Lazlo looked at the front window. Through the glass, on the lawn beyond the rail, the unbonded cats had risen and were standing in a quiet line watching the porch. The grey tom with the scar from lip to ear was at the front of the line.
Lazlo did not look at Duchess.
"Open the door, sweetheart," Edgar said.
Honey, who had not left the parlor doorway, crossed to the front door and opened it. On the gravel drive below the porch steps was waiting a long black carriage, glossy with age. The driver was a woman in a tall hat who did not look up. The horses were the color of slate.
On the side of the carriage, in faded gold leaf along the door, were two words.
The Pokey. Salem.
Sean and Roam moved Lazlo toward the front hall.
"Stop." Rhoda's voice was quiet. She crossed to the threshold but did not stand close to Lazlo. She stood three feet away with her hands at her sides, and she lifted her face to look at him.
"You were a good agent, Lazlo Varga. A friend. You trained with us. You were like family." Her voice did not break.
"Go. Whatever awaits you, I never want to know." She bowed her head once, flicked her hand at him the way a woman flicks a hand at a thing that no longer has any claim on her, and turned away.
Sean and Roam walked Lazlo through the front hall. At the threshold, something fell from inside his coat. It made a soft thump on the boards.
On the porch boards beyond the door, Leahnora Loveridge stood waiting with Baval on her shoulder. She did not move. She let Sean and Roam bring Lazlo to her, and she spoke once, quietly, as he passed.
"Lazlo Varga. By the authority of Cauldron Falls, you are not welcome in our town again."
She nodded once to Sean. Once to Roam. The door closed behind them, and where Leahnora had been standing rose a cloud of red glitter that drifted out across the porch boards. When it cleared, she and Baval were gone.
Honey looked down.
A small thing lay on the boards at her feet. Dark. Old. She bent and picked it up. It was warm. She didn't look at it for long, but slipped it into the front pocket of her jeans as she crossed back into the parlor.
Edgar was holding his wife the way a man holds the only thing that matters.
Rhoda turned her face up to him. "I have to go to her."
"I know, darlin'."
She pushed away from him, gently, and crossed the parlor. She knelt beside Duchess on the rug.
Fat Bastard, very carefully, lifted himself off. Boba lifted his paw from her wrist. Jango rose from her head and stepped down to the rug beside her and sat.
Rhoda laid her hand on the silver-cream coat. It was thin under her fingers. The fur was loose. The body beneath it was the body of a small creature who had been holding something too large for her for too long.
"There," Rhoda said. She had been using this voice on familiars for years. "There. You can put it down now."
Duchess looked up at her. The cloudy blue eye was wet.
"I was Nadia's always." Duchess cried.
"I know." Rhoda stroked the cat.
"He told me she did not love me." Duchess croaked.
"I know."
"She didn't, did she."
"No, my love. She didn't."
