, he had just better be all right, that’s all.”
Sylvester released Cornelius gently, near the ground, and the cat started washing himself vigorously. He made a face and spluttered some loose fur from his tongue. “Tastes funny,” he said.
“Like magic?”
“And ash.” He shook himself vigorously. He seemed to be returning rapidly to his old self. “Now what?”
“We’re in the Other House,” I said. “We need to get out into the city, and then find the king and the sorceresses. With any luck, they haven’t yet ridden out.”
“I had no idea this place was still here, underneath,” said the sorcerer, looking around at the wood and plaster.
“Not for much longer,” said Cornelius.
He wasn’t wrong. The place was creaking and cracking like a ship in a high storm. The final demise of the House seemed to have sucked the last bit of strength from its beams and buttresses, and I had the feeling that if we didn’t hurry, we’d be buried under them. It seemed as if the vines were the only things holding it up.
“Yes,” said Sylvester, shaking his head a little as if to clear it. “Come.”
He reached out his hand to me, and after a moment, I took it. Even after all that excitement, it was cool and dry in mine. I fought the urge to take mine back and wipe it on my skirt.
We ran. I did my best to keep up with the sorcerer’s long stride, but it was a struggle, especially after having to push my way through the tunnel. I wasn’t sure how much more my body would put up with. The cracking, occasional crash, and shower of dust gave my feet the added fuel they needed, though.
Even the vines were dying, shriveling and browning as we ran, then snapping underfoot, dry and parched. We made it out into the street and kept running, hearing the sounds of destruction behind us, until we were far enough that it felt safe to turn and look.
I looked at the place where the House had been and saw the Other House—the dusty, ramshackle old mansion—back where it belonged.
Like a tree that had been long colonized by twisting vines, it looked brittle and dead. Cornelius and I exchanged glances, remembering our first time fighting through the vines and cobwebs.
As I watched, it started to collapse into itself as an ordinary, rickety building collapses, creaking and crashing and sending up puffs of elderly dust.
The magic of the House had been supporting it in some way, I suppose, even while it had been shoved into that magical void, and with that support gone, the old building could no longer stand.
Even the twisted vines, so full of juice and malice, fell with it. I could smell their sap as they snapped. We stood and watched as it disintegrated—the sorcerer’s House and the old mansion it had inhabited, both now gone forever.
23
When the final rumbles from the two Houses’ destruction had ceased, and the dust had settled, we finally had the time and leisure to look about us.
We were in the city—but I couldn’t believe it was the same city. Perhaps we had somehow slipped through the complicated bonds between the House and the Other House into one of the distortions of space and time that Sylvester liked to talk about.
Not only was menace so strong in the air that you could almost smell it, but the streets were deserted, and all the windows and doors I could see were either shuttered tight or boarded up. The barricades showed signs of haste—the boards were mismatched, as if torn from different pieces of furniture or floorboards, and the nails that I could see were haphazardly set. The whole place felt as uninhabited as the ghost town that we had stumbled into across the border.
“What happened here?” I wondered, turning slowly around. This quiet was unnatural. More than that, there was tension thrumming in the air that even my nonmagical self could feel.
“I’m feeling a bit dizzy,” said Cornelius. I gathered him into my arms, where he felt smaller than usual. I ran my hand over his fur, feeling for any injury.
“I don’t think I’m hurt,” he said. “I just feel odd.”
“I’m not surprised, after nearly being swallowed back there,” I said, and kept him cradled in my arms as we walked.
“There are people here. I can feel them,” Sylvester said. “They are inside. They are afraid.”
