“It’s like watching an enjoyable
narrative on an entertainment crystal back on Mount Isolation,”
Redd
said as the roses finished with the butcher. She motioned with her stick—a conductor leading her orchestra—and the roses retracted into the pavement’s cracks. “You’ve been to this world before, Cat. Take me to where I can sulk and complain in peace. Someplace suitable to my delicate temperament.” “Yes, Your Imperial Viciousness.”
The Cat preferred not to admit his ignorance. True, he had recently plunged through the Pool of Tears and traveled to Earth in his hunt for the exiled Alyss Heart, but nothing looked familiar to him and he was certain that he had never been in this city. He led Redd through a series of turns and along countless blocks. They rounded a corner and came upon the dead butcher. They had traveled in a circle. “You don’t know where we are?” Redd asked. Her voice was so quiet that it made the fur between The Cat’s ears stand on end. He hadn’t risked a leap into the Heart Crystal only to die now. “When I was last on Earth,” he said cautiously, “I must not have come to this city.” “Tell it to the steel,” Redd snarled, conjuring the end of her stick into a blade, with which she was about to pierce him, when—
“I have only one life left,” he reminded her. She held the spear aloft, ready to strike. With a grunt of vexation, she lowered it, imagined the blade-end back into a nonlethal nub, and jabbed it against his chest with every other word. “Then you’ll have to be more helpful in the future, won’t you? Because I might not be so lenient a second time.” The Cat licked his paw and rubbed his eyes. “Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, annoyed. “What?”
Redd pretended to lick her hand and rub her eye. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Your Imperial Viciousness, but I look around and everything is clear and hard. Except you. You’re…blurry.”
“You’re not so clear yourself,” Redd snapped. “It’s probably just the lingering effects of the Heart Crystal.”
She had noticed it too: The Cat out of focus while everything around him was clear and distinct. It was the same whenever she looked at any part of her body. She seemed to exist within a soft fuzz, the edges of herself dissolving into the surrounding air. Not until she and The Cat passed a furniture shop on the Avenue de Clichy and she glimpsed her reflection in an oval looking glass did she understand the cause. “That hack of a painter! His style was too soft! His coloring too gentle!” She exploded the mirror into thousands of fragments with the force of her anger. “I’ll kill him!” The Cat was all for it, but neither he nor Redd could remember the way to the painter’s studio. Her Imperial Viciousness focused her thoughts, searched for him with her imagination’s eye. But she wasn’t sure where to look; no vision of the painter or his studio appeared. Instead, the eye of her imagination alighted on a crumbling stone staircase half hidden by garbage in an alley behind a charcuterie. The
said as the roses finished with the butcher. She motioned with her stick—a conductor leading her orchestra—and the roses retracted into the pavement’s cracks. “You’ve been to this world before, Cat. Take me to where I can sulk and complain in peace. Someplace suitable to my delicate temperament.” “Yes, Your Imperial Viciousness.”
The Cat preferred not to admit his ignorance. True, he had recently plunged through the Pool of Tears and traveled to Earth in his hunt for the exiled Alyss Heart, but nothing looked familiar to him and he was certain that he had never been in this city. He led Redd through a series of turns and along countless blocks. They rounded a corner and came upon the dead butcher. They had traveled in a circle. “You don’t know where we are?” Redd asked. Her voice was so quiet that it made the fur between The Cat’s ears stand on end. He hadn’t risked a leap into the Heart Crystal only to die now. “When I was last on Earth,” he said cautiously, “I must not have come to this city.” “Tell it to the steel,” Redd snarled, conjuring the end of her stick into a blade, with which she was about to pierce him, when—
“I have only one life left,” he reminded her. She held the spear aloft, ready to strike. With a grunt of vexation, she lowered it, imagined the blade-end back into a nonlethal nub, and jabbed it against his chest with every other word. “Then you’ll have to be more helpful in the future, won’t you? Because I might not be so lenient a second time.” The Cat licked his paw and rubbed his eyes. “Why do you keep doing that?” she asked, annoyed. “What?”
Redd pretended to lick her hand and rub her eye. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Your Imperial Viciousness, but I look around and everything is clear and hard. Except you. You’re…blurry.”
“You’re not so clear yourself,” Redd snapped. “It’s probably just the lingering effects of the Heart Crystal.”
She had noticed it too: The Cat out of focus while everything around him was clear and distinct. It was the same whenever she looked at any part of her body. She seemed to exist within a soft fuzz, the edges of herself dissolving into the surrounding air. Not until she and The Cat passed a furniture shop on the Avenue de Clichy and she glimpsed her reflection in an oval looking glass did she understand the cause. “That hack of a painter! His style was too soft! His coloring too gentle!” She exploded the mirror into thousands of fragments with the force of her anger. “I’ll kill him!” The Cat was all for it, but neither he nor Redd could remember the way to the painter’s studio. Her Imperial Viciousness focused her thoughts, searched for him with her imagination’s eye. But she wasn’t sure where to look; no vision of the painter or his studio appeared. Instead, the eye of her imagination alighted on a crumbling stone staircase half hidden by garbage in an alley behind a charcuterie. The