Excerpt: Clockwork Alchemy [working title]

Something brushed against her leg. She looked down, not particularly startled. She’d worked in places where it was not uncommon to find a rat scurrying across your shoe.

She found an orange cat rubbing her leg, looking up at her as if to say, Well? Quirking her lips, she reached down to scratch his head good-naturedly. After a moment, she gave in and dropped into a crouch, enjoying the sound of the marmalade’s purr. He was a pretty cat, and clean, though he didn’t appear to have a collar. The only indication that he’d been on the street at all was the dampness of his paws, a result of his trek on cobblestones still wet from the night’s rain. He really looked like a well-groomed housecat gone astray, but what would a housecat be doing outside at four-thirty in the morning?

Perhaps he’d just been restless. She could readily sympathize with the feeling. Aretha looked up, continuing to scratch the cat’s ears as she glanced around in vain for some sign of what she was supposed to be waiting for.

“It seems I’ve been stood up,” she told him with a sigh.

The cat made a noise—she couldn’t really call it a meow, but it got her attention—and she looked back at him in time to feel her fingers catch on something as he stood up. It was a string, she realized, tied around his neck—it had been hidden by his short fur. Not much of a collar, but perhaps it had a tag, in which case she should probably get him home. Her ten minutes were almost up, anyway, and someone was probably missing him.

“Come on, let me see,” she coaxed, turning the makeshift collar in her fingers. She felt something thick on one side and turned it around to see.

It was a piece of paper, rolled up very small and tied in the string. After hesitating a moment, she reached into the pocket of her overalls and retrieved her pocketknife, cutting the string away. The cat was kind enough to turn his head, making the job easier.

Aretha took the string in her hands, fiddling with the paper until she had it free. She unrolled it, shifting to a more comfortable crouch. She studied the words inscribed there while the cat looked on. They were written on a paper different than the first, but in the same hand.

Your patience is to be commended. We need your help with something rather urgent. Your job could be jeopardized, but the overall outcome will be well worth the price. Your services in particular are needed. Please write a response on the back of this note and send it with the messenger who delivered it to you. He will know where to go.

Aretha looked at the cat. “Is this a joke?” If he had any answers for her, they were not forthcoming. He eyed her with slitted green eyes, and she had a feeling that if he had possessed eyebrows, he would have raised them.

Aretha shook her head, trying to dispel the anthropomorphizing notions from her imagination. She wasn’t used to getting lip from a cat.

She looked back down at the paper, fingering the edges—it was smoother than the kind the first note had come on, a creamy white color and a heavier weight. A finer grade. “Way to be cryptic,” she murmured—to herself, not the cat, whose opinion she’d decided she didn’t really want. Why talk to him if he was just going to be rude about it?

“Mrow-ow-ow.”

Aretha looked at her companion, making a face. “You are the most insufferable creature. This is a big decision. Would you have me rush in the making of it?”

The cat’s expression said it all—he might as well have spoken aloud. Yes.

Aretha sighed, puffing out her cheeks before blowing the air out of her lips. She hated feeling rushed, and yet, no matter the time it took her to make the decision, would it change her answer? No.

She was far too curious for her own good. “Very well, then. Carry this back to your dark master. Tell him you’ve served his evil purpose.” She produced a pen from the bib of her overalls and scrawled her response—“Interested, but need more information,”—on the back of the slip, using one knee as a makeshift table. She rolled it back up and retied it to the string, which she knotted back around the cat’s neck. The cat shifted while she did this, and she got the feeling it was uncomfortable having something so close to its neck.

“Hurry home, and the sooner it’ll be off,” she told him, inwardly feeling justified—he deserved a bit of discomfort for being so impatient.

The cat flicked its tail at her in answer before striding off, running on silent paws down the street, until she couldn’t see him for the dark.