Chapter 441: The Cat's Visit

The old Scholar returned to his seat and spread the scroll across his lap.

In this procession, everyone had brought something of their own.

The axe-wielder brought his axe, and the lobster soldier wore his New Model Army uniform.

He had brought this scroll.

The vast majority of the procession were in the prime of their lives.

Whatever they looked like when they entered was how they would stay forever.

A twenty-year-old remained twenty, and a thirty-five-year-old remained thirty-five; for a few of them, the gashes on their faces were still fresh, the blood not yet dry.

He was the only old one—so old that his knees were always cold, and he had to hold the paper close to his face to write.

Every time the procession halted, he had to take a moment to recover before he dared look down.

He had died of old age in his own bed at eighty-four. A fire was burning in the stove, and the maid was downstairs boiling porridge.

He had finished writing the final page, set his pen down, and thought about having someone send the volume off for binding in the morning. Then, he simply never woke up.

When he opened his eyes, he was already up here.

A saddle had been prepared for him, and a mount was ready.

The lord of the hunt waited at the very front, not saying a single word.

The terms had been settled long ago. In his lifetime, he had negotiated with this procession eleven times.

The first time was the winter he turned thirty-one. Clutching a token fished out of someone else's coffin, he stood in the snow of his own backyard, shivering so hard he couldn't even speak clearly.

That night, he rode with them for half the journey and picked up two loose scraps.

Before dawn, he crawled back into his own kitchen and dumped a whole basin's worth of snow out of his boots.

He joined them ten more times after that. In all ten times, he never once charged at the front.

He only ever spoke up when it was time to divide the spoils. He jumped at the chores nobody else wanted to do, taking on the dirty and tedious tasks that the true Hunters found bothersome.

He kept tally for the procession. Stroke by stroke, he recorded on paper who had bitten how many, who had taken a hit for whom, and who was owed an extra half-share.

True Hunters looked down on this.

They said joining the Wild Hunt meant putting one's life on the line. What kind of skill was it to hide in the back and flick an abacus for everyone else?

He never argued back. He really didn't have any skill; he couldn't beat a single person in the procession in a fight.

He couldn't even outrun the crippled little hound, but he lived to be eighty-four.

The first of the Hunters from his original batch died the year he turned thirty-four.

The last one died the year he turned fifty-one. None of them had managed to leave a single word behind.

He left behind three ledgers. For the most important one, he didn't dare use his own name.

He slipped it inside an agricultural manual about crop rotation in the northern counties, tucked into the margins of old seal-maintenance records. He wrote it using the oldest method of binding runes, his handwriting rushed and messy.

The procession always said that they could not do without a bookkeeper.

In three hundred years, the lord of the hunt had never once checked his ledgers.

He had only spoken one sentence to him, on the day this very scroll was handed over: "If you miscount, it's on your own head."

The old Scholar pulled his pen from behind his ear. Tonight, he had observed that staff-wielding envoy from start to finish.

Back in his day, he used those same methods just to scrape up two extra pieces of scrap a year and claim half a spot more during the split.

So that when dawn broke, he could safely return to his own kitchen to drink a bowl of porridge.

That envoy used those same methods to scoop four thousand, nine hundred and sixty-seven people out of a boiling pot.

The old Scholar smiled slowly. He flipped back to the final blank page and looked at the name he had just written down: Coleman.

By the rules, anything brought back by the lord of the hunt personally should be recorded under the "Collected" column.

Once recorded as "Collected," the person belonged to the lord of the hunt, never to be untangled again.

The old Scholar hovered his pen tip over "Collected," then shifted it an inch to the left.

He wrote: "Entered the registry with the envoy."

...

The rain didn't stop until it was almost dark, and even then, it didn't completely clear up. Water still dripped from the eaves.

Richard left the window cracked open. The smell of coal smoke drifted in through the gap.

Outside the gap, something had been crouching for a while.

A black cat sat completely soaked, its fur plastered to its skin. Its tail was neatly curled around its front paws as it watched him through the glass.

Richard stood up and pushed the window halfway open.

"Aren't you going to ask which way I came from?"

That raspy woman's voice came from the cat's mouth, echoing straight into Richard's mind.

Richard lowered his hand from the window frame.

"I won't ask."

"You shouldn't."

The black cat hopped in from the windowsill. It shook itself upon landing, splashing water all over his trouser leg.

Richard went to the cabinet and dug out a dry cloth.

The black cat took a half-step back, its tail standing straight up.

"Don't touch!"

"You're wet."

The black cat corrected him.

"The cat is wet, and the cat is uncomfortable. I just happen to be inside it."

Despite saying that, when he draped the cloth over the chair, the cat stepped onto it as naturally as could be.

Only after stepping on did it remember to act reluctant, turning two extra circles on the cloth.

Richard fought back a smile.

"What brings you over tonight?"

The black cat lay down, resting its chin on its front paws.

"Back on Flower Moon Street, I do have over a dozen client orders piled up. I haven't touched a single one."

"Then why are you...?"

"What did you attract last month? Did something lock onto you?"

Instantly, Richard lost all mood for joking.

"How did you know?"

"The Ring on your chest has my mark on it. If something brushed against it, of course I'd know."

The black cat lifted its head, its golden eyes narrowing.

"You did two things right that day."

"Which two?"

"You didn't ask a second time, and more importantly, you didn't hide."

Richard thought back to that night. He had suppressed his Ether fluctuations down to that baseline, sitting perfectly still and pretending to be a rock.

"If you hide, it will want to look for you."

Madam Marie said, "If something tries to hide in front of you, you'd take an extra look at it too."

"If it doesn't hide, you'd find it uninteresting and just walk away."

Richard opened his mouth. He already had an explanation memorized.

Most of it was true; the remaining sliver was the routine he had honed over the past two years.

"You don't need to explain anything to me."

Madam Marie interrupted him.

"I'm not going to ask what exactly happened. If I know, I'll have to shoulder the burden with you."

The black cat shifted positions and spoke half-jokingly.

"You're not my student. I have no intention of bearing it for you."

Richard swallowed his words.

In truth, several things were still weighing on his mind:

The night of April thirtieth, the endless procession above the clouds;

The night the three syllables were passed out of his hand;

And the [Ten of Swords] flipped seven times on Hecate's table.

The black cat raised its head.

"I just came over tonight to see if anything happened to you."

"Since nothing happened, I can head back."

"Before I go, I have a few words for you."

"Go ahead."

"First, for the next six months starting today, put away anything that asks outwards."

"Tarot, Runestones, crystal balls, letting your hand move on its own with your eyes closed—none of that is allowed."

"Then how am I supposed to take inventory?"

Madam Marie didn't answer right away.

The black cat first stood up and shook its fur, walked to the corner of the table, and pointed its nose toward that wax-paper packet.

"I want that. This body is a little hungry."

Richard unwrapped the wax paper.

It was smoked salmon sent from Catherine's hometown. She had shared a bit with him.

"You just said this body had nothing to do with you."

"The cat has nothing to do with me," the black cat said, walking over with steady composure. "But the cat is hungry right now."

Richard tore off a small strip and placed it on a saucer.

The black cat lowered its head, sniffed it, and gave its appraisal.

"Nicely smoked. Alder wood was used for the fire."

Once the fish was eaten, the saucer was licked completely clean.

Richard brought over the loaf of black bread from the windowsill and broke off a small corner.

"Mrs. MacNeil said this is your favorite."

The black cat stared at that small corner of bread for three full seconds, then took a half-step back.

"...That child talks too much."

Richard tossed the corner into his own mouth and chewed twice. It really was hard.

Even with a Level 3 [eating] skill, he almost choked on it.

The black cat finished licking its paws and lay back down on the cloth.

"Where were we?"

"You were talking about how I'm supposed to take inventory."

"Right. There's definitely more than one way to lay out the cards."

"Asking outwards is like pushing a door open a crack. You don't know who is standing on the other side."

"There's another way to lay them out: turning the cards over and using them as a mirror to look at yourself. A mirror doesn't leave the house."

Richard sat up straight.

"Since you want to walk the Mirror Tradition, today I'll teach you how to reflect four things with a mirror. Ask one question per card, then put them away the moment you're done."

"What do you have in your hands right now?

What is no longer in your hands?

What do you think is yours, but actually isn't?

What do you think isn't yours, but actually is?"

Richard silently pondered the meaning behind these four lines.

"In these four lines, don't use a single word to ask about the future."

The black cat's tail swept across the cloth.

"You aren't allowed to ask about others. You aren't allowed to ask about names. You aren't allowed to ask about when."

"You are only allowed to ask about the things you currently hold in your own hands. Only you yourself won't turn around and bite you. Anything else will."