Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(64)

Except that I was also pretty sure that nobody would be looking for Ferius and nobody would care that she’d been captured.

‘Nephenia?’ I called out, my voice a little stronger now.

No answer came, which struck me as very rude until I noticed that the bright yellow sunlight was gone, replaced by the purple-grey of dusk.

Hours had gone by. I had nodded off. Darkness felt like a blanket being pulled over me. Soon my parents would come back into the room and start on the next band. Would it be blood magic this time? Or maybe breath? Were they down to the last and weakest band already?

Despite the dull thud of the drugs that kept me docile and the leather straps that held me down, I felt an overwhelming desire to do something, anything, to hurt my parents. Lacking the ability to actually commit any act of violence, I started crying, and in between my feeble sobs I said, ‘You aren’t my father any more, Ke’heops. You aren’t my mother, Bene’maat. You’re just two horrible people who strapped me down and took my life from me. I’m going to kill you both one day. I’m going to kill everybody in this stupid rotten town.’

Even as I spoke the words, I knew this was nothing more than the wasted utterance of a child lashing out at everyone around him. That was why I was so surprised when a fuzzy brown-and-black face suddenly appeared at the edge of my window and, in a chittering, growling little voice, said, ‘Kill everybody in town? Now you’re talking my language, kid.’





28


The Negotiation


There was a moment when the squirrel cat had first appeared at the window when I’d thought I might be hallucinating. I was still drugged, after all, and I’d been strapped down to that table for several days.

‘Are you simple, kid?’ the creature asked.

‘Simple?’

‘Slow. Dumb. Thick. Stupi—’

‘I get it,’ I said. ‘The answer is no.’

The animal reached a paw into the narrow three-inch gap that separated the two wood-framed horizontal panes of glass. They were secured in position by a lever that required a small key to unlock it. When I was younger I used to try for hours to find a way to get it open, with everything from thin steel pins to a mallet. ‘You won’t be able to open it,’ I informed the animal as he floundered at it with his paw. ‘The only way is if you have –’

The lock slid off the lever and down onto the floor. The two halves of the window swung open and the squirrel cat clambered onto the sill and settled on his haunches.

‘How did you do that?’ I asked.

‘Do what?’

‘Undo the lock.’

He looked at me with a quizzical expression on his furry muzzle, his head tilted to one side. ‘I thought you said you weren’t simple.’

The sound of another chittering voice came from outside. It seemed to irritate him. He turned his head towards the open window. ‘It was a joke,’ he said. ‘I’m being friendly.’

‘You brought another …’ It occurred to me that I wasn’t sure how to refer to the animal. Did they prefer being called squirrel cats or nekheks?

‘She insisted on coming,’ he said, turning back to me. He raised his shoulders towards his ears and dropped them again. I took this to be a shrug. ‘Females! Am I right?’

I had absolutely no idea what he meant. ‘Yeah, females,’ I said, then feeling particularly awkward, I asked, ‘Do you have a name?’

He chittered something at me, then, seeing the confusion on my face, repeated it.

‘Reichis?’ I asked.

‘Close enough.’ He hopped off the windowsill and onto the table, then crawled onto my chest, his claws tapping against the fabric of my shirt. I had to stop myself from trying to shake him off. I’d seen what those claws could do. ‘So,’ he said, peering at me with those black beady eyes, ‘we should probably get the negotiations started.’

‘Negotiations?’

He let out a breath that I caught full in the nostrils. It was disgusting. ‘You sure you ain’t—’

‘I’m not simple,’ I said, irritation temporarily overcoming my anxiousness. ‘I’ve just never … negotiated with a squirrel cat, that’s all.’

‘You don’t say.’ He sat back on my chest, leaning on his haunches as he glanced around my father’s study, his eyes pausing on every shiny bauble and metal instrument. ‘Nice place you have here,’ he said. He brought his paws up to just below his whiskers and starting clacking his claws together as his thick bushy tail twitched excitedly.

‘Why are you doing that?’ I asked, suddenly suspicious.

Reichis seemed surprised. ‘Doing what? I’m not doing—’

‘You’re tapping your paws together.’

‘No, I’m not,’ he said, and immediately brought them back down.

‘Yes, you were. I saw you. What does it mean?’

He hesitated. ‘It’s … It’s something my people do when we’re, you know, intimidated by a superior intellect.’ He looked down at me. ‘That’s why I’m going to free you in exchange for only four … five of these little trinkets you have here.’

‘Five?’ I’m not sure why the number bothered me. None of the items in the room belonged to me anyway, but I had the feeling he was trying to con me.