He rose, crossed to the parlor and scooped Duchess up with him. They climbed the staircase at a slow, steady pace. The dining room sat in the quiet of a death. Rhoda lowered herself back into her seat at Edgar's desk. Edgar laid one big hand on her shoulder and did not say anything. Honey's eyes had gone wet. Maeve Byrne, against the sideboard, broke first.
"That was the worst kind of news," Maeve said. Her voice was low and rough.
"Aye," Oona said.
A long beat.
"Did he say…" Maeve's eyes went to Edgar's. "…did he say strangled."
"He did."
"In her own flat," Honey said.
Maeve drew in a long breath. Then her face changed. The hedge witch in her, fiery, protective, never far below the surface, came forward by an inch.
"Could it be the Telling," Maeve said. "Could a thing like this be, somethin' to do, with what's happenin' in this house. Could this be more workin' under the noise."
"It's an old fear, that," Oona said. "And a fair one to ask. But, my dear. Murder is murder. There were murderers before there was magic in the world, and there'll be murderers after. A man with bad hands does not always need bad magic."
"He might." Maeve argued. "He might. I will not say he might not. But Nadia Costin lived in a flat alone, and somebody who knew her well enough to share a cup of tea with her, and what that takes is no more dark magic than what every woman in this room has feared on her way home any night of her life."
Oona nodded.
"Aye," Maeve said. "Aye. I hate that ye're right, Oona."
"So do I, love." Oona grabbed her new friend's hand.
Phineas Grove had not, through all of this, said anything. He was standing where he had been standing for the whole of Lazlo's grief, a step back from the table, on the doorway side. His face a blank canvas. When Edgar looked at him, Phineas gave the smallest acknowledging dip of his chin.
"Mr. Hadwin. Forgive me. I should leave you to your family to grieve, I think. I've intruded long enough." Phineas began to back away.
"You haven't intruded a moment, Phineas. You are our guest." Rhoda assured him.
"You are very kind. Perhaps, perhaps I'll just step away for a little. I should like to think or read perhaps." He took two more steps backward.
"Of course." Rhoda nodded and closed her eyes.
Phineas pivoted and walked into the parlor at the same pace Lazlo had just taken up the stairs. He crossed to the chair beside the heavy old bookcase. He sat. He took the small leather notebook from the side table, opened it on his knee, scribbled something, and set it back down. Then, after a moment, he stood again. He turned to the bookcase. He ran his fingers along the spines.
The bookcase was lined with the books a working witch like Rhoda Hadwin had collected over the years. Phineas's eyes moved along the spines slowly. Crawford on Inherited Bonds. Edwards on the Carpathian Familiar. The big red Bondsmiths' Almanac. A thin grey monograph on suppressive enchantments he had not seen since his student days. His hand paused on the grey monograph. Then, slowly, his eye drifted from the spines to the small gap between the side of the bookcase and the wall.
The gap was dim and narrow, as old as the bookcase. In the gap was a cat. Phineas Grove went perfectly still. The cat in the gap was an old black tom. His coat was dust-dark and patchy. His ribs were too much against his skin. His eyes were the copper of an old coin worn smooth. He was so small he might not have been a cat at all, except for the eyes, and the eyes were looking back at Phineas with a steady wary stillness.
Phineas did not move. He did not turn his head. He did not call out. He did not so much as draw a breath that was different from the breath before it.
His mouth, when he spoke at last, was a whisper.
"Ah, what do we have here," he said. "Hello, my old friend."
The black tom blinked once.
Chapter 5
Closed Doors
The old black tom blinked again. Phineas Grove crouched, very slowly, beside the heavy old bookcase. His coat opened a little as he went down. His knees touched the parlor rug without sound. He looked at the cat in the gap.
"Hello, my old friend." His voice was the soft mild voice he used on every cat. "Hello."
