Reserved for the Cat

“So that is why we would like to know, Mademoiselle, just how you managed to make a personal enemy of so powerful a mage,” Jonathon went on. “Particularly as you have no magic yourself, and profess that you do not much care for it . . .”

Helplessly, Nina looked at the cat. The cat shook his head, as if to say, Be quiet! Say nothing!

But Ninette was tired of the subterfuge—and she greatly feared that if it went on for much longer, it would get in the way of—well—everything.

“I have been deceiving you,” she said with a sigh as the cat looked frantic. “And I am very sorry. But I do not know why a powerful mage would want me dead, because until a few weeks ago I knew nothing of mages and Masters and Elementals. That is because I am not Nina Tchereslavsky, prima ballerina with the Imperial Ballet. I am Ninette Dupond, coryphée of the Paris Opera Ballet.”

There. It was out in the open. And all of them but the cat stared at her with their jaws dropping.

The cat only groaned and dropped down to the floor to cover his face with his paws.

14

JONATHON took a slow, deep breath, his brow like thunder. But before he could say anything, the cat spoke up.

Don’t shout at her, magician. It was all my idea. And I took advantage of the fact that she was light-headed from hunger to persuade her, too. The cat stalked up to Jonathon and looked up at him, tail lashing back and forth defiantly. I stole money and tickets to get her here from Paris. I told her what to do. I concocted the shipwreck story. It was all my doing.

Ninette looked into their eyes. Arthur licked his lips. “She’s still a first-rate dancer,” he said hesitantly. “It’s not as if she cheated us that way.”

Wolf made a tsking sound. “People create fantastical stories about performers all the time to puff them up,” the parrot said thoughtfully. “They always have, I expect. You should have heard some of the ones about me.”

Jonathon still looked wrathful. Ninette stared down at her hands. “My mother was abandoned by her husband when I was a baby,” she said, softly, and began the tedious recitation of her misfortunes in a flat voice. She only looked up once when Nigel laughed, on hearing La Augustine’s reaction to her grave error in smiling at the prima’s patron. “It was not funny,” she said flatly. “I knew at that instant that it was the worst possible thing that could have happened. It was not that La Augustine was jealous—she did not care a sous for whether the old man really loved her or not. It was that in that moment, I threatened her . . . livelihood. I threatened to take away his interest, and thus the flat, the luxuries, the jewels and furs and beautiful gowns. Of course she was in a rage. She was not ready to give him up yet. In fact, I am not sure she was ready to give him up at all. He was an ideal patron, old, unmarried, and no relations closer than a cousin. If he died, he could leave her very comfortable, and a dancer does not have a long life on the stage.”

Nigel sobered immediately. She continued with her story, of being cast out of the Opera Ballet, of trying to find a position elsewhere, of determining finally that she was going to go to the Moulin Rouge . . . to find someone who would give her money. She did not say for what purpose. She did not need to. She looked up again, to see that all three men had looks of embarrassment and chagrin on their faces.