“Don’t suppose you could throw a third in?” he asked. “I don’t get cooked meat, usually.”
There seemed no harm, since the magic store would probably replenish itself, and so I found a smallish one with a good amount of gristle and added it to the pan. Cornelius blinked at me slowly, which I knew was a good sign in cat language.
“It’s just you and him?” I asked. “No other animals? No servants?”
“He doesn’t need servants,” said the cat before remembering himself. “Didn’t, I mean. Seems to have taken a fancy to having one now.”
“Your speech is getting much better,” I remarked.
“Thank you. It does seem to be coming easier, now that you mention it.”
I sat myself down at the long table, waiting for the water to come to a boil. “Any idea what he gets up to all day? We know about them a little, back home, the sorceresses, but we never saw a male one until he came along.”
“He’s either here or he isn’t,” said Cornelius.
“Well, that much is obvious.”
“When he’s here, he sits in the throne room picking at his nails or playing games—juggling, tossing a ball, things like that. He’ll pet me, sometimes, if he’s in the mood, and I’ll purr for him. He seems to like that.”
“What else?”
“He gets visitors. Mostly ladies.”
The jealousy that gripped me was all the more terrible for being unnatural, a constructed thing that I knew was the result of the spell and not any real feeling. I let it pass through me like the runs and, like the runs, it left me weak afterward. Cornelius watched me sidelong.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“They come and talk with him. He won’t let me in the room when they do. I don’t know why. It’s not like I would say anything. Maybe they don’t want fur on their nice dresses.”
So, Cornelius wasn’t likely to have overheard any useful conversations—such as where the hearts were kept. Still, he spent all his days wandering the House and seemed to know his way around at least some of its mysteries. “How would you ever find a secret room in a place like this?”
The cat performed that strange movement of his shoulders again that passed for a cat shrug. “I suppose you would find it if you needed it.”
Well, I certainly needed it, didn’t I? That was the whole reason I had come here, after all—to get my heart back. Or whatever it was he had taken, if the heart turned out to be a mettyfor, as the man in the village pub had said.
True to Cornelius’s promise, the House produced a bedchamber when I required it that night—decorated all in that black stuff, but with sheets and pillows, and a mattress so high and thick that I had to clamber up onto it like a child onto their mother’s lap. It had provided a commode, too, to my relief.
I was ready to collapse into sleep then and there, as soon as I saw the bed, but a washbasin announced itself in one corner of the room and stood there pointedly, and I supposed the place wanted me to use it.
So, the House was finicky: that made the filth of its master’s throne room all the more odd. I took off my new fancy clothes, folding them as carefully as I was able, and found a clean (black) nightgown in the wardrobe that stood in one corner. Finally, I was able to climb into the bed.
I waited with the covers drawn up to my chin for a little while, wondering (and hoping, if I was being honest) if the sorcerer would come press his attentions on me, but the door did not open. I had delivered his dinner to him that evening, and he hadn’t even looked up. Clearly my face and form were little of interest to him.
My brief flutter of pride from earlier, at making it to the city and the sorcerer, turned to a chill of apprehension. What had I let myself in for? Before I could think about it too much, slumber pulled me under, and I slept dreamlessly for the first time in weeks.
I do remember a small, chirruping noise, a thump, and a weight on the bed when Cornelius jumped onto my feet. He kneaded my legs pretty violently, and I grumbled into my pillow.
“Sorry,” he said, and retracted his claws. “Better?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Cornelius started to purr, a low, soothing rumble. I found that I liked it. I had never seen the point of cats before, really, other than for catching mice, but the warm weight and the peaceful sound were pleasant, and they helped me fall asleep again.
8
In the morning, I opened my eyes to blackness. I listened for the sound of Da’s bed creaking as he swung his legs over the edge, and his slow footsteps down to the kitchen to light the hob for tea but heard nothing. When I remembered where I was, I felt a shiver of fear, laced with excitement.
