Mittens's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Mittens stayed on the bottom stair after the boy went quiet. Fluffy watched her from three steps up, bare feet tucked under him. She asked him what Whiskers paid for signatures. He told her. She asked what Whiskers paid for names. He said Whiskers had never asked for names. She said she would. She offered him a cut of any favor she pulled loose in the sector, and safe passage through any door she opened. Fluffy said he was working toward a shaft in the castle where the birth records were kept. He said if the records weren't there, he was leaving the station. He said it twice, in different words, so she would know he meant it. Mittens said she could get him to that shaft faster than crawling. He thought about it and nodded once. He told her what he knew. Whiskers had four names on his short list for a mother, and three had already turned him down for the same reason her sires had turned her down. The fourth was thinking. Fluffy also said the infernals were not the only court that answered summons in this sector. He said an arbiter with antlers had taken rooms above the study after the fight at the ruin, and had not left. Mittens knew the one. The same arbiter who had called her stalemate. Neutral by office. Present by choice. She stood up and told Fluffy to wait. She climbed the stairs past him. The arbiter opened the door before Mittens knocked. A catgirl in a brown wool cloak, antlers clean, one hand bare and unmarked. She let Mittens in without a word and poured two cups of something warm. Mittens set her problem on the table plainly. She needed a father. No infernal would answer. She was not asking the arbiter to rule. She was asking the arbiter to stand. The arbiter listened, then held up her bare hand. No celestial mark. No infernal mark. She said an arbiter's child would count as an heir under both courts, because an arbiter belonged to neither. She said the price was her weight in the outcome. Whatever Mittens did with Meowza's soul afterward, the arbiter would witness and record, and Mittens would not contest the record. Mittens said yes before the cup cooled. The arbiter cut her own palm and pressed it to Mittens's cut palm from the mural downstairs. The blood took. Something warm moved under Mittens's ribs and settled. She had a father. She had a witness. She had, for the first time since the ruin, a clock that ran with her instead of against her. Downstairs, Fluffy was still on the step, waiting to be paid.