Page 69 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“She’s never met a cat, actually,” said Nicholas.

“He’s British,” Lisa said to Collins. It sounded accusatory.

“So was Bowie.”

Lisa put a hand to her heart. “Touché.”

“I’m not British,” Esther said brightly. “Thanks for lending us a car.”

“Don’t thank me till you see it,” Lisa said. “All right, drop your bags here for now and come on in. Tansy’s bringing the car over, but she’ll be another ten minutes or so.” She kept talking over her shoulder as she pushed through a heavy door into the downstairs unit. “I made an orange cake last night, if you’re hungry.”

“The boozy one?” Collins said.

“If you consider two meager tablespoons of rum boozy.”

Nicholas didn’t care about cake. He’d stopped, fascinated, in the entry to Lisa’s living room. He’d never actually been in a normal home before. He’d been in innumerable penthouses, and hotels, and even a few upmarket bed and breakfasts, but never a space that existed purely for the purpose of someone’s common daily life.

“Have a seat,” Lisa said, and pointed to Collins. “You—come into the kitchen with me.”

They left through a doorless arch at the end of the room and Esther threw herself immediately onto a couch, which was covered in a fuchsia sheet that sent up a visible cloud of pale cat fur as she sat. Nicholas looked down at his dark clothing and despite being quite tired, decided against sitting for the time being, and crouched to let Sir Kiwi off her leash so she could explore. While she darted into every corner and made a thorough inventory of all the various smells, Nicholas stared.

“Is it normal for a house to be so... small?”

Esther looked around, incredulous. “This room is huge.”

“Hmm,” said Nicholas.

Esther laughed, lounging on the cat-fur-covered couch as if it were velvet. Even in their brief acquaintance he’d noticed that she always managed to look comfortable, somehow. “Not used to visiting the homes of commoners, are we, Prince Nicholas?”

“I’m not a prince,” said Nicholas. “Technically, I’m a very minor baron.”

“Excuse me, your majesty.”

“The correct honorific ismy lord.”

“No,” said Esther. “Not even as a joke.”

Nicholas went back to cataloging the mismatch of the furniture around him. The fuchsia sofa was almost subdued compared to one of the armchairs, which was upholstered in a striped fabric of orange and yellow, and the other armchair, though a sensible neutral tan, had been piled with rainbow-hued cushions. There was only one rug atop the wornfloorboards, a mint green Moroccan Boujad that might’ve been nice once but was now threadbare.

Nicholas had read the word “threadbare” in books but hadn’t ever actuallyseenit.

The walls were covered in art, some of which was quite lovely—a gold-framed oil portrait of a black-and-white cat with a little nub of a tail asleep in a garden—and some of which was frankly disturbing. He stepped closer to examine a drawing of a naked woman with a very full bush pulling a three-headed snake out of her vagina. She looked delighted about the whole thing. Nicholas stepped away again.

Well, at least the place was warm. Deliciously so, in fact, the kind of warmth that went straight to the chilled core of him, running through his bones like molten gold. It was a warmth that could only come from flame, which meant there had to be a fireplace somewhere, though he didn’t smell smoke.

Just as this thought crossed his mind, Esther said, “Nicholas.”

He turned. She’d risen from the couch and was crouched in the corner of the room, looking at something. He joined her and found that what had caught her attention was nothing more than a large rock, sitting unadorned on the wood floor. Aside from the fact that to the best of Nicholas’s knowledge rocks did not generally belong in houses, this one was utterly unremarkable.

“Yes, she’s got rather odd taste, hasn’t she?” he said.

“Get down here,” Esther said.

Reluctantly, Nicholas knelt on the floor beside her. Sir Kiwi, excited to see humans closer to her level, trotted over to join them. Nicholas gave it his attention, examining the rock’s gray contours, the flecks of mica. It was even warmer down here, somehow, and he rolled up his sweater sleeves.

“On closer inspection, I see that, yes, it is indeed a rock,” Nicholas said.

“Put your hand over it,” said Esther. “But don’t touch.”

---