“Then there’s nothing I can do for you except give you my blessing, which I’ve done already. You’re one of Molpe’s children, I think. May she care for you and favor you, this night and every night.”
“Thank you, Silk.” It was the tone of the little girl she had once been. Five years ago, perhaps, he decided; or perhaps three, or less than three. He swung his right leg over the windowsill.
“Watch out for my lynxes.”
Silk berated himself for not having questioned her more. “What are those?”
“My children. Do you want to see one?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do, if you want to show him to me.”
“Watch.”
Mucor was looking out the window, and Silk followed her gaze. For half a minute he waited beside her, listening to the faint sounds of the night; Blood’s orchestra seemed to have fallen silent. Ghost-like, a floater glided beneath the arch, its blowers scarcely audible; the talus let down the gate smoothly behind it, and even the distant rattle of the chain reached them.
A section of abatjour pivoted upward, and a horned head with topaz eyes emerged from beneath it, followed by a big, soft-looking paw.
Mucor said, “That’s Lion. He’s my oldest son. Isn’t he handsome?”
Silk managed to smile. “Yes, he certainly is. But I didn’t know you meant the horned cats.”
“Those are their ears. But they jump through windows, and they have long teeth and claws that can hurt worse than a bull’s horns.”
“I imagine so.” Silk made himself relax. “Lynxes? Is that what you call them? I’ve never heard of the name, and I’m supposed to know something about animals.”
The lynx emerged from the abatjour and trotted over to stand beneath the window, looking up at them quizzically. If he had bent, Silk could have touched its great, bearded head; he took a step backward instead. “Don’t let him come up here, please.”
“You said you wanted to see them, Silk.”
“This is close enough.”
As if it had understood, the lynx wheeled. A single bound carried it to the top of the battlement surrounding the conservatory roof, from which it dived as though into a pool.
“Isn’t he pretty?”
Silk nodded reluctantly. “I found him terrifying, but you’re right. I’ve never seen a lovelier animal, though all Sabered Sphigx’s cats are beautiful. She must be very proud of him.”
“So am I. I told him not to hurt you.” Mucor squatted on her heels, folding like a carpenter’s rule.
“By standing beside me and talking to me, you mean.” Gratefully, Silk seated himself on the windowsill. “I’ve known dogs that intelligent. But a—lynx? Is that the singular? It’s an odd word.”
“It means they hunt in the daytime,” Mucor explained. “They would, too, if my father’d let them. Their eyes are sharper than almost any other animal’s. But their ears are good, too. And they can see in the dark, just like regular cats.”
Silk shuddered.
“My father traded for them. When he got them they were just little chips of ice inside a big box that was little on the inside. The chips are just like little seeds. Do you know about that, Silk?”
“I’ve heard of it,” he said. For an instant he thought that he felt the hot yellow gaze of the lynx behind him; he looked quickly, but the roof was bare. “It’s supposed to be against the law, though I don’t think that’s very strictly enforced. One could be placed inside a female animal of the correct sort, a large cat I’d imagine, in this case —”
“He put them inside a girl.” Mucor’s eerie titter came again. “It was me.”
“In you!”
“He didn’t know what they were.” Mucor’s teeth flashed in the darkness. “But I did, a long while before they were born. Then Musk told me their name and gave me a book. He likes birds, but I like them and they like me.”
“Then come with me,” Silk said, “and the lynxes won’t hurt either of us.”
The skull nodded, still grinning. “I’ll fly beside you, Silk. Can you bribe the talus?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It takes a lot of money.”
There was a soft scraping from the back of the room, followed by a muffled thump. Before the door swung open, Silk realized that what he had heard was a bar being lifted from it and laid aside. Nearly falling, he slid over the sill, and crouched as Mucor’s window shut silently above his head.
For as long as it took him to run mentally through the formal praises of Sphigx, whose day was about to dawn (or so at least he felt), he waited, listening. No sound of voices reached him from the room above, though once he heard what might have been a blow. When he stood at last and peeped cautiously through the glass, he could see no one.
The panes that Lion had raised with his head yielded easily to Silk’s fingers; as they rose, a moist and fragrant exhalation from the conservatory below invaded the dry heat of the rooftop. He reflected that it would be simple now—much easier than he had thought—to enter the conservatory from above, and the trees there had clearly supported Lion’s considerable weight without damage.
