I awoke to a tantalizing smell and a corresponding grumble in my tummy. Terry had fired up the grill in the back yard and had just laid a slab of love on. I emerged to see who was where.

A familiar ping in the basement encouraged me to use the pan down there–Pharaoh was in the tub, hair done up in a tidy knot on top of his head. He waved, and I flirted my tail, but I didn’t stop to chat–ever since the surgery, when I awakened with a full bladder it was pressing against sore places.

Damn it! I had forgotten, or rather failed to realize, that the pan they’d fixed up in the bedroom had to come from somewhere. I yammered a string of dismayed stupidities at myself, doubling back and whimpering at Pharaoh as I went past. He caught my desperation.

“Want a lift to the loo, m’lady?”

I ran over to him and meowed a loud assent, wiggling a little from paw to paw as I did so. He laughed and put a hand out toward me. There was just an instant where I saw an invisible net springing from his hand. (Yes, I know, but I don’t know how else to put it.) I sniffed the gating smell, and then, oh joy, there I was in the study. But the bathroom door was closed. Lynn Tarragon was in there.

“Hurry u-u-up!” I screamed, my wiggle now a dance. I really didn’t think I could make it up the long flight to the master bedroom. To my surprise and joy she opened the door. I saw that it had been a reach-over, her still being on the pot herself. What a princess! “I would do the same for you any day,” I reassured her, sweet relief filling my souls from inner to outer.

“It’s all good, Eureka. Been there. They moved everything around and it still kinda hates you. It should go back to normal. You’re lucky you don’t have the other problem–some people wake up not being able to go at all. It’s an anesthetic thing.” She sounded so matter-of-fact that I perked up my ears in suspicion.

“Can you speak Cat?” I asked. No answer other than a smile at my questioning purrup. I realized that Lynn just automatically treated everybody with respect and didn’t even talk down to, well, me. It was as if she didn’t know how. A rare gift.

We both finished our business and exited together. I realized that Pharaoh had really screwed up by gating me into Terry’s study with a “tseradi” in the house. I didn’t know how I was going to get this through to him, but at the least he needed to be told it had been a Bad Thing, and I guessed I could get that across. Lynn sort of followed me as I headed off to the basement, there being nobody else in sight and the only person in the yard being Terry singing to himself over the grill. It was something about it being a marvelous night for a moondance–why, that no-good plagiarizing fink! That was the song Duke was singing for me! How did Terry get hold of it? It took me a few minutes to realize that the likely path of plagiarism had gone the other way, Terry not speaking Cat. Bah. Nobody can be trusted these days.

Pharaoh was out of the tub, sitting on one of the redwood benches surrounding it, putting in his contact lenses. He looked up as we both came downstairs. I headed over to him; Lynn froze on the bottom two steps. I realized that they probably didn’t know each other, as the sorcerer hadn’t been there the previous times Lynn had visited. Then I noticed that Pharaoh was naked, and caught on that Lynn at least was embarrassed.

“Oh, ah, hello. Sorry. Just wandering about. Didn’t know there was a tub down here. I’ll be . . .” She turned to go, heat radiating from her skin.

Pharaoh called after her, “Oh no, please don’t go! I don’t mind a bit. I’ll just be a jiff. Give me just one second . . . There!” He blinked to center the contact. He stood up, all grace and Lion muscle, and bowed.

“Pharaoh Hiroshi, Lion Quartermain.” His hair undid itself and tumbled at his feet; he tossed it back over his shoulders as he straightened up. It was black and glossy, catching the highlights from the muted track lights which were echoed on his still-damp skin.

“Lynn Tarragon. I’m a mother–I mean a grad student–I mean, I’m a friend of Terry’s.” Poor Lynn was still dying of embarrassment, her eyes fixed on a spot about two inches above Pharaoh’s head. He grinned, and went over to his clothes, getting dressed quickly but without the slightest fuss. She relaxed a little when his boxer shorts went on, but only a very little.

“How do you know Terry?”

“Ah, um, we had some classes together here at Harvard. I live across the street now.”

Pharaoh put on his wifebeater and looked around for his overshirt, which I had appropriated in an automatic fit of absent-mindedness. “Shoo, Eureka!” I wasn’t shooing, and bit into the soft chambray, hugging it with all paws. It was a game we often played. I wanted to make sure he noticed me.

Lynn noticed him, I think. She kept making these little sounds as he laughed and his muscles flexed while trying to dislodge me. Her outer soul was giving off an impressive amount of embarrassment and what I was breveting as sexual frustration, sketching that theory in based on what I got off the cubs while watching certain music videos.

Saved by the blowhard! I heard Dante Fabrizio come in the front door and call through the house. After a moment, he reached the kitchen and went out onto the patio. Lynn followed him, almost fleeing up the stairs.

“I’ll see you–I mean, I’ll see less of you–I mean, oh dear.” She exited, closing the door at the head of the stairs as if she had trapped a djinn down there. What the what was her problem? I mewed at Pharaoh in frustration. Somebody needed to brief him on this woman; but it looked as if somebody had needed to brief her on him. Was she really such a goody-good as to be that body shy? She had lost every bit of a poise I had thought as much a part of her as her fur–if she’d had proper fur.

“I’m very pretty,” said Pharaoh, complacent. He was braiding his hair into the workaday Lion plait, beads round his neck and both sneakers tied in bows too short to play with. “No, really. Artemisio looks like a guardian angel, and Dante ain’t half bad, but as far as naked goes, I win hands down around here. It makes the whole thing ever so much worse when the unexpected naked person is really pretty. You instinctively want to admire them, but that would be impolite. And the vibe from that poor dear is that she hasn’t been laid in months. Neither have I, of course, but she hasn’t got a vow of chastity to blame it on. What a pity; she looks like quite the armful. What do you think of her?” He picked me up and we headed upstairs, pausing in our now usual spot.

“The question is, what do you think of her? Gating me like that. I could have been the death of that woman. Or she–”

He raised a hand. “You seem upset. Oh dear, did I gate you smack into her?”

“Yes!” Over the months I’d taught him about fifteen key words in a register he could handle.

“Oh dear.  Did she scream? No. Did she realize what she was seeing?”

She hadn’t seen me gate, per se. But it had been close. I settled for biting his wrist.

“I should be more careful?”

“Yes!”

“But . . . Here’s an odd question, Eureka. An occasional cat can pick up wavelengths that we can’t, so you just might know this one. Is this lady Th’nashi?”

“YES!” I yowled. Hell with their conspiracy. Then I did a double-take. He was a master sorcerer, but he was a Knightsblood, not a Todeschlagi. How had he guessed?

Pharaoh laughed at my face. “Elementary, my dear catkin. She doesn’t ping quite right to be humani. When we’re trying not to let on that we’re turned on, we leave other  bases uncovered. Other wavelengths. To put it another way, her g’nah looks like the very beginning of a jigsaw puzzle–most of it is ‘missing,’ but there are a few key sections that are exactly where you’d expect them to be–and they were the pieces that were trying their clumsy best to interface with mine. Moreover, that lady’s a’thanila, or I’ll clean your pan. Am I right?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

He smirked. “All in a minute’s work. That’s why I’m a District Sorcerer. Ha! Do the others know?”

“Yes and no.”

“Some do?”

“Yes. Terry, Sasha, Meeze.”

“And she’s not home yet. If she were, she would have Lioned me half to death back there. Caught desiring my off-limits bodaciousness and all.” I was impressed.

Terry poked his head down the stairs. “What is it with you and the cat? Careful with her, she still has stitches.” In actual fact, the sorcerer had plugged in his nice, warm, pain-numbing outer soul as soon as he took me into his arms. I was determined to stay by his side for the evening.

We came up, Pharaoh rubbing the spot behind my ears that only he and Sasha could get. It made me kind of stupid, but I didn’t care.

The cubs and Rita were bringing the food inside, it being a little too cool for the backyard. Not one but two slabs of brown and black amazingness! I licked my chops. No chicken, though. No, no, I was wrong, here it came with Sasha, who scowled at seeing somebody else loving his cat. And all manner of human accoutrements, like potato salad and pickles and (I licked my chops again) olives. They were a little too bitter to actually chew, but I could lick and play with one for hours. The humans found this hilarious for some reason, but screw ‘em. They were happy, I was happy: Ah, bliss.

Everybody sat down, Pharaoh putting his well-stuffed knitting bag under his chair for me, going so far as to hand me an olive and hiss, “Make sure the drool gets on the carpet.” I purred an assent and set to work.

Terry soon turned the conversation to school. He, Sasha, Pharaoh, and Dante had all been to fancy boys’ boarding schools; the cubs had both gone to their local public schools, but those had done a good enough job to get them into Harvard. Lynn had gone to Catholic school, and I got a great deal of amusement out of tracing the holes in her and Terry’s stories as they avoided admitting knowing each other at that age.

It was obvious that Dante had gotten a thorough briefing on the Tarragons, except for the Th’nashi part, and he said so many tactful and careful things about the uses of good school systems like Cambridge’s as to win him points with both them and me. I could see why he’d been picked to be Privy Councillor–he was a very smart man, and when he set himself to the job, could charm your collar off.

Lynn’s metaphorical collar was in tatters. By the end of the meal, she had agreed to be introduced to a couple of Dante’s friends, one of whom had fingers in the pie over at the local high school and the other of whom was an expert on childhood trauma.

“Know anybody good for me?” she quipped.

“But of course. There’s also the tried and true version of increasing your social supports. There’s a lovely hot tub right below our feet, for example–well, no, it’s a few feet thataway. Nothing like communal bathing to foster community and soak out the aches of the day.”

“Lynn has already seen the tub,” said my wicked friend with a playful leer in his voice, but Lynn had by now so recovered herself as to throw something at him. Another olive, which he proffered to me, but I was busy with the bone Joel had slipped me, slurping every available iota of delectable pig fat off with brio. Pharaoh sighed and moved his bag a little bit.

By the end of the evening, Rita was as much as signed up with a network of smart and caring adults and Lynn herself was scheduled to attend Evensong at the local monastery with Dante. I could detect just a little jealousy emanating from Terry over that one, but it wasn’t as if they were going clubbing. Or kissing or something; but I guess it was understandable. My tummy was full of forbidden human scraps, which were giving me an uncomfortable amount of gas, but my private and personal District Sorcerer was stroking my belly, sending little zaps through my gut which broke up the bubbles into something more manageable. Life was good, and our problems were solved, weren’t they?

Except for the Kaiser of Todeschlag, but he was in Germany. All the way on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And he could stay there. My dai’yadi was expanding, and I was at peace.

To my surprise, I felt almost normal on Friday morning. At least, it seemed that way in comparison to the previous two days.  Sasha felt my belly and poked with his outer soul and pronounced himself content with my progress. I was able to navigate the stairs with greater comfort, if not quite ease, and so I followed him down for his 6 a.m. omelet and tea, while Terry was still zonked upstairs, and would be for another hour—it was a shame he got to sleep in, as he did mornings better than poor Sasha did.

Six was when the bodyguard changed off, and Bart and Matt yawned their way off to the barracks for more sleep (Bart) and Eamon’s 6:30 hand-to-hand class (Matt), while Devon and Joel showed up to hang out until Terry left and then tail him to school at a discreet distance (Devon) and do basic household chores and mind the fort for the day (Joel).

I was treated to a resumption of my morning half-can of Prairie Picnic along with my taurine-rich kibble, and I noshed while Sasha read email and the boys had an argument about some minor Stricture of the Order over their oatmeal. Morning as usual, and then I heard It.

It was the tiniest scrabble behind the sink, but I recognized it immediately. It was a mouse. At long last, a mouse! The smells I’d detected downstairs when Sasha had first brought me home had been old, and my simple presence had kept them all banished to impossible places, like the attic, for the past several months. We had some–all old houses do–but so long as they remained unseen, left nothing behind, and did no noticeable damage, they were an invisible part of the ecology, and there was nothing for me to do but smell like a cat.

But some little pioneer had once more braved the kitchen! This was more than fair game, and I was very happy. I was a decent mouser. Fred had taught me well, and I burned to impress my humans.

I wished the boys would put a lid on it so I could listen better. I decided to try the international sign language for “Look, there’s a mouse:” I pawed at the door under the sink and meowed until I had eye contact with at least Devon, then repeated the pawing, looking anxious.

Joel said, “Eureka, it’s cat food now. You still have a fresh bowl full.” To Devon: “Bart and Matt got dog food last night, d’ja hear?”

Devon snorted. “Hear? It’s on the official incident report.” He shot Sasha an apprehensive look and muttered, “Abbot nearly bust a gut laughing about it. Said he was glad we had an archimago who appreciated our abilities and expected the best.” Sasha did not make eye contact or show that he’d heard this, but a small spike of amusement went through his outer soul.

Damn it! Of course! My food lived under the sink! In fact, that must be what the rapacious little bastard was after. The nerve! I repressed the urge to roll my eyes at the boys and kept meowing like a good kitty.

Still without looking up, Sasha said, “Open the door for her. She’s got a mouse, I bet.”

Devon was closest and reached over and disengaged the latch, which I was embarrassed to recall was installed after I had failed to resist exploring some fascinating trash during my first couple of weeks. Hoist by my own petard now. I tugged open the door with a paw and sort of waddled inside, still hampered a little by the incision. And aha! Mouse sign galore–a tiny eddy of nibbled fragments of bag, several pellets of poo, and the rank smell everywhere. (Nothing reeks like mice, not even rats, which are cleaner and smarter, if an advanced topic for the average housecat, although the massive Fred had bragged about being able to take them out when he had to.)

I meowed some more and patted the bag, then realized that would only confuse them into getting back onto the cat-wantum-food trail. Maybe better to wait for Pharaoh; I was willing to bet that I’d get results. I sighed and went back to finishing my breakfast.

There it was again! I lunged into the opening under the sink without thinking, banging myself on the doorway and getting a sharp scary pang inside for my trouble. I moaned in a mixture of pain and frustration, and Sasha said in a satisfied tone, “Yup, mouse. C’mere, kitcat.” He scooped me out by my chest, “mm-hmm”-ing at my complaint in sympathy.

“Eureka, you’re not up to this yet. Let’s get the food out of there–well, looky here, gentlemen; in my line of work we call this material evidence–and up on the counter. I’ll bring home one of the big specimen canisters Farley ordered; that ought to do the trick.”

“Mice are perfectly able of getting onto the counter. Shame on you,” I mumbled. He picked up on my unhappiness.

“Best we’re doing for now. No, better yet–” He bundled the bag tight and put it on top of the refrigerator. While he was there he checked the cereal boxes and found nothing.

“Matter of time,” I groused to myself. They latched the cabinet door at Sasha’s insistence that I wasn’t 100% yet and he didn’t want temptation looking me in the eye. I wasn’t sure whether he meant the mouse or the trash; one was probably a good idea and true enough, the other was unfair, and both were infantilizing. I cleaned up the last bits of Prairie Picnic, taking time off to growl warnings toward the sink that used vocabulary that would have grown hair on the Crucio’s bald head had he been there to hear me.

Later, after everybody else had left, Joel cleaned out the cabinet under the sink, tsking at the mouse poo. I supervised, and was ashamed of myself for either sleeping on the job or at best, picking the world’s worst time to go into heat and get sidelined by the surgery. After he was done, we both took a nap in the guard room, only to be awakened by the doorbell. It was the Tarragons, Rita looking eager, Lynn looking sheepish.

“Sasha said that it was all right for Rita to play in your yard. I just wanted to check before I left for the library.”

Great, I could feel Joel thinking. Aloud, he said, “Uh, sure, I guess so. I’ll keep half an eye on her.”

“Terrific!” Lynn’s face lit up. “Rita, you behave yourself, okay?”

“Of course, Mommy.” Rita made little shooing gestures. “Hi, Eureka!” She bent down and petted my head and back with gentle strokes that betrayed that she wasn’t used to animals, or at least to getting to touch them. It was as if she was afraid I would break, which beat the alternative, I suppose, but it was a little annoying. I realized again how spoiled I’d gotten, living among Th’nashi with responsive outer souls which told them almost as feedback how hard and long to pet. Presumably, Rita’s hadn’t grown in yet.

We all watched Lynn hurry down the street at a brisk trundle which was almost a waddle. She probably would have been more comfortable with less weight, I guessed. Still, it was a pity. She looked soft. Then Rita gave Joel a disarming grin that fooled him not a bit.

“You don’t have to watch me. In fact, I’d feel weird if you did. I promise I won’t go anywhere but home to check on mom with the computer.” She sighed in resignation at her own goodness.

“Not to worry. I have my own stuff to do,” he said. “I know what you mean, and I’m not going to do the creepy old man thing. But don’t even think of heading out for the Territories, or I’ll have to come after you. Dr. Van der Linden is serious as a heart attack about that.”

She saluted. “Mind if I just go home and get my drawing stuff?” Joel waved her on. I regretted it when he shut the door, leaving all the brisk shiny beauty of the fall Outdoors on the other side. He went up to grab the laundry; meanwhile, I decided to save myself a trip up the stairs and went back in to check on my mouse.

And stopped dead in my tracks for a timeless split second: The vermin was sitting in the middle of the floor, saucy as you please. I leapt; it leapt; and then it was gone, scrabbling under the cabinets by the door this time, while I cried foul at the top of my lungs and pawed at the crack so hard I stubbed a toe.

“Oh no,” groaned Joel, as he passed with an armful of sheets.

“Oh yes,” I mewed. “And I can hear another one back under the sink. It has an accomplice.”

Joel and I spent the rest of the day alternating between tearing the kitchen apart and drawing a bead on Rita outside with our outer souls. Terry came home right before teatime and suggested siccing Pharaoh on it. Even I knew that this wasn’t in the District Sorcerer’s job description, even without seeing Joel’s look of incredulity, which he wiped off after only a nanosecond–Terry missed it, being too pleased with his own brilliant idea.

“So how long have we had a kiddo?” he asked.

“Since right about lunchtime,” Joel sighed. “Did Sasha really offer us up as a babysitting service, sir?”

Terry winced. “Um, we decided that we want to get to know them better. With the idea of maybe making them vai’ada eventually.” This was a half-truth, “vai’ada” being the opposite of “tseradi”–i.e., humani who were hip to the vampire thing and full members of Contract society, whereas in reality the Tarragons weren’t humani at all, and sooner or later Rita at least would have to reckon with that. But it was good enough for government work for the time being, and Joel nodded.

“But, sir.” He stopped, and checked through his not-very-large personal stock of diplomacy. “But.” He stopped again.

“But there are limits to how far we can take advantage of the Order?” prompted Terry with a half-smile.

Joel looked grateful. “Sir, to be perfectly honest, I don’t like kids. Even though she’s been as good as gold. Today,” he added. Joel had been on the tracking detail a couple of times. He sighed. “Thing is, maybe I’m just bringing my own stuff into it, but the whole thing reminds me of my sister. If she can get rid of my nephew, she does. And he’s turning into a little asswipe, excuse my French. Already had her call me twice to get me to sweet-talk the Lions into letting him coast on some minor stuff, and I told her I’m not doing it any more. He’s becoming an embarrassment.”

Terry sighed, looking grim. “You’re talking to a reformed asswipe. Who wasn’t appropriately supervised. Yeah, I hear ya. And what’s more, I agree. And to be fair, so does Sasha. He’s just a pragmatist who’s been Hippocratic Oathing the situation: First, do no harm. We hadn’t gotten that far, but it’s going to be up to me to sit Lynn down for a talk about the facts of life.”

“Mm,” said Joel. There was a little silence while Terry and I watched him caulk up the mousehole we had finally spotted up under the dish drainer. Then, “Your Grace, may I make a suggestion?”

“Shoot.”

“Maybe Lion Fabrizio can talk to the mom. He’s . . . got . . . a way with people. He can usually get them to do what he wants them to do.”

Terry gave a sincere and hearty laugh. “That’s for damn sure!” He grew quiet, with his I’ve-got-an-idea-smile. “You know, Joel, that’s a great idea. They don’t have a history, and I think Lynn’s even Episcopalian, so the priest thing might work some extra hoodoo. But how do we bring them together?”

“Simple. You have ‘em both over for dinner. You cook, we’ll wait table.”

“No,” Terry disagreed. “I want her to stop being intimidated by the staff issue. Whoever’s on, and I think it should be you and Dev, especially since it’s your idea, will just eat with us like we usually do.” He grinned at the cub in delighted approval. “In fact, I’m pretty sure Dante’s free tonight. Strike while the iron’s hot, I say.” He pulled out his wallet. “Go run out and pick up some ribs and the makings for my special sauce. You can’t have a stick up your ass while you’re eating barbecue; it’ll loosen her up.”

Him too, I hoped. I trotted off to my spot behind the TV for a nap. I didn’t want to miss Dante Fabrizio and barbecue sauce.

I was unhappy when I awoke, because my stitches had all stiffened up. I limped into the living room, looking for a warm lap or at least some sympathy. Meeze and Sasha and Terry were all still at the table, talking about Lynn Tarragon.

Sasha clucked to me and picked me up, managing not to jostle anything any more than could be helped. I collapsed against him in relief. His outer soul couldn’t do all the bells and whistles the way Pharaoh’s could in terms of the warm-me-up thing, but it was still his. I meatloafed as best I could, trying to keep most of my weight on my paws.

Meeze said, “So can you run her DNA from her teacup, Sash?”

“Sure I can. But it still somehow seems wrong. Invasive.”

Terry was shaking his head. “And I still can’t wrap my head around it. I tell you, I know this chick. Granted, we’ve had a long patch or two of being out of touch, but I would have noticed.”

“If she’s fy’foxi, you couldn’t have noticed,” Sasha disagreed. “She would have given you nothing to notice with. First line of interference: Todeschlagi Grail. Only other Toadies like Meeze can spot them to begin with. Second line of interference: What the old folks call the Shield of Adamant, or as it’s put in medical terms, the Q-band emitter omission. That cuts out everybody but a master sorcerer–again, like Meeze–and only if they’re really looking.”

“I always deep-ping,” said Meeze with pride.

“We know, and it’s annoying,” Terry said. The sorcerer laughed.

So Meeze was genetically House Todeschlag? That explained a few things. I had by now gotten good at telling the ethnic variations apart, and despite being House Firenzi nobility–once Head of House, apparently–he didn’t match the other couple of Firenzi I knew. There was a sort of crossbreed Th’nashi called Knightsblood-Firenzi, and he was close to that, but–

My musings were interrupted by Terry slamming a fist on the table. “I should have been there. I should have been there for her. None of my friends should have to go through bullshit like that.”

Sasha hmm’ed. “Speaking of having gone through all that trauma, I’m not in the slightest bit comfortable in breaking the news to her that she’s an alien. I’ve seen people snap over far less.”

“Unless Rita turns out to be a Grail,” Meeze pointed out, “a conversation has to be had there and pronto. All we need is for her fangs to come in before she’s properly brought home.”

“Brought home,” Terry snarled. “Shield of Adamant. This is all sounding like a bad Th’nashi romance. I’ve never even met an actual a’thanila before.” I yawned to cover my surprise at this. Terry, Bast bless him, could be dense sometimes. Actually, he had one close at hand, in social terms. Meeze’s cousin Sean McPherson, the Prince of the House of Firenzi, was an a’thanila–a Th’nashi adopted and raised by humani. Nobody knew there was anything special about Sean until he hit puberty and the descent of his fangs panicked both him and his adoptive mothers to within inches of their lives. Sean was married to Eamon Davenant, and I had heard Eamon tell the story of how his mothers-in-law had schemed to steal blood from the hospital where one of them worked when their son showed signs of needing it.

Of course, the chance was high that he wouldn’t figure out that he had blood vents under his tongue leading to a different organ entirely, and that he’d just drink the blood instead and get sick, like as not. But Sean was lucky, and, being horrible behind the wheel of anything more dangerous than a bumper car, had rear-ended a Lion on the Interstate during driving practice. Wackiness ensued, according to Eamon, with a good deal of who’s-on-first type confusion, but it all got worked out in the end. But I guessed Terry hadn’t been there for that story.

“Yes, you have, you dummy,” said Meeze. “Sean is a’thanila. And he turned out fine. Late fanger, though. I don’t recall–is this kid developing yet?” He cupped his hands over his chest.

Sasha scowled at him. “If that’s your classy way of inquiring if she’s hit puberty, yes, she has. But I’d say she’s four or five years away from fanging. Plenty of time to ease onto the topic. First things first,” he said, handing me to Terry instead of putting me down. He got up and gathered Lynn’s teacup. “Let me run this through the lab this afternoon and we’ll see what we have.”

Terry cradled me with caution. I purred to reassure him. I usually didn’t like being held with my tummy up, but right now it felt divine. “Let’s not make any hasty phone calls or anything when the tests come back, ‘k, Sash? Not until we all talk about it. And by ‘all,’ I mean that you don’t have to be dealt in to cope with the bees’ nest you’ve uncovered,” he said to Meeze. “But it would be nice if this didn’t spread through the dai’yadi.” “Dai’yadi” was a loosely-defined term for the people they hung out with/their friends/the Council including the cubs, etc.–in Cat the word came through as “Family” with both ears twitched back and whiskers forward.

“Iffen you say so,” said Meeze. He sighed in half-mock self-pity. “I had hoped to entice you out to play for a bit, but now I’ve got to go back to the Pit.” Which was where all the building-levitating sorcerers were. He tapped my nose with the end of the braid and left–through the door; Meeze hated to gate, saying it made him nauseated.

After Sasha had taken off too, Terry sat at the table with me in his arms, article long forgotten. At last he sighed and got up, careful not to jostle me. I was beginning to enjoy this.

“Eureka, what Sasha and I have is convenient and comfortable. But he’s my Grail Consort more than my lover. He just tolerates me on most days. Blood, sex, old friendship. Back when we were kids and it was new and shiny I was too preoccupied with the beginnings of coming-out angst to let myself go and just love him. But for a brief couple of months, I loved Aria with everything I had.” He sighed and tickled me under the chin. “But Daddy doesn’t need to know that, okay?” He wasn’t hearing it from me.

“Twenty-five years and a hundred pounds and a pile of Todeschlagi DNA notwithstanding, if Arianlyn Tarragon thinks she’s keeping her little girl in a car again, she’ll answer to me,” he muttered. Which did him credit. I purred and passed out again.

I awoke on the bed, in my usual spot by Sasha’s pillow. Terry was nowhere to be seen. I appreciated his thoughtfulness in placing me where he had, but I had to pee. I mewed in pain as I hit the floor with a thud that vibrated through my full bladder to the surgical site. I barely made it to the pan, and when I was done, I dry-heaved a moment or two. I crawled into the little cave Terry had made with the new electric blanket and my cat bed and felt sorry for myself.

It was late afternoon and time for cartoons, so after a while I struggled out of my den and made it downstairs, unsure as to whether or not it was better or worse than it had been that morning. I was depressed and bored. What was the point of anything? Life was just a round of eating and using the pan, with TV thrown in between to lull us into a false sense of security. And then there was pain, and sickness, and loss, and finally it all stopped. Did we really go to make an account to Bast before going back for another life? The humans said we had only nine. What if they were right, and this was it for me?

Oh, and of course. It was Bart and Matt on tonight, and they played video games instead of watching their TV as Bast meant it to be used. Even more morose, I slumped on out into the empty living room, looking for the remote. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be, which was behind the big TV in a nice warm spot where the napping was good and I could “accidentally” lie on it to turn the thing on. Nope, nowhere to be seen. Spiffy. Groovy. Better and better.

Terry was back in the dining room. This time he really was working on his article, listening to the Kinks on his laptop and spreading magazines and academic journals all over one end of the table. I had to resort to extending my claws into his jeans before he broke concentration enough to so much as bend down and pet me.

“Kibble in the kitchen, kiddo. Woo, I are the Alliteration King.” He was cheerful. Work always made Terry happy–unless it was Contract-related. Then it was his turn to go around like a rainy Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t hungry, but since when does that stop anybody in the First World from eating? I slouched along, noticing that the pain and the stiffness were less, but who cared when we were all going to die soon anyway?

Oh my Bast, were they kidding me? This was dog food! Dog food could build up ash in my system and kill me! Whatever ash was. I heard Mrs. Roaman say so. I sat in front of my bowl and yowled like Pavarotti until the baffled and angry Terry came out.

“What the frip, Eureka? I ain’t cooking right–whoa.” He looked at the bag Matt had left open on the counter and started to laugh. “Somebody got the right color bag, but the wrong manufacturer. This won’t kill you for one night, Eureka.”

“Yes, it will. I’m frail post-surgery. Go ask Sasha.” I rubbed around his ankles in irritation, hoping it wouldn’t need a Crucio to translate.

Terry groaned and threw up his hands. “On the other hand, if Daddy comes back and finds this to-do . . . Some things are so not worth it.“ He trotted off to yell at the cubs. Benefits of one’s staff having staff, as it were.

I decided to have a wash in self-congratulation on having made my human behave properly on an important point. As I was exploring my incision, Sasha came in, with Terry on his heels.

“Eureka Van der Linden, if I catch you chewing at your stitches . . .”

“I wasn’t chewing, I was licking,” I said. “And Terry is ignoring me. And Matt got me dog food, which is poisonous, I tell you. Didn’t they teach you anything in medical school?”

“This is dog food! Who got her dog food?” Oh goody. Somebody was gonna get it now. I curled my tail around my paws and looked as soulful as possible.

“Chill, Sash. It was an honest mistake. I already sent the kid back to the store. It won’t kill her. Will it?” Terry ended, with some doubt in his voice. “I’m sure cats on the street eat worse.”

“It’s lacking some important vitamins and aminos,” said Sasha. “Cats, especially young ones, need lots of taurine. Dogs can make their own.”

“Sounds like evolutionary superiority to me. Hey! Kidding! Only kidding!” Sasha had socked him one on the arm that looked painful, alien vampire resilience or no. “So what did Lynn’s test say, already? Give.”

Sasha sighed and picked up my bowl. He said, “Got ourselves a bouncing baby Th’nashi, all right. Grail from House Todeschlag. And you know what that means.”

Terry said, “Don’t pitch the dog food. I’ll have Joel run it by St. Crispin’s. They have a food pantry. And no, I don’t.”

Sasha concentrated very hard on pouring the kibble back into the bag for some poverty-stricken pooch to appreciate. I heard the sniff in my own thoughts and remembered the nice Chihuahua from the car ride. I felt guilty. No doubt about it, I was getting spoiled to death. I started to get depressed again.

“Sasha?” Terry prodded.

“The Kaiser of Todeschlag, Terry. All their Grails belong to the Kaiser. Remember?” Belong to? What did they mean?

“Yeah, but.” Terry stopped.

“But?”

“But . . . She’s a’thanila. Surely he’d cut her some slack.”

Sasha rummaged in the odds-and-ends cupboard, coming out with some packing tape. He repaired the slit Matt had made in the bag, his outer soul radiating negative absolute zero. “Fy’foxi are perhaps the rarest Grails there are. Think of Lynn as a collector’s item–a hot pink Van Gogh or something. And when you throw in the fact that the entire House comes up with a Grail in only one out of twenty births in the first place, hence reinforcing the good ol’ Grail slavery notion–”

Terry said, “Grail slavery. My Aria.” He was pale.

Sasha cocked his head, eyes alert as a sparrow’s. “Your what?”

Terry sighed. “Never mind for now. Sasha, we can’t tell her. Of course we can’t.”

Sasha made himself even busier with the now sealed bag, shaking it to settle the food and turning away from Terry to find a spot for it on the counter by the back door. “We may not have a lot of choice, Terr. You’re the archimago, and if some Toadie sorcerer happens by and spots her just like Meeze did, what with politics being politics, it can be construed as Grail theft.”

I winced as Terry’s outer soul screamed in outrage–he was struck speechless–and reconsidered my lot. Somehow belonging to the Kaiser of Todeschlag didn’t seem like the cushy gig I had, belonging to Alexei Van der Linden, occasional dog food notwithstanding. And slavery? I riffled through my memories of the few documentaries I’d seen and shuddered. I felt worried for Lynn, whom I barely knew and had accused me in rhetoric as being uncomplicated, and worse for Rita. My Bast, what about Rita?

“And what about Rita?” Terry demanded.

Sasha shrugged and shook his head. “Right now, we know that she’s not Lafe Tarragon’s child, as Toadies can’t breed with humani. All we can do tonight is say a prayer that the real daddy is another House and passed his on to the baby instead. Kid’s probably a Fang anyway, Terr. Let’s not borrow trouble. I’ll get a teacup from her soon enough.”

Matt came into the kitchen, this time with the right bag. “I’m very sorry, sir. Sorry, Eureka.” He refilled the bowl Sasha had left on the counter and put it down, brows furrowed as he tried to work out whether the ping in the room was the grownups being mad at him. I headbutted him in thanks and reassurance, and he scrunched up my ears in gratitude before exiting to his video game.

All of a sudden, Sasha gave Terry a hard half hug. “We’ll figure something out, Terry. You have money and power, and Meeze and I have brains.” He grinned.

“Hey!” But it made Terry laugh, so I laughed too. Then I went for my kibble. It tasted extra yummy, as if they had put in special fancy taurine. Sufficient unto the day.