It Isn't Easy Being Queen

26. The Brittlebane Wars

"Hiss." Swat went the cat.

"Ouch!" said the rat.

Cal licked his paw with a catlike smirk of satisfaction at Vermeil's suffering.

"Guys, cut it out! This is ridiculous. I need you both. Why do you insist on killing each other?"

Vermeil shrugged his little rat shoulders. "Evolution?"

I shook my head. Was I really talking about evolution with a rat? Sometimes life goes in the most bizarre directions. "Evolution?"

"Cats and rats are natural enemies, ergo, he wants to eat me. Could you be friends with someone who wanted to eat you?"

"Are you kidding? Everyone in this realm wants to eat me. If I excluded people who thought I'd make a good snack from my potential friend list, I'd have no friends."

Cal used the conversation as an opportunity to regain his throne, aka, my lap.

"Remove yourself, feline swine," Vermeil cried.

"I think you're mixing metaphors," I pointed out, as Vermeil charged.

"Hissss," Cal said, swatting Vermeil clear across the room where he tumbled into the bedpost. The bed shook as if appalled by the indignity.

"Squeak."

"Hiss."

Sigh.

"Enough!" I yelled, picking up Cal and carrying him to the bathroom. I would've locked away Vermeil, but I was almost certain he would've escaped through any tiny crack, plus I needed information from him about Blade. I closed the door, but Cal was not amused by his entrapment and made this known with an earsplitting complaint.

"Everything okay in there," Lubris called. "Sounds like a war."

No one could know I was harboring two stowaways. If the queen found out from the eyeball spies on her door, she'd turn my rat and cat into toads or goldfish or teapots. I couldn't risk someone else I cared about being used for the evil queen's dastardly plot. Although it would be nice to have a teapot.

"Nothing's wrong. I'm ... just ... um ... doing yoga."

"Heavens, yoga is violent."

"You have no idea," I said.

"Shhhh!" I hissed through the bathroom door. "It's only for a short while. Calm down!"

The tantrum ceased!

"Thanks," Vermeil said. "My little heart couldn't take much more."

"He wouldn't eat you."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. Look, did you steal the key to Blade's cell?"

"I did. So easy. Like stealing a key from a ghost."

"You stole the key from a ghost?"

"Yeah. He had a hard time keeping a grip. Ectoplasm isn't the most adhesive material."

"Then where's the key?"

Vermeil rocked back and forth on his little feet, gazing down at them. "Lost it."

I forced myself to remain calm, but power buzzed in my fingertips. A voice inside my head screamed: Destroy the traitor! Cackle, cackle, cackle! Whoa! What was happening to me?! My heart palpitating like a bag of Jiffy Pop in the microwave, I gripped my hands into fists and silenced the voice. Barely.

"Uh, you okay, Boss?"

"Yeah," I lied. Couldn't have him thinking I almost blasted him into oblivion. Maybe I wasn't used to having a familiar, but this didn't seem a great way to start things off between us. "Can you elaborate on how you lost the key?"