"Right." Edgar nodded.
Inside the front hall, the gray tom rolled into the parlor. "Well,goodmornin', ladies."
The fluffy Persian in the best armchair lifted her head. Lady Grey turned a quarter inch on the settee. The calico in the wood basket sat up like a girl at a dance.
"How you doin'." The gray tom cocked his head at the Persian. "How you been keepin'." He cocked it the other way at Lady Grey. "Ma'am."
Lady Grey, in spite of herself, fluffed. Boba slipped past him into the parlor with the long quiet stride of a small assassin who had decided not to be a small assassin this morning. He crossed to the worn red ottoman where Rhoda had set a small tray of toast triangles for the spilling cats, lifted one in his paw, popped it whole into his mouth, and on his way back past the gray Russian Blue on the settee, winked. Blewy, who had been quietly distressed for days, blinked.
Jango brought up the rear. He did not go around. He went straight at a small white-pawed tortoiseshell named Honoria who had been rambling on for hours about her witch's gambling. He stopped in front of her, bowed at the shoulder, scooped her clean off the rug with one fluid lift, dipped her like a man finishing the last bar of a tango, and kissed her firmly on the side of her startled mouth.
Honoria forgot, instantly and entirely, that she had ever been rambling about anything.
"Pleasure," Jango said, and set her gently down. Honoria sat where he had put her and did not breathe.
Lazlo had moved in from the wide arch between the dining room and the parlor. His hands were clasped lightly behind his back. He had not entered the parlor. He had not greeted the Boys. He had not said anything at all. At his ankle, Duchess sat. The plume of her tail was no longer plumed. It lay flat against the rug. The blue of her left eye had softened the way water in a glass softens when something has been stirred into it. On the rug under her right hip, in a small soft drift, was a thin line of fine silver-cream fur. And around her, faint but unmistakable, drifted the sour-sweet wrongness of something that had been put away wet and not opened since.
Lazlo's hand, slowly, came up to his own cuff. He brushed twice at a single small thread of fur that had caught there. The thread did not move at first. He brushed again. He caught it between two fingers, and slid it into the inside pocket of his coat.
From the parlor doorway, Honey saw. She did not move. She did not say anything. She had come into the parlor from the back hall a half-step behind Lazlo's gesture, and she stood in the doorway and watched.
The bonded cats in the parlor did not say a word. Fat Bastard, mid-flirtation with Lady Grey, looked over his shoulder at Duchess. He looked at her a moment. He turned back to Lady Grey.
"How you doin'."
Rhoda came into the parlor from the back of the house with her hair half down and her sleeves rolled to the elbow and the ink of a long morning's work on the side of her hand.
"Good lord." She stopped at the threshold. "Good lord, they came. I told Zelda."
She looked at Fat Bastard. Fat Bastard tipped her a wink.
"I told her I didn't need any more help." Rhoda looked at Boba, who lifted a second piece of toast to her in salute. "I told her I had you all. I told her…"
She stopped. Her eyes had gone to Lazlo at the arch, then to Duchess at his ankle.
Rhoda's mouth opened a little. She crossed the parlor as far as the back of the wing chair. Her hand came down on the chair-back.
"Lazlo, sweetheart. Is she alright? She looks a bit piqued."
Lazlo's mild face did its smallest pause. Then his smile came on as warm as it had been since he arrived. "She's just tired. We all are tired, I think. The journey, the cats, the news. She is not herself."
"Bless her." Rhoda shook her head and turned her face to the front window. Through the glass, on the lawn, three men stood at the edge of a half-circle of stray rogue cats. Edgar's hands were open. Roam's jaw was set. Sean's coat was buttoned to the throat.
"What is going on out there." Rhoda's voice had gone quiet. "Who are those…"
No one in the parlor answered her. Fat Bastard, on the rug at her feet, lifted his big square head and met her eyes for a half-beat. He did not say anything. He turned back to Lady Grey.
Rhoda drew in one long breath, and turned. "Honey. Sweetheart. Go on out and help your father. They are going to need it."
Honey's eyes went to her mother. "Uh, Mama, I…"
"Honey." Rhoda's voice was warm. Rhoda's voice was firm. "Now. And by the Goddess what is that smell in here."
She crossed the parlor in two steps, laid her hand on the small of Honey's back, and turned her toward the front door. Behind her own back, Rhoda's other hand made a small precise gesture at Lazlo:come with me.
Honey looked at her mother one more time. Rhoda's eyes saidgo.Honey went.
The front door closed behind her with a small click. On the porch she stood for a count of three with the cold air on her face and the worry climbing up between her shoulder blades. Then she went down the steps to her father.
