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“They all seem to take to him,” Yannick said to me. “Have you noticed?”

“They’re kindred spirits,” I said, pretending to be nonchalant, when in fact something about the sight of Havelock grudgingly scratching Thoreau’s head filled me with a sparkling sort of pride. “Solitary and cantankerous.”

“I take exception to cantankerous,” Havelock said. “And I see no evidence these creatures are not motivated by a simple desire to torment me as they do the poor spiders.”

“Did you truly spend the last three years thinking I was Vortigern?” I asked.

He seemed for a moment like he did not wish to respond, tapping his heel against the counter and pretending to be absorbed by Thoreau. “In truth,” he said at last, “I continued to wonder about it for a few days after we met in the shelter. I thought perhaps she was playing some prank on me.”

“What!” I cried through my laughter. “A curious prank, to come into your life with a lot of cats.”

“Vortigern was at least half mad,” Havelock said. “And had a fondness for mischief in her youth. She was a recluse for most of her adult life—she kept to her hovel in the Breton woods, scaring away anyone foolish enough to visit with nasty enchantments, or possibly just her personality, depending on which story you believe. And she kept cats.”

“Ah,” I said. “Until that last, I was about to ask if you are secretly Vortigern.”

Yannick let out a snort.

“I eventually assured myself that you were not her,” Havelock said, “and thus you must have used Vortigern’s book to visit me in the past. Which meant, most likely, that I did have Vortigern’s book somewhere in the shop, proving Valérie correct, which I did not much appreciate. But it was clear you had no memory of having met me before, which meant your need for the lantern, and your visit to the past, had not occurred yet. After I worked that out, I didn’t really know what to do. I couldn’t fathom why an unassuming cat herder would have need of Vortigern’s lantern. I also lack Vortigern’s intuition regarding time-walking—the whole thing makes little sense to me. But I have no particular desire to end the world again by unravelling time itself, so it seemed safest not to say anything to you about it. When you were mucking around in my shop, rearranging my Artefacts, I kept expecting you to unearth the book at any moment.”

“Mucking around!” I exclaimed. “In order for me to rearrange your Artefacts, they would have needed some particular arrangement before, which they did not have, any more than does a squirrel’s acorn hoard.”

Yannick was shaking his head. “I should have paid more attention to the oven. The enchantment always felt peculiar. But, well—” His gaze strayed to Havelock. “This is a peculiar place.”

Another knock came at the door, hesitant and too quiet, as if the visitor half hoped to be ignored. I realized that it was past nine, and thus past opening, and also that what I had taken for the murmur of the wind was actually the murmur of human voices, which had been gradually growing in volume.

“What now?” I said despairingly. I found it hard to believe the police would bother knocking if they had what they needed to bring the full weight of the law down upon us, but that didn’t mean we were not about to be beset by some new peril. I cracked the door, and then let it swing open, too astonished to do anything but stare.

A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk beyond the shelter. Not only the sidewalk; there were enough of them to spill out into the street, requiring the carriages to pass single file to get through. When the people standing nearest saw me, they cheered. Others turned at that, and suddenly the entire crowd was cheering and applauding. An older man bundled into several layers of scarves came up to me and shook my hand. “There she is!” he said warmly. “Don’t you worry, Agnes—we won’t let them through!”

“I—thank you,” I said, not having the slightest idea what I was thanking him for, nor how he’d come to know my name. Was there another story in the Gazette? Some fawning biography of me or the shelter? A few in the crowd called out to me—“How are the cats?” and “Any left? I have a bad knee,” which was followed by general laughter.

Many of the people milling about were carrying signs. Les Amis des Amis des Chats, some read. Others seemed to be opposing the bylaw—the one I was expecting to have brought down upon me at any moment in the form of the police slapping me and Élise in handcuffs and dragging us back to prison.

That brought about a shiver of trepidation. Surely these people wouldn’t try to stand in the way when the police came. What if they were hurt?

“Agnes!” Élise was pushing her way through the crowd.

“Let her through! It’s her sister!” a woman called—my mind boggled even more—and the crowd parted obligingly.

“Élise,” I said, dragging her inside as soon as she reached me, then closing the door firmly behind her. “What the hell is all this?”

She waved a hand, pausing to lean over and rest her hands on her knees. She was breathing hard, as if she’d run all the way, and laughter tugged at the edge of each breath. She’d been gone only a few hours—after Havelock’s spell wore off, she’d gone home to Gabriel, who would have worried about her absence. She seemed to have changed her clothes, but a little smudge of soot remained on her cheek.

“They’re protesting at city hall, too,” she said unevenly. “An even bigger crowd than this. People know the shelter’s a target of the new bylaw—Roger Fairwood keeps running stories about it, but even if he didn’t, the rumours about our enchanted cats have spread too well.”

“But why?” I demanded. “Not that I don’t appreciate all this, but what’s the point? Didn’t the new law pass yesterday? Laurent seemed certain it would.” I’d been far too occupied to check any of the papers.

Élise shook her head. “Laurent clearly has an overly optimistic understanding of municipal politics. The council spent too long arguing about some construction project, and then they couldn’t get enough votes in favour of continuing past six o’clock—” She waved her hand, looking equally pleased and exasperated. “You know how these meetings go. They put the vote on the bylaw off until this morning. But now, given that public opinion has shifted, Gabriel thinks they’re going to defer it.”

“Defer it!” I exclaimed, because I was familiar enough with the workings of city hall, through Gabriel, to understand what that meant.

Élise smiled, seeming to read my thoughts. “Exactly. ‘For further study and consultation.’ It will be six months before it’s even brought up again, but with the election coming up—Agnes, they’re just going to bury it.”

I felt my knees weaken and I caught hold of the windowsill as Élise went on excitedly. “Most of the councillors don’t want to touch the issue now that it’s become a hot potato, especially since the French papers have started covering our ‘mystical’ cat shelter—I saw an article on the front page of La Ville on my way over here. And Gabriel says the councillor who proposed the bylaw is almost sure to lose his seat—some scandal about accepting free theatre tickets.”

“Then—then we’re safe,” I said. I was finding it hard to believe. Though the quiet murmur of conversation in the street outside paired with occasional cheers of support were comforting beyond words, it was difficult to accept that Laurent would not at any moment come knocking on the door with half the police department in tow.

“I think we are. So you can stop shaking, dear.” Élise pulled me into her arms. When she drew back, she shot Havelock a glare. “Provided this one doesn’t start any more magical wars.”