Sly

Chapter Forty Three

I registered that I was on something soft. An odd feeling, for a dead girl, as I pried my eyes open. Plush cushions surrounded me and there were translucent purple veils all around, cocooning my resting spot. Beyond them was just . . . darkness. I could sense that I shared the cushions with several cats of every fur pattern. Some were sleeping, the majority were just sitting still and watching me with seldom-blinking eyes. Soft candlelight seemed to glow from somewhere but I couldn't find any lanterns and I quickly realized I couldn't move my body at all. Panic, instant and all-consuming had me in its grip as I willed my fingers, my tongue, any part of me to move.

"Hello, Salysta." A deep, fluid voice purred to my left. I rolled my eyes wildly to try and see, but couldn't quite manage it. I struggled to speak but I couldn't make my body do that either.

"Ah, one moment." The woman came into view and touched two fingers to my throat. I inhaled, it was like taking in air after holding your breath underwater for too long. I finally registered the face above me and gasped. Pale as the moons with silky brown hair, purple eyes crinkled in a smile over grinning ruby lips. She was round and soft and graceful, dressed in a shining black and silver dress.

"Shadow," I whispered. I still couldn't move, but I could speak.

"You are very clever, Salysta, do you know that?" The beautiful deity smiled down at me. She moved a pair of fat gray tabby cats to sit down on the pillows.

The space, wherever this was, was so quiet. A million things ran through my head as I tried to piece it all together.

"So . . . So I've died then?" I asked, my heart felt tight.

"No, not yet. But you certainly came close." Shadow leaned down, mild curiosity on her face as her fingers pulled a few locks of hair toward herself and began braiding strands of my hair.

"Why am I in your realm then?" I wasn't sure how to address a god and hoped I wasn't being rude.

"You are mine when I chose to use you. You realize I have chosen you, yes?" Shaodw asked, pausing her braiding to trace the cat on the back of my neck.

"Yes," I replied. I was otherwise afraid to break the silence and just lay there having my hair played with. In a weird way, it surfaced memories of time spent at Panther house.

"There," Shadow announced, showing me the finished braid. "Ah, it seems they finished setting your bones. I will send you back now, we couldn't have you waking up in the middle of that, now could we?"

"Back? Setting bones? What bones?" I had a small rise of hope and panic mixed in my stomach.

"You did well. I like clever cats like you. Mischief is coming, mischief I didn't start. Be careful of it." Shadow smiled and leaned down to kiss my forehead.

"Wait . . ." I tried to protest, but suddenly my eyes fell closed, heavy and unmoving.

~

". . . would you have done if she died, huh? She's been in your hands all this time and you don't know her well enough to keep her behind the front lines?"

Yelling.

My head ached ferociously. Shortly after that, I realized my whole body was numb. Who was yelling? Was that Jexa?

"What did you want me to do, tie her up and drag her behind me to find that captain?" Bricker snapped back.

"Yes! If that's what it takes. I should skin you and that captain of hers for getting her mixed in this. What if she doesn't wake up, huh? What if Spirit takes her now?"

I could almost picture the spit flying off Jexa's mouth.

"Jexa," Grahm crooned. "What would you have done differently spur of the moment? Calm down, straining yourself doesn't help her."

I knew they were talking about me but I couldn't speak up yet. I was struggling to even open my eyelids. Something crashed. From the sound, Jexa must have thrown something and stormed out.

"Get me when she wakes," Jexa growled through the door and stomped off.

"That guy . . ." Dirk said. I knew that tone, he was shaking his head at the tantrum.

"Can you blame him?" Bricker said miserably. "If I had just gone with her, if she just came with me first. Or maybe if I hadn't been there to point out the marching procession at all . . ."

"You can't blame yourself, we can't control her any more than we could outwit Davery." Gram was comforting Bricker now. I wondered what the group would ever do without their peacekeeper. The door opened again. I still couldn't open my eyes, it was starting to really bother me.

"Hello, captain," Dirk said.

"How is she?" he said softly.

Arden Pettypiece. I'd never heard that tone from him before.

"No change," Bricker muttered.

"I see," the captain said. "There is nothing more to be done in the infirmary. The healers have done all they can. We are preparing her a private room near the library. Does she have any possessions to be moved?"

"I'll check at Panther house," Graham offered. "I don't think there would be much, but I will ask."

"I'll go too. If she picked up on anything I've ever told her she will have hidden anything important to her and you'll need me to help find it," Dirk said.

I wanted to protest, but he was right. There was a loose bedknob with a pouch of coins in Orchid's room that I doubted anyone but Dirk could find, and a loose floorboard with a few other things.

"Thank you," the captain said. "I have a stretcher coming to help carry her, we need to give her another dose of poppy to numb the pain. I want her to wake up as bad as you lads, but not because of the pain from being moved." There were murmurs of agreement and someone lifted my head and a trickle of thick syrup ran down my throat. My gag reflexes nearly kicked in, but I swallowed and sank back to sleep.