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“Why?” I said. “Will—will something happen to you?”

“I’m touched by your concern for my well-being,” he replied, a little too glibly. He pressed something small into my hand. Another coin. “Or I would be, if you hadn’t just sicced your Lilliputian panther on me. Stay here until I get back. If Valérie returns, you can alert me by speaking the incantation I’ve inscribed in the metal—”

I dropped the coin as if it were a hot coal. “I’m not doing magic.”

He leaned back on his heels, adjusting his glasses at me. “It’s a simple first-order spell. I would have thought you’d want some way to protect these miserable beasts.” His words seemed to trigger a memory, and he cast a spooked look over his shoulder, but His Majesty was nowhere to be seen. The slippery creature had hidden himself somewhere when he’d seen what we were doing to the other cats, likely viewing such alterations as an insult to his dignity.

“I have no intention of staying here until you return,” I said, and a sudden fear seized me. “You had better not lock me in.”

Perhaps if he were a little less distracted, and not so evidently preoccupied with whatever wickedness he was plotting next, he might have noticed that I was teetering on the edge of my sanity, but he only looked at me as if I were being deliberately ornery. His expression hardened and something flickered in his eyes. Something else, or possibly someone else—that’s the best I could describe it. “I don’t have time to argue with you. If you care so little about your life, by all means go strolling about the city while Valérie is hunting you.”

“Do not lock me in,” I repeated, because I wasn’t listening to him at this point. My terrified mind had fixated on this, for some reason—that he would disappear and leave me trapped there like a maiden in a dragon’s cave, kept in store until its appetite returned. Élise would have no idea where I’d gone. All I wanted in that moment, overwhelmingly, was Élise.

He left me on the floor and strode to the middle of the room. He started sideways, for Banshee had emerged from some corner and came towards him with her tail raised, mouth opening and closing. This didn’t surprise me: given the cat’s unhinged nature and general witlessness where her personal safety was concerned, it was natural that she should mistake Havelock Renard for a friend.

“What a racket,” he said, or I thought he did; I must have misheard, for Banshee was making no more noise than she generally did—which is to say, none at all. “Out of the way, you ridiculous creature.”

The way of what? I had time to wonder, before his meaning became suddenly, horrifically clear.

A door appeared in the middle of the shop—I say door only for want of a better word. Though roughly door-shaped, it was more like a gash in the fabric of the world, jagged and flickering. Beyond the door was an ancient forest at night, colossal trees clothed in layers of moss and ivy. I realized a heartbeat later that it wasn’t night, only the trees were so large and their canopies so lush that little light could slip through. The air was cool and scented with rain and green leaves, and the forest floor was carpeted in flowers, mostly white, like scraps of lace, but there were wild roses, too, clambering up an oak tree, and a line of blue in the distance where the white flowers became something else.

I was drawn forward almost against my will. There was something about that forest that made me wish to wade into it like a summer sea. Through a gap in the trees I saw a glimpse of mountains, towering and snowbound. Atop the nearest one was a stone ruin, too ancient and decayed for its purpose to be guessed at. I realized another ruin lay only a few feet beyond the door—a pile of stones nearly consumed by moss, and what might have been a mosaic floor, broken and leaf-strewn.

I was shivering again, and the clean smell of rain and wildflowers no longer felt welcoming, but wild and inhospitable. What was this place, and why had it been abandoned? The longer I gazed at it, the more uncanny it seemed. The boughs swayed too elegantly, as if the trees were composed of something more soft and slippery than wood, and the flowers were improbable in so shadowy a place, as if they were fed by the darkness. Something—someone?—howled in the distance.

“Havelock,” I cried in sudden warning, because something was there, in the forest. I saw it darting behind one tree, and then another, as if it was trying to conceal itself. It had only the vaguest shape of a man, and seemed made from billowing shadow. Another shade lurked in a copse in the distance, or perhaps more than one—it was difficult to discern where the tree-shadow ended and the creatures began.

“It’s all right,” Havelock said. He was gazing into the forest world with a strange expression on his face: warily, but with a smile hovering around his eyes that suggested the place was not only familiar to him, but congenial. “Those are only spectres—weak ones. They won’t trouble me.”

He stepped through the door, and as he did, his human likeness was gone. It did not seem to change into something else, but rather dissolved, as if it had been little more than mist or something equally insubstantial, which the wind could scatter. In his place was the monster of shadow and flame I had glimpsed before, formless and terrible, and then he vanished into the forest.

Perhaps he closed the door behind him, or maybe it drifted shut. I didn’t see, for I had fainted dead away again.

When I came to, Banshee was licking my hand. She placed her paws on my arm when she saw my eyes open, then butted her head against my chin.

My head spun. The shelter smelled of magic, and where Havelock had disappeared into that dark forest, the floor was stained black, as if from spilled ink. I rolled onto my side, dislodging the cat, and threw up. This had the useful effect of both settling my stomach and giving me something to do. Once I was certain I could stand, I cleaned the floor, then picked up Banshee, who’d been shadowing me the entire time, a worried look on her small face.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’m all right.”

I don’t think I convinced her any more than I convinced myself, but she nestled into me as I shivered, her claws pricking my arm.

I desperately needed fresh air, so naturally I decided to ignore everything Havelock had said. Why he thought I’d listen to him after what I’d seen, I had no idea, but the overriding thought in my head was to put as much distance between myself and Havelock Renard as possible. And anyway, I didn’t share his belief that Valérie would bother abducting me—why would she? Havelock cared nothing for me, and therefore I was useless to her as a bargaining chip.

Before I could do anything, though, including get my head on straight, I had to attend to the cats, who were chirruping at me in the way they always did when they wanted food. Either they were unaffected by what they had seen or they simply deemed cohabitation with a monster of lesser concern than getting their breakfast on time.

Never have I been so thankful for my checklists! I went through the morning one, luxuriating in its familiarity and orderliness, how it took a project of overwhelming complexity—the care and maintenance of several dozen demanding beasts of varying temperaments and health—and reduced it to the size of a sheet of paper. If only every problem in life could be dealt with thus.

I looked around for His Majesty, but I couldn’t find him anywhere—not unusual, that; the creature liked to skulk about, perhaps to cultivate an air of mystery. I left his breakfast on the floor in the kitchen and went to the nearest telegram office to send a semi-coherent message to Élise. Then I went to a bakery, bought a chocolate brioche the size of my head, and ate the entire thing with my bare hands while sitting on a bench, barely noticing the stares of passersby.

The pastry was warm from the oven, the chocolate like ribbons of silk, and it calmed me a little. I hadn’t taken note of a single thing I’d seen on my walk along Rue Sainte-Sophie. I knew the street well enough, though I didn’t usually come as far as this block; it was busy here, unlike the gentle bustle of Rue des Hirondelles, with a tram that ran every four minutes during the height of the day. Colourful awnings advertised restaurants and cafés, all packed, but there were also a number of office buildings. The headquarters of The Daily Gazette, the city’s largest English newspaper, was on the next block. Despite the snowstorm, the street was crowded, the shop owners having already cleared the snow from their sidewalks. A snowplow drawn by blanketed horses rumbled slowly down the street.

When I reached our newly relocated shelter, I stopped and began to laugh.

The stone shop front was conventional enough. It had no awning or signage, and the windows were covered by the same green curtains from the Rue des Hirondelles shop. What was curious about it was its location.

To the left sat Les Trois Soeurs, one of Montréal’s most expensive restaurants, which naturally I’d never set foot in. It wasn’t open yet, but I could make out several waitstaff circulating within, adjusting the mahogany furniture and setting elegant lanterns atop each table.

To the right of my new cat shelter, even more ludicrously, loomed the imperious façade of the city’s main bank, with its towering columns, grand portico, and gleam of chandeliers visible through the glass doors. Impeccably dressed men and women, most carrying briefcases, marched up the wide flight of stairs, their expensive coats billowing behind them. A pair of women hurried past me, shoes clicking on the sidewalks, and I abruptly became aware of how shabbily I was dressed. The bank’s staircase merged with the sidewalk outside the cat shelter, so that if you exited and took three paces in that direction, you would find yourself mounting the immaculate stone steps towards the towering grandeur that was the heart of the city’s business realm and home to more wealth than I could conceive of.