her only once and then just to ask if she needed anything. The rest of the time he spent whispering to the wife he had allowed to sit next to him that evening and to his youngest brother, a dark-visaged youth several years older than she whom Mistaya had never liked and now pointedly ignored.
Back in her rooms, she sat on the bed once more and thought about her situation. It couldn’t be any bleaker. She was being sent home, and once arrived she would be dispatched—under guard, in all likelihood—to Libiris. Confined to the moldering old castle in the tradition of fairy-tale princesses in the books her father favored, she would slowly rot away in solitary confinement. The more she envisioned her future, the darker it became and the more trapped she felt.
Then she turned angry, and the angrier she grew the more determined she became to do something about what was being done to her. She would not permit this sort of treatment, she told herself. She was a princess and she would not suffer it.
Once again, she would have to escape.
Her grandfather, of course, would have already thought of that possibility and taken steps to prevent it. He knew how resourceful his granddaughter could be and he probably expected her to try to slip away during the night and find help elsewhere.
She rose, walked over to the window, and looked outside. There would be guards keeping watch, she knew. She would not be allowed to leave if they caught sight of her trying to do so. Not that she could leave Elderew without help in any case, even with the use of her magic. Magic could only get you so far, and in a land warded by magic and magic-wielding creatures, even she was at a disadvantage. But she had to try something. She had to get out of there before morning.
Then she saw the cat again.
It was walking just outside her window, for all intents and purposes out on a nighttime stroll, wending its way through the grasses and flowers of the little gardens. It was the same cat, she was certain. Silver with black markings, slender and aloof in its bearing, seemingly unconcerned for everything around it.
She watched it a moment, wondering what it was going to do. Then abruptly it stopped, sat down, and looked over at her. She blinked. Sure enough, it was watching her. It hadn’t done this before, but it was doing it now.
Curious, she slipped from her sleeping chamber, went through the common rooms on tiptoe, and eased out the cottage door and around the house to the gardens. The cat was still sitting there, looking at her. She stopped at the gardens’ edge, perhaps ten feet away, wondering what to do next.
“Can I help you with something, Princess?” the cat asked suddenly.
And she could have sworn she saw him smile.
EDGEWOOD DIRK
Mistaya stared at the cat, and the cat stared back, its green eyes luminous. Had it really spoken to her or had she just imagined it?
“Cat got your tongue?” the cat asked after a moment’s silence between them.
She nodded slowly. “I don’t guess you’re any ordinary cat, are you? I guess you must be a fairy creature. But you look like an ordinary cat.”
“I don’t guess you’re any ordinary girl, either,” the cat replied. “I guess you must be a Princess. But you look like an ordinary girl.”
She nodded again. “Ha, ha. What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to come out and talk with me. We have a great deal to discuss, you and I. We have plans to make. We have places to go and people to meet. We have a life to live that extends far beyond these woods and your grandfather’s rule.”
“We do, do we?” She dropped down on her haunches and regarded the beast more closely. She ignored the cool damp of the night air and the silence of the darkness. She didn’t even think about the possibility that her grandfather’s guards might be watching her talk with this cat and wondering why. Her curiosity pushed all these considerations aside as she studied the cat’s inscrutable face. “We have all that to do, you and I?”
The cat lifted one paw and licked it carefully, not looking at her. When it was satisfied with the result, it put the paw back down and blinked at her with an air of contentment. “Allow me to summarize. You have been dismissed from your school and sent home. Your father is unhappy with you and your mother, disappointed. Consequently, they seek to find a way to channel your considerable talents into a project that will further your truncated education. Thus, they choose to send you to Libiris. You view this as punishment, particularly in light of your father’s response to Lord Laphroig’s marriage proposal, and so you flee to your grandfather in hopes that he will better understand your dismay. But he refuses to let you stay and in the morning intends to send you back to your parents.”
