Reserved for the Cat em-6

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Aye.” Ailse looked back at the door. “But nivver mind. I’d be guessin’ we’ll find oot soon enoo—”

  And at that moment . . . something indescribable happened.

  If you could have a soundless explosion, that was the closest that Ninette could come to the experience. She felt the concussive impact of something out in her sitting room, even though not even her handkerchief fluttered. She felt as if she should have been driven back against the counterpane. She was left feeling slightly disoriented, exactly as if she had been struck by something, and from the look of her, Ailse felt the same.

  Out in the sitting room, Jonathon began to curse.

  Ninette was feeling too dazed to react, but Ailse shook off her shock and jumped up out of the chair she had been sitting on. She stalked straight to the door and pounded on it. “Ye might as well let us oot!” she said fiercely.

  “Yes, yes, all right,” Arthur said, sounding distracted—or maybe just as dizzy as Ninette felt. “I’m coming!”

  There was a scraping sound as the chair was pulled away from the door; Ailse opened it, and held it open for her mistress. Ninette got up, slowly, afraid to find her pleasant little sitting room in ruins.

  But in fact, the sitting room was fundamentally intact, except for the few things the Brownie and Thomas had broken in their struggles with the homunculus.

  But there was a very nasty stench in the air, and the iron pot was empty.

  “I would be rid of that, if I were you,” Jonathon said, seeing that her eyes were resting on the container. “It won’t be fit to use for anything for a long time, perhaps never.”

  “Why—” Ninette began.

  “Because this thing was a pestilence-bringer,” Nigel replied wearily. “Anything you cook in that pot for a while will make people sick.”

  Ailse peered closely at him, as if to ascertain whether he was joking or not. “’Twill still work as a trap for the uncanny, noo?” Ailse persisted.

  “I suppose it will,” Nigel began.

  “Good. Then we’re keepin’ it,” Ailse said in triumph. “I’ll be puttin’ it somewhere safe. But it’s no bad thing, havin’ a trap for uncanny evil wee things. What was it here for?”

  “Not what,” Jonathon corrected. “Who. It was here for Nina. And I would very much like to know how she managed to attract the attention of so practiced an Elemental mage.”

  Her father— the cat began.

  “Bosh. Humbug,” Jonathon interrupted. “This was a very personal enmity, as you very well know, cat. You felt it. We all did. That thing was pestilence and hate, and whoever created it did so for the purpose of being rid of Mademoiselle Tchereslavsky.”

  “Who sent it?” Ninette whispered, a feeling of terrible dread coming over her.

  “Well, that would be the problem,” Arthur put in, scratching his head with one hand, while with the other he scratched Wolf’s. “It fair disintegrated when we tried to find out. Violently.”

  “So that is why we would like to know, Mademoiselle, just how you managed to make a personal enemy of so powerful a mage,” Jonathon went on. “Particularly as you have no magic yourself, and profess that you do not much care for it . . .”

  Helplessly, Nina looked at the cat. The cat shook his head, as if to say, Be quiet! Say nothing!

  But Ninette was tired of the subterfuge—and she greatly feared that if it went on for much longer, it would get in the way of—well—everything.

  “I have been deceiving you,” she said with a sigh as the cat looked frantic. “And I am very sorry. But I do not know why a powerful mage would want me dead, because until a few weeks ago I knew nothing of mages and Masters and Elementals. That is because I am not Nina Tchereslavsky, prima ballerina with the Imperial Ballet. I am Ninette Dupond, coryphée of the Paris Opera Ballet.”

  There. It was out in the open. And all of them but the cat stared at her with their jaws dropping.

  The cat only groaned and dropped down to the floor to cover his face with his paws.

  14

  JONATHON took a slow, deep breath, his brow like thunder. But before he could say anything, the cat spoke up.

  Don’t shout at her, magician. It was all my idea. And I took advantage of the fact that she was light-headed from hunger to persuade her, too. The cat stalked up to Jonathon and looked up at him, tail lashing back and forth defiantly. I stole money and tickets to get her here from Paris. I told her what to do. I concocted the shipwreck story. It was all my doing.

  Ninette looked into their eyes. Arthur licked his lips. “She’s still a first-rate dancer,” he said hesitantly. “It’s not as if she cheated us that way.”

  Wolf made a tsking sound. “People create fantastical stories about performers all the time to puff them up,” the parrot said thoughtfully. “They always have, I expect. You should have heard some of the ones about me.”

  Jonathon still looked wrathful. Ninette stared down at her hands. “My mother was abandoned by her husband when I was a baby,” she said, softly, and began the tedious recitation of her misfortunes in a flat voice. She only looked up once when Nigel laughed, on hearing La Augustine’s reaction to her grave error in smiling at the prima’s patron. “It was not funny,” she said flatly. “I knew at that instant that it was the worst possible thing that could have happened. It was not that La Augustine was jealous—she did not care a sous for whether the old man really loved her or not. It was that in that moment, I threatened her . . . livelihood. I threatened to take away his interest, and thus the flat, the luxuries, the jewels and furs and beautiful gowns. Of course she was in a rage. She was not ready to give him up yet. In fact, I am not sure she was ready to give him up at all. He was an ideal patron, old, unmarried, and no relations closer than a cousin. If he died, he could leave her very comfortable, and a dancer does not have a long life on the stage.”

  Nigel sobered immediately. She continued with her story, of being cast out of the Opera Ballet, of trying to find a position elsewhere, of determining finally that she was going to go to the Moulin Rouge . . . to find someone who would give her money. She did not say for what purpose. She did not need to. She looked up again, to see that all three men had looks of embarrassment and chagrin on their faces.

  She thought many things, and with them came a flare of anger. Men never had to face these choices. A man could always find work if he looked hard enough. A man had so many more choices than any woman. Oh, you do not think of this when you take girls into your beds, or into a room at a not-too-careful hotel. You do not think of them as real persons, who are doing this not because they want to be in your bed, but because they must go there or starve. You give them money and they go away and you never think of them again. They are the amusement of an hour. Maybe, maybe, you ask for them, look for them again. But not too often, for then they might start to make demands of you. But they think of you. They look at the money you give them, and they wish that all the men would be kind, would not beat them or try to cheat them. They count the money and wonder how long it will last them . . . or they count the money and cry because they must give it all to their procurer, and then give themselves to another stranger, who might not be kind. You do not think of these things . . . yet in your hearts, you know them, in your hearts, but your minds shove them away so they will not be disturbed.

  The cat took this moment to jump into the conversation, which was just as well, seeing as she was on verge of saying these things out loud.

  When she was all alone, hungry, and facing being put on the street, I knew I must intervene. That was when I stepped in, and I took advantage of her. He then took up the narrative, describing exactly how and from whom he had stolen purses and tickets. Telling how he had herded her onto the Metro, then the boat-train to Calais, onto the ferry, then to the train to Blackpool. How he had found her the boarding house, and how he had devised the little charade of the shipwreck.

  When he paused, she spread her hands wide. “And there you have it, for everything else, you k
now what happened, except that I am Ninette, not Nina.”

  Ninette, the cat interjected, who convinced your new ballet-master that she could not benefit from lessons given by him. And you know his credentials are impeccable. Ninette who has been dancing every night, sometimes taking two turns more than anyone else, to increasing acclaim. Ninette, who convinced all of you by her talent to base an entire show around her. Ninette, whose dressing room is thronged every evening by fans and well-wishers, and full of flowers. Who charms the gentlemen of the press and the little girls who give her sticky nosegays of violets.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ninette noticed Jonathon frown a bit at that. But the magician said nothing.

  Nigel ran his hand over his hair. “You have me there,” he said. “It isn’t Nina Tchereslavsky that our audiences are coming to see. They come to see the dancer they’ve all heard about, from other people who’ve seen her. Good heavens, I doubt if one in a thousand has ever seen a real ballet-dancer before, much less an entire ballet, and they don’t give a farthing about some ‘Rooskie wench’ who danced in front of people they openly make fun of, like the French and the Germans and the Russians. It might be different if we were the Royal Opera Company—”

  “But we aren’t,” Arthur said firmly. “We don’t have a Royal Circle, we don’t have titles and famous writers and famous painters in our audiences. We’re nothing but entertainment for the masses. We have Bertie and Mary from Worcester, we have Sally and Tommy from Liverpool, on holiday, looking for a good time and getting it. They see the dancer up there and they know someone who’s good, even if they don’t know a jette from a plie. And if we throw Mademoiselle Ninette out on her ear, they’d be tearing the curtains down to hang us with them.” He looked from Nigel to Jonathon and back again. “I don’t see we have a choice. And I don’t see where anyone is being harmed by this. I say let the charade go on. Ninette isn’t taking a shilling out of Miss Tchereslavsky’s pay-packet, and no one east of London is ever going to know there’s two of them.”

  Nigel grinned. “I’m glad to hear you say that, old lad, because I was going to propose the same thing. But tell me,” he continued, turning to Ninette, “How did you learn to speak Russian? For that matter, how did a poor little ballet girl from the Bohemian parts of Paris learn how to speak English?”

  Oh, that was my doing, Thomas the cat said smugly. I just found a bannik in the bathhouse of one Alexei Balonovich that had come over with his master. He and I struck a bargain, and I got him to whisper Russian in her mind while she slept. You might be amazed at all the Russians who live here. Russia is not an hospitable place if you aren’t a friend of the Tsar. And as for the English, there are plenty of brownies in England to teach her English the same way.

  Jonathon looked at the cat sharply. “That isn’t supposed to work unless you’ve got some magery in you.”

  Well, she has. Her father was an Earth Master; that part is true enough. And she has a touch of it, enough for her to hear me, enough for her to learn languages. . . . The cat looked slyly at all of them. And enough to enchant an audience. And don’t tell me you haven’t seen her do it. Charm. Charisma. It’s magic, right enough, opens up a connection between her and them. It’s all there, what they used to call “the glamourie.” And that’s all of the magic there is in her.

  “Huh,” said Arthur, and Wolf chortled. Nigel just shook his head.

  “This still doesn’t tell us why there’s an Earth Master trying to kill her,” Jonathon said sharply. “We’re no closer to unraveling that particular riddle than we were before.”

  But at least you won’t go barking up any Russian trees, the cat replied. Nor, I advise you, any Parisian ones either. La Augustine may be a witch, but she’s not the sort with magic, and so far as I know, there’s not a soul Ninette ever came across that has a jot of magic in him—or her—other than me. I won’t say that she never made an enemy, though I don’t know of any, but I do know that there was no one around her that I ever sensed that had magic enough to light a candle.

  The men exchanged looks of resignation. Finally Nigel shook his head. “I’m curious about one thing, cat,” Nigel said slowly. “Why Blackpool? Why not—Bath, or Birmingham, or Plymouth? I can understand not wanting to try your trick in London, where someone might have seen the real Nina Tchereslavsky, and there are a lot of people there who know about the famous ballet dancers in the rest of the world, but why come all the way up into the North?”

  You, Thomas said instantly. How many impresarios are there that are also Elemental Masters? I had to find someone who could hear me, didn’t I? That was the only way to make the trick work.

  “Impeccable logic,” Wolf said, and chortled again. “Keep on like this, and I might even start to like you, cat.”

  Jonathon scowled. “Shall we have done with this love-fest?” he asked. “We need to find out who is behind these attacks, and put a stop to them, before someone—probably our star dancer—is murdered.”

  Ninette shivered at this timely—and unwelcome—reminder. She kept shivering though, feeling very cold, and rather empty inside. The secret was out, and now . . . now she did not really know what she should do. And there was still someone, some terrible magician out there, who wanted her dead. Ailse got up and fetched a shawl and put it around her shoulders. “There noo, ma’amselle,” the maid said in her no-nonsense tone. “Ye’ve got t’dance tomorrow, an’ there’s naught going to happen more tonight.” Ailse looked at Nigel, Arthur, and Jonathon sternly. “You lads, be off with ye. Worrit yer heads about it all ye like, but not here. Ma’amselle Ninette needs to sleep.”

  “Gad.” Nigel shook his head. “You’re right as rain, Ailse. Curse it all though . . . if only we could concentrate on either the magic or the theater, one or the other, and not have to deal with both at the same time.”

  “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” Ailse quoted primly. “Go along with you.”

  Ninette stopped shivering, but immediately felt as if she could not keep her eyes open anymore. Perhaps it was the unreality of the situation; despite how she had felt when she first clapped eyes on the horrid little monster, she could not seem to think of it as menacing, much less life-threatening, now. There had been a strange little—thing—in her sitting room. It hadn’t even been as big as the cat. Ailse had clapped a cooking put over it—how absurd was that? So absurd no one would even write a ballet about it. She yawned, stifling it behind her hand, and Ailse pounced on her.

  “That will be enough of that,” the maid said firmly. “To bed wi’ ye. And oot with yon gents!”

  A word with you, Jonathon, Ninette vaguely heard the cat say, as Ailse hustled her back into the bedroom. I’ll walk you home.

  For a moment she was moved to protest—she needed Thomas here! Who else would protect her if another of those things put in an appearance? But then she realized that if Thomas wasn’t worried, then there probably was no need to worry at all. She followed Ailse meekly into the bedroom, quite as if it was Ailse who was the mistress here, and she the obedient maid.

  The cat had had mixed feelings, watching the Fire Master’s expressions change over the course of Ninette’s confession. At first, Jonathon had been angry at Ninette’s deception, that much was clear. Thomas could only assume he was angry because he had been tricked, and not for any “moral outrage.” Ninette had only been doing what Jonathon did every night on the stage—tricking people into thinking that what was in front of them was something other than what it was.

  Then had come grudging acceptance, as first Arthur, and then Nigel had voiced their own opinions on the subject.

  Then, interestingly, when the mention of Ninette’s many admirers came up, the cat had seen acute annoyance flash across Jonathon’s face. In fact, it was akin to the annoyance that Thomas himself felt.

  Fascinating . . .

  Of course, if Jonathon was attracted to the dancer, he would do his best not to show it. Not because he had any ridiculous ideas about the moral inferi
ority of his fellow entertainers, but because he would know how often disastrous flirtations within a theatrical company could be. And Jonathon, from all that Thomas knew about him—which was a great deal more than Jonathon was aware!—thought of himself as a confirmed bachelor.

  Nor did Thomas himself particularly want Jonathon attracted to Ninette.

  On the other hand, if the choice was Jonathon—or one of those fellows that filled her dressing room—well, then the cat would fervently welcome Jonathon.

  All of them made their way to the ground floor, and out the private entrance, without encountering anyone else. It appeared that despite the row that had gone on in Ninette’s sitting room, the other tenants had remained blissfully unaware of any unpleasantness. That was good, because otherwise the ruckus would have been very difficult to explain.

  When they stepped out into the cool, damp, dark summer night, with the scent of wet brick and growing things on the air, Thomas took the opportunity to glare up at Nigel, Arthur, and that wretched bird. And then he coughed, politely.

  Arthur and Nigel took the hint, and swiftly outdistanced the two of them, rapidly moving through the patches of light where the streetlamps stood, until they turned a corner and moved out of sight. Thomas could feel Jonathon’s eyes on him, and sensed the frown.

  “Well, get on with it,” the Fire Master said impatiently. “What is it you wanted to tell me that you couldn’t say in front of the others?” Without waiting for an answer, the Fire Master strode out in the footsteps of his friends.

  Largely—my motives, said Thomas, reluctantly. Let us start with the question, “Why Blackpool?” The reason is simple, really. I know Blackpool. I am a native of this area. That was how I knew that an Air Master was the impresario of this particular music hall. Since I came from this part of England, I made it my business to keep track of the Elemental Masters here.

  “You—what?” The cat felt a certain smug satisfaction. He had managed to surprise the magician. Well, there were more surprises to come for Jonathon Hightower. The magician wasn’t the only one who was good at keeping things up his metaphorical sleeve.