We all scattered to the walls, leaving a throng of cats motionless on the floor or on the tables below the dais. The dogs at the fireplaces kept their places, appearing unworried.
The lion snarled.
Nothing remained of His Lordship but the flush—the lion’s cheek fur blushed a faint pink.
No one stirred, every one of us likely thinking the same question: If I run, will he chase?
I watched his eyes—polished black stones with nothing of the count in their gaze. He padded gracefully to the dais’s edge and roared.
The sound echoed off the walls, grew, echoed, reverberated, until I thought the castle would tumble down. My eyes dropped from the lion’s eyes to his fangs and back up to the eyes. The fangs were not to be looked at!
He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, I saw awareness in them. He choked off the roar, shook his head as if to clear it, and vibrated again.
But he didn’t return to himself. He shrank.
I ran to him again and grabbed the loose skin on his back, but it melted away in my hands.
Pardine took both of us into his gaze. I felt the cat’s longing: Become a mouse. Become a mouse.
“Don’t become a mouse!” I yelled as he continued to diminish. “Not a mouse! Bigger!”
Moments passed. He shrank more. And more.
On the floor, a brown mouse trembled next to the pendant. His whiskers twitched once. Then he streaked toward the kitchen, pursued by cats. People followed, Princess Renn and I in the lead.
I ran faster than she did, but the cats outstripped me. Crashes came from the kitchen. I entered in time to see Master Jak snatch a cat while the tail of the last chasing cat exited to the inner ward.
Count Jonty Um, let me reach you! I bounded across the kitchen. Don’t be eaten!
“Wait for me!” Princess Renn cried.
I burst outside. In the inner ward, all was serene under the night sky.
“La! Alack! Oh, la!” the princess wailed. “He’s gone!” She sank to the ground.
I crouched, facing her in the dim light, and blinked back tears.
“They’ll eat him, my tall Jonty Um.”
“No. We’ll find him.” But I imagined a cat’s bloody teeth, His Lordship’s anguish, the mouse’s little kicking legs. I shuddered and repeated, “We’ll find him.”
“Alack! Alack!” She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked.
Master Thiel dashed out of the kitchen. He rushed to us and pulled me up. “It may not be too late.”
The princess stood, too. “Go to the barracks, Ehlodie. I’ll try the gatehouse.”
Why the barracks? But I ran there anyway.
In the dark I saw the shapes of trestle beds mounded with their occupants’ belongings. No movement. I left quickly and descended the stairs to the stables, a better destination. If the mouse led the cats here, they might startle a dozen ordinary mice and satisfy themselves.
A groom approached me. “What is it, young mistress?”
“Did His Lordship as a mouse . . . Did a multitude of cats . . .” They couldn’t have. The scene was too peaceful. A stableboy with a mucking shovel entered a nearby stall. Another carrying a pail moved away from me down the line of stalls.
“No one’s come in.” The groom’s voice tightened. “He became a mouse?”
Master Dess stepped out of a horse stall.
“Master Dess!” He could do anything with animals. I blurted out what had happened.
He hunched down. “Honey, honey,” he sang close to the floor. “Come to Dess, honey.” Still bent over, he hurried toward the doors to the outer ward.
I returned to the inner ward, now crowded with guests and servants. Sir Misyur, holding Nesspa, was dividing the servants into groups to search the castle. Master Thiel joined the group on its way to the cellar under the kitchen. Other guests called their cats, but he didn’t call Pardine.
Two cats came, both ambling out of the kitchen with a well-fed air. My stomach churned.
The princess descended the steps from the battlements. Maybe she thought His Lordship would go where Nesspa had been found, but I doubted a mouse could manage the stairs on its short legs.
Silly as she often was, she seemed a tragic figure now, taking each step slowly, dejectedly, one hand on the curtain stones to balance herself.
Sir Misyur patted Nesspa’s head and let go of his chain. “Perhaps the dog will lead us to his master.”
But Nesspa just curled up at the steward’s feet.
Some thought dogs clairvoyant. If his master were no more, mightn’t he be howling?
An early star flickered in the eastern sky. Soon I would have to meet my masteress and confess my failure. Sir Misyur told me and two servants with oil lamps to search the barracks, so I returned there. We peered under every bed and poked every pile of belongings while my ears strained for a cry of discovery outside.
We left the barracks as the castle bells rang nine. A black shape winged ITs way toward the castle.