Reserved for the Cat

No, it isn’t. There was no specific threat at the time. Only the need to provide his daughter with guidance he would not be there to give.

“So whoever did this to him—”

Did not survive the spellcasting, the cat said, abruptly, so there is no immediate threat. This is not to say that there may not be one in the future, but there is not one now.

Ninette looked from Nigel to the illusionist and back again, and bit her lip to keep from saying anything. The cat, it seemed, had surprised them both. That was interesting to say the least.

“Well, in that case,” Nigel said carefully, with a glance at both the other men, “I think we are in a position to speak with you—and your advisor—about a prolonged theatrical engagement.”

Ninette closed the door to the guest room quietly, but once alone, could hardly restrain her joy. “Thomas!” she whispered, taking a few dancing steps, then whirling around in a pirouette, “I am an etoile! I am a prima! Prima ballerina assoluta! Think of it! The production to be built around me! My own apartment and a maid! And fifty pounds a week!”

You should have gotten double that, Thomas grumbled.

“That is more than La Augustine—”

But not more than Nina Tchereslavsky. Ah well. When the receipts start coming in, we will re- negotiate. And you knew all of this before. I told you. Well, not the apartment, but that was only to be expected.

“You told me, but I did not believe it, not really.” She sat down on the bed, and examined the hem of her gown with deep satisfaction. Lace three inches deep, and there would be more, many more, gowns like this to come. “I did not believe it until Nigel himself said it, and there were contract papers to sign.”

This will be hard work, the cat warned.

“And what I have done up until now has not been?” She sniffed. “The difference between then and now will be that I will not have to rehearse on an empty stomach, nor go home to a garret with no heat.”

Well, take care that no one else ever hears you say that. Thomas the cat paced up and down her rug, restlessly. That Fire Master is altogether too sharp. Normally Fire Mages are the impulsive sort, ruled by their emotions. I suppose he must be the exception that proves the rule.

“He is very sharp,” she replied, sobering. “I will be careful around him. He frightens me.”

He should. Fire is the most powerful of the four Elements in the material world. It is also the most emotional. It takes tremendous control to become a Fire Master, and more still to regularly command the Elementals. They react poorly to coercion. I know of this man; he is very clever. Cleverer still to have come up with a way to make a living that enables him to work in plain sight and leave every ordinary person who sees him assuming he is working some sort of trickery.

“Will he use any of his real magic on stage?” she asked, watching the cat pace up and down the rug.

I expect so. Nothing powerful or important, just—fire-works, amusement for the audience. Pay attention, and you might figure out which thing he does is illusion, and which real magic.

Well, she would do that. It would be fun.

You should sleep now, the cat commanded.

She shivered with delicious anticipation, then rang for the maid to help her undress. The cat was right. Tomorrow she would be moving into her new apartment, all her own. She was going to need sleep.

8

ELEMENTAL Masters needed a very particular kind of servant. To be precise, they must either be Elemental magicians themselves, or have been aware that magic, real magic, was in the world, for most of their lives. Often enough, their servants came from a close-knit group of people who had been serving Elemental mages for centuries.

Or, as now, the servant came with a recommendation.

“So,” Nigel said, looking up from the letter the girl had presented to him. “Sean McLeod says here that you are a Sensitive.” She was a pretty little thing, was Ailse McKenzie: carrot-red hair, green eyes, and clearly as tough as she was tiny. She had good credentials though; she’d served as the ladies’ maid in the shooting season at Sean’s hunting lodge; his guests were all Elemental Masters and magicians and their offspring. She had wide ambitions though, and according to Sean was not content with doing general servants’ work when there were no ladies present. Neither he nor Nigel could blame her; the privileges and pay of a lady’s maid were considerably more elevated than that of a parlor maid.

“If that means I see the wee cratures you gents can call up when ye’ve a mind to, then aye.” The girl’s Scottish accent was not so heavy he couldn’t understand her. Though it might prove difficult for the other party in this equation. Nina might find it difficult to understand her and that could prove a great hindrance. Sadly that was a mark against hiring her.

On the other hand there were many more points in her favor. Nina needed a reliable maidservant, and maids who had experience with magic were not all that thick on the ground. While it was true that Nina herself did no magic, Nina had a talking cat. Eventually a maidservant would notice something odd about the mistress’s pet. If she actually overheard what the cat had to say and believed her “ears,” she would probably run screaming from the house. If she did not actually hear it speaking herself, sooner or later she would notice her mistress having one- sided conversations with her pet.

Then there was the matter of self-defense. This was something every Elemental Master needed to consider if he or she was wealthy enough to employ more than one or two servants. When enemies came calling, they generally did not offer advance warning, nor did they scruple to ask whether or not anyone in the vicinity was an innocent bystander. You could be killed just as dead by Elemental Magic that you could not see and probably would not believe in if you were told about it.

Miss McKenzie would be able to see it, and might have some defense against it. When it came down to cases, anything that had been sent after Nina probably already had her “scent.” If the storm that had wrecked her yacht had been sent after her. . . .

“Mademoiselle Tchereslavsky may be . . .” he paused delicately, “. . . hunted. We are not certain, but the storm that sank the yacht she was on might have been sent to harm her.”

Not entirely to his surprise, because the Scots were a tough race, Miss McKenzie raised her head on her slim neck and looked defiantly down her nose at him. “An’ ye think, a’cause I have never th’ magic of my own, I canna hold my own?” Her eyes blazed fiercely. “Aye, a horse-shoe and a right pair of hobnailed boots will send most of those cratures packing!”

“Miss Tchereslavsky does not speak much English, you know,” he said tentatively.

“Lor’ bless ye, sir, three years in a row now, I tended a lady what never chattered in anything but French, and we managed all right,” the girl said proudly. “I’ll find a way t’ understand her, make no mistake.”

One final thing. “She has a protector,” Nigel said. “It’s her cat.”

“Does it talk?” the girl wanted to know.

“After a fashion.”

“An’ will it talk to me?”

“That, I don’t know. He might.”

“Well!” Miss McKenzie said in triumph. “There you are, then.”

Nigel blinked. Somewhere the conversation had just taken an abrupt turn, and he had missed it. “I beg your pardon?” he ventured. “What exactly did you mean?”

“If it talks,” the girl explained, patiently, as if he was a very slow child, “then she can tell the cat what she needs, and the cat can tell me.”

“Ah.” That very practical application had not occurred to Nigel. “Very well then, your services will be required.” He swiftly negotiated her wages and privileges, and sent her on to the flat with instructions to have the landlord show her in and get everything in readiness for Nina. He then wrote a note to his man, instructing him to pack up Nina’s things and send them to the flat.

As usual, the dancer had gotten up at an hour that would have satisfied the harshest stage director and gone