Crystal frowned at me, quietly demanding an explanation. I shrugged. “Dantaleon’s functionally immortal, but he still has limits to his magic, just like us. He draws power from his offices. That’s just how he works. In a way, both of us are bound to books.”
Mr. Wrinkles purred, licking the back of one paw. “And the sooner we arrive at our destination, the sooner the two of you will have access to everything you need.”
The cat hadn’t steered us wrong before – not that he’d ever had a chance to steer us anywhere, truthfully. But Mr. Wrinkles had saved my life once, slicing a rogue wizard in half with the searing beams emanating from his eyes. He was a cat, through and through, concerned for his own survival and comfort above all else. He knew that restoring my power would mean restoring his luxuries. We had no reason to distrust him.
“Very well,” Dantaleon said. “Gather close.”
We huddled in a circle. Dantaleon hovered above us, the rasp of his voice whispering faint incantations as a shaft of light suffused our bodies. The murky wet and broken concrete of Crystal’s former home vanished as the world turned unbearably bright. The light of Dantaleon’s teleportation spell quickly faded, and I blinked hard to take in our surroundings.
Dantaleon groaned, then floated downwards, settling into the crook of my elbow. He wasn’t exaggerating about spending the last of his power to transport us. Dantaleon was silent, motionless, an inanimate book instead of my mouthy, sometimes murderous mentor. For a split second I was almost tempted to leaf through his pages, until I recalled that this was the same Dantaleon who liked to boobytrap his offices. For all the times I’d stolen scrolls and single pages from his study, I was genuinely lucky never to have had my fingers blown off by one of his explosive wards.
“This is a city,” Pierce said, glancing around. “Wait. It’s the same city as before. Valero?”
“Correct,” Mr. Wrinkles said, splaying his front paws out against warm asphalt, relishing a stretch that bent his body into a graceful, boneless curve. He turned in a circle, searching for something, finally picking one direction and padding towards a squat building.
Four stories, at most, and residential, if I had to judge by the laundry hanging on the balcony of more than one apartment unit. It wasn’t the priciest place, either, given that the front gate didn’t appear to be locked. No automatic doors, nothing. I trailed after Mr. Wrinkles, feeling absolutely ridiculous for letting an actual cat take the lead.
“Wrinkles? Mr. Wrinkles?” It was stranger calling him by his full name, knowing now how much power he had over me. “This hardly looks like the font of magical power you were talking about.”
He looked over his shoulder, glaring at me chidingly, answering only with an annoyed “Mrrow.” He really was a clever cat. It wouldn’t do well to have him speaking normally out in the human world at all.
Nobody stopped us as we walked into the apartment building. The units were clustered close together, the air filled with the clamor of too-loud televisions and the smells of several dinners being prepared all at once. Mr. Wrinkles stopped at a door that looked like any of the others, with one small distinction. Close to the ground, on a weathered little table that might well have been a stool in a past life, sat a porcelain figurine of a smiling cat, one of its paws held up in the air in greeting. It looked like it was waving, perhaps beckoning.
Pierce stared at the figurine in mixed curiosity and confusion. Crystal pushed past him, grumbling. “It’s a maneki-neko,” she said. “You people really are demons. Never seen one? It’s a Japanese lucky cat.” She rapped sharply on the front door with her knuckles, then looked down at Mr. Wrinkles. “Just who are we supposed to ask for?” He looked up at her with huge, vacant eyes, then meowed coyly.
The door opened to a chorus of even more meowing. I stared wide-eyed into the apartment. It was plastered in cats, of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Every available surface was covered in them: the couches, the coffee table, even what was still visible of the kitchen counter. And yet, for a place that appeared to be home to at least two dozen of the creatures, the apartment was very clean, almost spotlessly so. It even smelled nice, like home cooking, like a kitchen.
Mr. Wrinkles sashayed into the apartment, the mewling of furry dozens falling silent as he went among them. The other cats sniffed at him with reverent curiosity, rubbing up against his flanks in feline solidarity. Did they acknowledge him as one of their own? It was so odd, seeing him go from an authoritative, no doubt very magical creature, to something as conventional and innocent as a domestic cat.
Pierce was the first to enter the apartment, sitting on the ground and immediately being swarmed by six of the smaller cats. He made cooing noises as they clambered all over him and batted at his fingers. He was clearly happy to make the acquaintance of feline friends who didn’t fire lasers out of their eyes or attempt to claw him skinless at the slightest provocation. Crystal stepped in next, hovering at the threshold, looking around the apartment for its human occupant.
I did the same, shutting the door behind me, letting out a tentative “Hello?” It wasn’t lost on me. There I was, the heir of Asmodeus, in a tiny apartment somewhere on earth, a deadly, centuries-old sorcerer sleeping dormant in my arms, with nowhere to go, nothing to my name. To say that I’d been humbled by Mother’s excommunication was an understatement.
Beads rustled in a shimmering curtain from a gap to the kitchen I hadn’t noticed. The curtain parted and a woman poked her head out, her tight curls of black hair
