“You owe me now,” she snarled. “Wherever you go, I’m coming with you. I’m hounding you until I get what I’m owed.”
“But where?” Pierce said, his shoulders sloping, his gaze on the ground. “We’re out of options.”
“Anywhere but here,” I said. “We have to get going, and soon.”
Then came the yowling. Mr. Wrinkles had thrown his head back, emitting an awful sound, the only time in my life I could truly describe something as caterwauling. It was a long, horrible mewl that sounded, somehow, very much like the word “No.”
I reached out to rub him by the scruff, meaning to comfort him, but Mr. Wrinkles swatted at me, leaving a faint series of scratches on the back of my hand. I winced, taken aback by his aggression.
“We have to go, Mr. Wrinkles.” I don’t know why I spoke to him like he could understand me, but I always did. “We have to find someplace to hide.”
“No,” he answered, in another mewl that sounded uncannily, accurately human.
Crystal gawked, looking around at all our faces, then back at Mr. Wrinkles. “You guys? That cat just spoke.”
I frowned at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. It only sounds that way. He’s mimicking us. Aren’t you, boy?” I reached out, only to be met with claws again.
“No,” Mr. Wrinkles repeated. “No! I am tired of you and your utterly condescending baby talk. And I am even wearier of being constantly on the run. When I deigned to follow you home, I did not expect to be hurled into a life of poverty and danger.”
I gaped at Mr. Wrinkles in stunned silence. How does that expression go again? Cat got your tongue?
21
Crystal chewed on the end of her thumb, one hand tucked against her chest, her foot tapping insistently as her eyes flitted across every face in the room – even the cat’s. “You have so much explaining to do.” Her finger drew a line connecting each of us. “All of you.”
I shook my head, clutching the side of my temple, tempted to rip out a fistful of my own hair. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
She stood on the balls of her feet, her fists clenched tight. “Well, I’m owed an explanation. My home is ruined. I don’t know why I even bothered helping you. I thought I’d get something out of it. Power, demonic favor from a prince? Typical witch, I am, getting fucked over by devils.” She stamped her foot, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “God, I was so stupid.”
The steady drip of melting ice punctuated the destruction of Crystal’s one-time stronghold, puddles of dusty water forming on the kitchen floor from trickles originating upstairs. Pierce wrung his hands together, a ruthless, cold-blooded killer at the best of times, now reduced to apologetic speechlessness. He looked to me hopefully, as if I somehow had a better idea of what to say.
“We have precious little to explain,” Dantaleon said crisply. “And precious little time to do so. We never lied to you, girl. We are all servants of Asmodeus, the demon Prince of Lust.” He sniffed, settling himself on the kitchen table, which had miraculously survived the attack of the ice angels. “Well, perhaps we left out some crucial details.”
He allowed the silence to linger, and I knew it was my turn to fill the air. I nodded. “I’m her heir,” I said. “Which doesn’t mean very much in most terms, because Mother is going to keep her throne forever.” We’d lied to her enough that I didn’t feel entirely bad leaving out the rest of the story. She didn’t need to know about what I had been born and bred to do. That wasn’t relevant.
Crystal thrust her finger out at Mr. Wrinkles, who was grooming himself off in the corner. “What about the cat? You said he wasn’t your familiar. Regular cats don’t just sit there and talk. Regular cats don’t touch you with their paws to lend you magical power.”
I looked down at my hand, realizing she was correct. “I’ve got just as many questions as you. Mr. Wrinkles was a rescue in a very literal sense. Long story short: we found him in the lair of some crazy wizard, and we took him home.”
Mr. Wrinkles groaned, throwing his little head back. “Gods, will you lord that story over me forever and ever? It was the sensible thing to do. My captor wanted me for a pet, but he was a murderer and a brute.” He looked up at me from out of the side of his face, one baleful eye staring. “I agreed to come home with this one because he looked like he bothered to bathe. I could smell the money and privilege wafting off his skin.”
My jaw fell open. Traitor! I looked down at myself, wondering if I should sniff myself to check for my privilege.
Mr. Wrinkles rolled onto his back, his paw falling across his head as he mewled dramatically. “But now all that luxury is gone. The demon-child has gotten himself turned out of his own home. Apartments to rival the splendor of the Palace of Veils! I thought I had it made. A life of pleasure and excess, to be fed and watered for all eternity. But alas.”
Pierce narrowed his eyes at the cat, then at me. “I liked him better when he didn’t know how to talk. Dantaleon, didn’t you ever detect anything strange about this thing?”
Mr. Wrinkles scoffed. “Thing indeed.”
Dantaleon hovered closer to the cat, his pages rustling as Mr. Wrinkles swatted at him warningly with one velveteen paw. “Curious. I confess that I never once noted the vermin’s predilection for arcane power. Talking animals are not unheard of, of course, but those are far more common in books of fiction and fancy than they are in the real world. Why, the two of you quite enjoyed stories about them as children.”
I felt
