~Chapter Seven: The Stray Blue Cat~

~Atta~

Atta remembered.

Not all of it. Not even most of it. In fact, now that she thought about it, most of her life had been a fugue. She knew she’d experienced things. The memories felt like words on the tip of her tongue. There’d been a mage. A library. Monsters—and more mages. She’d hunted deep within the rows of books, feasted on monsters and mages alike.

The details of those experiences—and of the ones that had come even earlier—were trapped in her mind, locked away from her.

Odd. She wasn’t particularly bothered by that fact. It must have something to do with the collar, but her memories were…not relevant. What was relevant to her were the last few weeks.

There’d been the spell, of course. The Call and Calm ritual. It had partially worked, despite its utter failure as a spell. Atta had been desperately curious about its caster. There was something familiar about the girl, but she couldn’t quite place it. This Y’aer-cursed fugue was stupid, inconvenient…and irrelevant. The girl. Yes, the stupid girl was interesting. So, after her failure of a spellcasting, Atta had made it her mission to stalk her.

And that mission had cleared her mind more than it had been cleared in years. Decades, perhaps.

Atta knew her purpose. She’d been a familiar—no, she still was a familiar, and if she still existed, then her master was still alive. He’d been working on something. The exact details of it were…currently sealed in her mind. She knew them, and she knew she knew them, but even thinking about them made her throat itch.

…But that didn’t matter, because if the girl reminded her of someone, that someone could only be her master.

This was a Y’aer-blessed gift. This girl could help with whatever her master had been working on. Yes. She could help. He’d been working on…he’d been working on whatever it was in the library. It was all there, in Atta’s head. She just couldn’t think it too loudly.

So, ally with the girl. Help her get up to speed, magically speaking. Then introduce her to her master’s work and see what she made of it. Easy enough. Just one problem.

The binding.

The bell jingled slightly on her collar, and the fugue pushed on her mind. Her memories were bound by spells she couldn’t even identify, much less work to reverse. That would make things more complicated. Not impossible, but more complicated.

She couldn’t remember everything, and she couldn’t share what she knew.

Atta would have to be clever.

The cat closed in.

Eola squeaked again. It wasn’t fear or pain, but a sense of being lost and in over her head. Confusion. That was it. Confusion. Her head spun from the runes that had washed over her, and she sat down hard enough to send a jolt up her spine. The cat’s bell rang as its pink tongue shot out to lick its paw again. Its eyes still hadn’t left hers, and Eola tried to keep from shivering. Cats locked eyes to challenge each other. The loser looked away first.

Solutions. Solutions.

The sword. The sword was a couple of yards away. She could sketch a Safe Shield, duck behind it, and make a move for the sword. Then she’d be on even footing with the thing, whatever it was, and she could try to maneuver. It wasn’t much, but it was her best bet.

She looked away.

Her eyes flicked to her mother’s blade—and the cat’s followed. “You remind me of someone, girl,” it said. Its paw lashed out and batted the sword, and Eola flinched as its hilt bounced off her booted foot. “Knock that scheming off and pick that up.”

“What?” Eola managed to blurt out.

“You can’t hurt me with that, and your magic’s not up to snuff. If I wanted you gone, you’d be gone.” Both yellow eyes shifted back to hers. “Do you believe me?”

“No.”

The cat laughed, a yowling, howling sound that echoed in the stacks. “You’re funny when you lie. Who’s the boy going for? A librarian?”

“Yes.” Eola stiffened. Her hand wrapped around the sword’s hilt, squeezing tight. It was a lifeline. Her head felt like a ship on the stormy sea beyond Greenarbor’s jetty, and the sword was a rope thrown to a drowning Eola.

“We have a few minutes, then. Good. I’m Atta.” The cat—Atta—lifted a paw as if reaching out to shake hands.

Eola stared at it for another moment, then clambered to her feet and shook her head, trying to clear it. She had her smallsword, her whistle, and her spells; there was no reason to take this lying down—or sitting down.

For the first time, the cat looked offended. Its tail fluffed out, and its back arched. “This is your fault, you know. You did this, not me.”

“What are you talking about? You’re a monster, hunting me in the library,” Eola said. Her sword tip wavered, though. The power in the air before—now that she was upright, and the cat wasn’t attacking, that power felt…different. Not calmer, but more…controllable? More.

“No, I’m a familiar.”

Oh. Oh!

“It worked?” Eola asked. Then the second implication hit her. “You’re my familiar?”

“No, silly girl. That spell doesn’t work without attuned Mana, and you know it. And you’re definitely not my master. I’m—“ A hacking fit washed over the cat. Its back arched, and its collar’s runes glowed. Eola tried to identify them, but there had to be thousands of them, and they were both tiny and constantly swimming back and forth. After a moment, Atta recovered, coughing once more before mewling slightly. “I’m someone else’s familiar.”

“Then…” Eola closed her eyes for a moment.

“Like I said, not your familiar, not my mage.”

Eola’s shoulders slumped, both from disappointment and from exhaustion. Y’aer, she was tired. And to be this close to a familiar of her own, only to be denied…

But on the other hand….she was curious, and a little curiosity probably wouldn’t kill her. It certainly wouldn’t kill the cat. “Whose familiar are you, then?”

“Rude. You know I can’t say.” Atta’s eyes flicked from hers to the sword for a moment. “Put it away, silly girl. You’re in no danger.”

Eola hesitated. Then she slid her smallsword back into its scabbard. “You can’t say because…”

“Of the binding.” Atta batted the bell with a paw. “Obviously.”

“Right.” An idea sprang to life in her head. It was insane, but once it took root, it blossomed instantly. “But you’re a familiar. You could help me! I’m—“

“Attuned all wrong. I know. I’ve been watching you for weeks. You want me to pretend to be your familiar, right? Trick that teacher of yours? Not going to work. Become yours? Not happening. But I’ll point you in the right direction for your studies. I know a lot about—“ Another wave of coughs shook the cat. “Y’aer’s curse! I can’t tell you the details, but you’re on the right track.”

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Atta’s ears flicked behind it, then flattened against her head. “Out of time. We’ll talk later, girl. Somewhere private. You’ll know how to call me when the time comes.”

Then the cat vanished, and a small weight dropped into Eola’s pocket, thumping against her side. She reached inside and wrapped her fingers around a piece of stone. A rune was carved into it, and the whole thing was shaped like a cat. And, of course, it was warm—and…purring?

She pulled it out of her pocket and held it up to her ear. Yes. It was purring. A tiny bell rang around its neck when she moved it, and a thin smile cracked her lips. A familiar! Not her familiar, but a familiar all the same.

Then boots echoed on the marble floor, Tagg and Colin skidded into Row Thirty-Nine, sword and spear ready, and Eola dropped the blue-black cat figurine into her pocket.

Five minutes later, they were past the first gate, and Eola found herself on one of the public section’s padded benches. Her hand was still in her pocket—she hadn’t so much as drawn her sword as Tagg escorted her back to safety—and she kept rubbing the cat figuring’s ears. It was hard to believe no one else could hear the purring. She couldn’t stop, though.