"Looks like our lady's takin' a turn," Fat Bastard said.
The three cats of Assjacket rolled into the parlor. They did not pounce. They did not rush. They sauntered. Boba slipped past Lady Grey on the settee and tipped her a slow wink. Jango paused at the wood basket and bowed at the calico the way a man bows to a woman at a dance. Fat Bastard parked himself two feet from Duchess on the rug, dropped his enormous head a little, and gave her a long appreciative once-over.
"Hey there, beautiful," he said.
Duchess did not look at him.
"Don't be like that, sugar. We come all this way."
Boba arrived at her left shoulder and elbowed Fat Bastard. "She ain't payin' you no mind, brother."
"She'll come round."
Jango arrived at her right shoulder and elbowed Boba. "She's gone, fellas. Look at her."
The three of them stood around her in a loose triangle, holding their noses with one paw each in a slow theatrical way that would have made the room laugh on any other day.
Duchess opened her mouth.
What came out of it was not a voice.
A page formed in the air just in front of her mouth. The page folded itself once, then again. It hung there a moment, white and bright in the parlor's morning light. Then it drifted across the parlor in the slow way a paper drifts when a breath has been put behind it. It made the desk on its own. It slipped, neatly, through the long worn slit at the top.
It was gone.
Fat Bastard stopped flirting. "Boys."
"Got her," said Boba. He stepped onto her left wrist. She did not resist. Jango sat down on her head with the slow contained grace of a cat sitting on a cushion. Fat Bastard sighed once, then flopped his entire considerable body across the back of her, soft and warm and absolutely immovable, and Duchess went the rest of the way down to the rug under him with a sound that was half a hiss and half something less dignified.
"There we are, sugar," Fat Bastard said comfortably. "There we are."
Duchess opened her mouth again. A second page formed, folded itself, drifted to the desk, slipped through the slit. Gone. A third did the same. A fourth.
The parlor watched but the cats did not say a word. The Boys held her. Page after page formed at her mouth and drifted across the room and slipped through the slit. The slit drank them.
The front door of FACTS & FIBS slammed open.
Edgar Hadwin came through it at a run, with Sean at his heel and Roam a stride behind and Honey behind Roam. Behind Honey, in a tight half-circle moving as one creature, came the unbonded strays. They came up through the front hall without speaking. Edgar made the parlor doorway first. He stopped and saw the three cats on Duchess on the rug and the page floating across the room. He saw the page slip through the slit of the desk.
"Sweet merciful," Edgar breathed. His big hand was already at his throat, his amulet already in his fist. He was already moving, past the parlor doorway, down the front hall, and into the corridor that ran along the back of the house. "Sean. Roam. Get my Honey out of here."
Honey did not move. She was standing at the parlor threshold watching the pages form at Duchess's mouth and drift across the room with her hand at her own throat, and she was not going anywhere.
Sean was already running. Roam was at his shoulder. They cleared the corridor, cleared the back hall, and reached the door just beyond Rhoda's study. Edgar already had his amulet in his fist. He was already chanting.
In the vault, the first page dropped at Rhoda Hadwin's feet. It dropped the way a leaf drops in still air. It landed open, face-up, on the cold stone floor of the vault, two inches from her left boot.
Rhoda looked at it.
Lazlo's back was still against the door. His hand was still at his side, curled around the thing he had taken from his pocket. The face he was wearing had not changed.
Rhoda bent and picked the page up. It said, in handwriting that was not anyone's handwriting and was at the same time recognizablyDuchess's:Every secret. Every witch in his pocket.
The second page dropped at her right boot. She picked it up.The vault. He has been waiting for it a very long time.
The third dropped between the first two.Nadia walked in on a deal in the field office. He took the papers out of her coat. He left her on the stairs.
The fourth.Soot knew. Phineas tried to save Soot. He killed them both.
