"Yes, Oona, of course." He snapped sideways to face her.
"Where's your tabby?" She pursed her lips.
The smallest ripple went through the parlor. Phineas's eyes darted and his mild face did its smallest pause. Then his smile came back, brighter than before.
"Oh, oh, he's resting, just there. The poor old soul has had a hard day. Sometimes I must let him nap." He laughed, two short brisk laughs. "I tired him out, I'm afraid. Now, Maeve. I have been meaning to ask you. Sibiu. Do you know it?"
"I do not," Maeve said. Her hedge witch's eyes were on him now too. "Tell me of it."
"Oh, a remarkable city. Remarkable. I once watched a baker's apprentice…" He told a story about a baker's apprentice in Sibiu.Phineas Grove was telling it at the volume of a man addressing a lecture hall.
Across the parlor, Roam had stopped pacing and not, for the last forty seconds, blinked. His eyes were fixed on the too loud, nervous man.
Phineas finished the story about the baker's apprentice. He laughed another two chortles. Then he turned to Rhoda.
"Mrs. Hadwin. Madam. I wonder, see I wonder if I might have a small word with you, when you are free." He had pitched the request a notch too loudly.
Rhoda's eyebrows lifted half an inch. "Of course, Phineas. But not now, I'm on to something just here."
"Of course, madam, of course. A, a small matter. From my reading. When you can spare it. I'll be waiting." He bowed an awkward lean and nearly toppled over.
"Soon, Phineas."
"You are very kind. Thank you. Very kind."
Phineas backed away from her, set the teacup down, picked up the leather notebook from the side table beside the bookcase, and nodded once to the parlor. He turned and walked from the room with the notebook in his hand.
Lazlo watched him go.
Maeve looked at Oona. Oona looked back at Maeve. For a moment, the parlor pretended it was a normal exchange.
Edgar was looking at the door Phineas had just walked through. "Well, shock, I reckon."
Honey stood up from the chair, stretched, and crossed the parlor casually. She stopped, in passing, beside the chair Phineas had been sitting in.
Quill was not on the chair.
Honey crouched. A small grey shape shot out from behind the chair and brushed across her foot, and she startled. Quill sat down primly two feet away and watched her.
Honey glanced over her shoulder. No one had noticed. She patted Quill's head and leaned past him to peer at the gap between the side of the heavy old bookcase and the wall.
It was empty.
The dust on the floorboards had been disturbed in one place. There was a small dark patch of hair on the wood. Honey picked it up. It was matte and dust-dark, rough at the ends. She slipped it into her jeans pocket, straightened, and crossed to Roam. He hadn't moved from the window.
She leaned into him. "Roam." Her voice was the small private voice she used with him when they were alone. "The cat behind the bookcase is gone."
Roam finally blinked. "Since when."
Honey shrugged, "Last time I checked was just before Sean arrived."
"You sure," he said, and brushed her chin with his fingers.
"Yep. I just looked." She nodded.
He looked at her, his blue eyes turning amber around the edges. "I wasn't going to follow him."
"Phineas?" she asked.
