Chaos Choreography (InCryptid, #5)(78)

There was a long pause. Longer than normal: normally, the word “audience” would have them popping out of nowhere like a bunch of tiny rodent jack-in-the-boxes, all cheering wildly. But even talking pantheistic mice need their beauty sleep, and it was well past the hour when most of the faithful would have taken themselves off to bed.

After several minutes had ticked by, Malena flung up her hands in disgust. “This is the weirdest prank a pair of humans has ever tried to pull on me, you get that? There’s something wrong with your entire species.”

“And lo did the Violent Priestess speak unto the congregation, and she did say, ‘Ain’t Nothing Wrong with Most People which couldn’t be Fixed with a Good Smack Upside the Head,’” squeaked a small, rapturous voice from the direction of the floor. Malena jumped nearly a foot straight up. The mouse continued, unperturbed, “Then she did deliver a Good Smack Upside the Head to her husband, the God of Unexpected Situations, and All Was Well.”

Malena turned to stare at the wainscoting. The mouse, which was sitting politely with its tail tucked around its feet and its cloak slung back over its shoulders, fluffed its whiskers forward as it stared back.

“Greetings, therianthrope,” it said deferentially. Aeslin mice were remarkably canny about some things. Being polite to predators was one of them.

“Uh, mouse,” said Malena. “Mouse, talking. Talking mouse. In the apartment. There is a talking mouse.”

“Okay, it’s fun to listen to you chaining your way up to a complete sentence, but we don’t have time for this right now,” I said and knelt, holding out my hand for the mouse to scamper onto. Once it was settled on my palm I straightened, turning to present the mouse to Malena. “Malena, Aeslin mouse. Aeslin mouse, Malena. Malena is a friend, and will not eat you. Right, Malena?”

“Uh, sure,” said Malena, sounding unsettled. That was a common—and sensible—reaction to meeting an Aeslin mouse for the first time. She wasn’t screaming and running away, which put her ahead of a lot of people. “Hello, mouse.”

“Greetings, friend who will not eat me,” said the mouse. It turned to me, forcing its whiskers forward in an expression of polite curiosity. “Why do you beg audience, Arboreal Priestess? Have we displeased you in some way? For the hour is Late, and you have said, many times, that we must Let You Sleep.”

“You can hear the capital letters,” said Malena, sounding even more unsettled. “Did you notice that? It talks, and you can hear the capital letters.”

“You get used to it,” said Dominic.

“What he’s not saying is that before you get used to it, the mice make lots and lots of comments about your sex life,” I said. I focused on the mouse. “I asked for audience because I need your help. Can you wake the colony?”

The mouse looked conflicted. Normally, that would have been amusing enough to distract me from the business at hand. Normally, it wasn’t almost two o’clock in the morning, with the clock counting steadily down toward the start of rehearsals. “Why?”

“The Noisy Priestess is missing. We need to find her, but if we want to retain our access to the place where she disappeared, I need to get some sleep. Dominic is going back to the theater, and I want you and the rest of the colony to go with him.” Aeslin mice could fit in places where no human could ever go. They could escape through cracks and squeeze through holes in the foundation. And they never, ever forgot anything they saw or heard.

There was no guarantee the Aeslin eidetic memory would be enough to override the compulsion charms on the theater, but there was a chance. Given the situation, I’d take whatever chances I could find.

The mouse looked horrified. “The Noisy Priestess, missing? Vanished from our sight? I shall Ring the Bells. I shall Sound the Alarms. I shall—”

“You shall wake the colony and get them down here, to accompany the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places back to the theater,” I said firmly, before the mouse could work itself into a full-blown panic. “I’ll be there in the morning. You can sleep in shifts, and report whatever you find to either one of us, Malena, or Pax. You remember Pax, right?”

It was a foolish question, designed to snap the mouse out of upset into indignation. It worked exactly as intended. The mouse sat up straighter, pushing its whiskers back in pure outrage, and squeaked, “The man who is not a Man, but is also a Fish,” it said. “I know him well. We all know him well.”

“Good, then you know you can trust him,” I said, bending to set the mouse back on the floor. “Go gather the rest of the colony. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

“I go,” said the mouse, and put action to word, vanishing through a hole at the base of the wall almost faster than my eyes could follow.

I stayed where I was, crouched and looking at the empty space where the mouse had been. I was so tired. My grandmother was missing, and all I could think about was how nice it was going to be to crawl into my bed, pull the covers up over my eyes, and forget about all this for a little while.

It was a very Valerie reaction. Maybe I’d been trying to become her a little too hard, and was starting to lose track of the difference between my pretend self and my real one. Even more worryingly, maybe I was starting to forget which one was which.

A hand touched my shoulder. I looked up. Dominic was standing beside me, looking concerned.