Reserved for the Cat (30 page)

He had gotten from where he left Thomas all the way to the building that contained Nigel’s flat without having any memory of the intervening space.

“W
ELL,” said Nigel, over breakfast. “What are we going to do about this situation?”

No one had to ask “What situation?” since none of them had slept particularly well last night. After many attempts to trace the homunculus back to its source, both Nigel and Arthur had to admit defeat. Jonathon had not even tried; “Fire,” he had said distinctly, “is not an element conducive to bloodhound work.” Nigel had hoped that the Air Elementals might have a memory of the creature’s passage, but evidently it had not come out into the open until it reached the building that housed Ninette’s flat.

“Guards, for one thing,” Jonathon said, slowly chewing a mouthful of toast. “Wards, for another, since I am not sure we can rely on Air Elementals to remember they are supposed to guard her.”

Nigel groaned. “Wards. Do you know how much that is going to attract attention to her? We might as well set a beacon on the top of her building! Better yet, why don’t we simply just send invitations to every dark mage we know of, and let them all appear at once?”

“Oh come now, Nigel, it isn’t that bad,” Wolf said, leaning down over Arthur’s shoulder and helping himself to a generous bite of Arthur’s scone. “After all, I wrote an entire opera that revealed I was an Elemental Master, and look how long it took the dark ones to puzzle it out!” He held the bite in one claw and ate neatly, as Arthur gazed ruefully at the place where all the jam had been until Wolf took it. “Poor Salieri. He went quite mad after that. Convinced himself that
he
was the one that killed me.”

“Wolf—it was a disease homunculus that did you in, wasn’t it?” Nigel cast the parrot a sharp glance. “I don’t suppose it would be the same mage—”

“After all this time?” Wolf made a sound like a snort. “I think not. Besides, the creature was clearly after our dancer, not me.”

Nigel sighed, and went back to contemplating his kipper. “Well, nothing is simple, is it?”

“We could set a trap . . .” Wolf continued, wiping his jam-sticky beak on Arthur’s dressing-gown, much to the latter’s exasperation. “Not anything that would actually
catch
the next creature that attacks her, but something that would allow us to trace it back?”

Jonathon shook his head. “If we were the same power, yes, but for an unlike and an antagonist power? It would take us years to work out how.”

“I would rather know
why,”
Nigel said thoughtfully. “The girl seems so inoffensive. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Then it has to tie back to her father somehow.” Jonathon pursed his lips. “I believe I will send some messages out via Elemental to the other Fire Masters that might remember Helen Waring and Dupond. Nigel, you do the same. Perhaps if we can unravel the mystery from that end, we’ll be in a position to do something for Ninette.”

“It might turn out to be someone that Miss Waring scorned,” Wolf said, with relish. “Someone who blamed Dupond for it. That could be very useful actually. So long as he isn’t utterly mad, we might be able to show him that rather than being jilted, he had a narrow escape!”

Nigel rolled his eyes. “Trust you to think of that. It sounds like a plot for one of your operas.”

“Speaking of which,” the parrot said brightly, “I have the plot for Nina’s next vehicle! It’s very Ruritanian, and if we can manage it, I think we can even get a swordfight into it! It’s about a princess who is engaged to marry a prince she’s never seen, and only wants to be a dancer instead, so she disguises herself as a maid and runs away to London, where she becomes a sensation.”

“And I suppose that the prince she was supposed to marry only wants to become a stage magician,” Jonathon drawled sarcastically.

“Not at all. The prince has been going to university here, sees her on the stage, and not knowing who she is, falls instantly for her and begins wooing her. She doesn’t know who he is, she only knows he’s a very rich student and is probably noble, and doesn’t take him very seriously at first.” Wolf looked triumphant. “Then we can have an evil cousin who has plans to usurp the throne, and kidnaps the princess to use her as bait for the prince. We can have a grand melee sword fight and end with a triumphant wedding scene when they all realize who they all are.”

“I think you have been reading too many sensational novels,” said Jonathon dryly.

“Bosh. Let’s just make the kidnapping an
attempted
kidnapping so we don’t have to change the scene.” Nigel looked up, a light that Jonathon very well recognized in his eyes. Jonathon sighed.

“Shall we concentrate on protecting our leading lady and get her
first
show on the stage before we think about her next one?” he asked, exasperated.

Nigel shook his head as if to clear it. “You’re right. So. Wards?”

Nina woke from her death-like sleep with a groan. Destroying her homunculus before those cursed Masters could trace it back here to her had been destroying a part of herself. Doing so had left her prostrated on the floor, too weak to move, and she’d just held onto consciousness long enough to get her servants to pick her up and carry her to her bed.

She had saved herself, at the cost of a great deal of power.

At least now she knew what all her enemies looked like, as seen through the eyes of the homunculus. There were two, not one, Masters: an Air Master and the Fire Master she already knew about. There was an additional Air magician, the wretched dancer who had only the power of glamorie, and a girl that was Sighted.

She did not have to ring for her servants as a human would; they knew when she was aware and needed them again. And they knew just what it was that she needed, too. Two of the men each brought a struggling street urchin in, both children so ragged and filthy it was impossible to say whether they were male or female. Not that it really mattered to Nina. She fell on them like a starving dog on a steak. When she was like this, there was no finesse involved, only the hunger and the need to replenish herself.

Literally, in this case. She had lost substance as well as energy, and when she was done there was nothing left of the children but their rags. Feeling sated and reinvigorated, she stretched and yawned. The servants took that as their signal to remove the rags and send her maid in.

“Draw me a bath,” she said. “I need to think.”

What she meant was that she needed to draw on the memories of all those she had absorbed, on their collective intellects. Her old men might have been addled by her spells and her beauty, but most of them were intelligent men who had not inherited their wealth. They had earned it, every penny of it, and gotten it as ruthlessly as anyone could imagine. They had been shrewd, calculating, and scheming. All that was hers to call upon now.

As she sank into her hot bath, with her hair piled high on her head and the scent of musk surrounding her from the perfume oils and special herbs she always put in the water, the first thing that came into her mind was this.

They might not know
who,
but they would know
what,
or at least, they would know that an Earth Master walking the dark path was hunting their precious dancer.

It was true that Earth Mastery tended to come to those who were reluctant to venture into cities, and for good reason. What human beings did to the Earth in their cities left it fouled and poisoned, and Earth Masters felt that acutely. Still, given that there was an urgent need, one could be persuaded in time. It all depended on how organized the Elemental Masters were, hereabouts. If they were highly organized, as they were in, say, Germany, it would not take long at all. If, however, they were as chaotic and anarchistic as they were in Russia . . . it might take a year.

Thus came the advice of those shrewd old men from their decades of chicanery, backstabbing, Machiavellian schemes.
Find something else to distract them with. They will have a hard time fighting a battle on two, or even three fronts.

She frowned, pursing her lips. This could be a problem. If she were back on her home ground, she could have had a dozen distractions for them already. And she had already tried making one of the dozens of admirers around the dancer besotted . . .

Wait . . .

She nodded to herself. Yes, that was one thing she had not tried. She had been working with men who were already attracted to the girl. What she had
not
tried was
creating
a crazed and infatuated admirer.

Yes. That would work. But she needed another front to work on. If only she was back east of Germany! Then there would be people who
knew
she was the real Nina Tchereslavsky, and—

Of course!

She sank down into her bath with a smile of satisfaction. There would be several cables to send today. She would have to be sure to send them from different offices to avoid drawing attention to herself or to her servants. This trap should come as a complete surprise.

And it should, ideally, ensure that all of her enemies would be so very busy that they would not see her real attack coming.

Because I don’t have any hands, nor voice, that’s why!
the cat said with irritation to Nigel.
If I
could
work most Earth Magic, don’t you think I would have done so to make sure my wife and child were taken care of? Maybe some of you can wield your power just by sitting down and thinking hard, but I can’t, and I never could. I needed physical implements and I needed the chants I was taught.

“If he can’t, he can’t, Jonathon,” Wolf said with a deep sigh. “I must say, I sympathize. I’m rather in the same pickle.” He fanned his wings. “No thumbs, don’cha know. Heaven knows I’ve
tried,
but when you can’t pick up both the wand and the cup at the same time . . .”

Wolf gave the cat an evil yellow eye and made sound like a rude little boy.

“Curse it,” Jonathon said with passion. “I don’t know any Earth Masters.”

I was the only one in this part of the country, old lad,
the cat said, wearily.
I am afraid this is going to have to be done the hard way. The letter-tree.

Wolf groaned. Jonathon nodded reluctantly. “All right. I’ll do my lot. Wolf, you get Arthur to do yours; I expect he and Nigel know pretty much the same circle of magicians?”

“Identical,” Wolf replied, and sighed. “Bother. This could take a month.”

“Or more.” Jonathon’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Once we find an Earth Master, we will have to persuade him this truly is an urgent situation in order to get him inside a city. Only the Dark Walkers like what happens to the Earth inside a large city.”