Whiskers's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Whiskers landed in the dark yard behind the old castle and pressed the folded list flat against his chest. Twenty-two names. He needed forty before the next warden sweep, and no tenant would sign for a stranger with black wings and a warrant on his feathers. He needed someone the others already trusted. He had been circling the castle for two nights because he had heard something move in its walls. He found the boy by following the sound of chewing. A cat boy with big ears sat under a broken gargoyle, eating a crust of bread. His clothes were gray and patched. He did not stand up when Whiskers approached. He looked at the wings once and went back to the bread. "You live here," Whiskers said. "In the shafts. Not the rooms." The boy swallowed. "I'm Fluffy. I don't want saving." "Good. I'm not saving anyone." Whiskers sat down on the mossy chair across from him. A small weathered table stood between them, lichen crusting its edge. He put the list on the wood. "The warden takes a cut from every tenant in this sector. I wrote down what he takes. Twenty-two people signed. I need forty. The people who haven't signed don't know me. They know the kid who runs the vents and steals nothing." Fluffy read the list slowly. His finger moved across each name. "They feed me sometimes," he said. "The old ones on the third floor. The laundry woman. The man with the bad leg." He looked up. "If I bring you to them, and the warden catches us, I lose my shafts. I lose the quarters my mother left. I lose the registry I'm still trying to reach." "Then we do it in one night," Whiskers said. "You knock. I stay in the hall. They sign or they don't. We move to the next door before the warden's route brings him back around. You get half of what I take from the warden's strongbox when this is done. Enough to bribe a clerk at any registry you want." He pushed the list closer. "I need you to say my name is safe. That's all." Fluffy stared at the paper a long time. Then he tore a strip from his sleeve, dipped it in the candle wax pooling on the table, and pressed his thumb into the soft wax. He handed the mark to Whiskers. "That's my word. I say it twice so you hear it. My word. Tonight only, and forty doors, and then we count." Whiskers folded the wax mark into the list. They left the yard together before the moon cleared the tower. By the time the warden's lantern passed the west wall, Fluffy was already knocking on the first door, and a tenant Whiskers had never spoken to was reaching for the pen.