Read by Asclepius
Chapter 11. The Cathedral and the Cat.
 
Kitty was not outside the portal. When we re-emerged in the attic at Elnoth’s Storage and Cartage she was nowhere to be seen. Lucy’s disappointment was profound. She called and called but Kitty did not come out.
 
“Are you kidding me?” Lucy asked no one.
 
Sometime later, Lucy finally gave up looking and followed the rest of us as we made our way over to the docks. She looked dejected and disheartened; she had been crying too. I did not know what to do to make her feel better, but I wanted to try at least.
 
“We’ll find her again,” I tried to reassure Lucy but saying that just made her cry more.
 
Lucy and Zyrina started searching the neighbourhood for tracks, but these cobbled streets were giving no clues. I wasn’t usually this bad at comforting my friends and I was worried about Kitty myself. Where did she go? Questions rolled around my head as we gloomily walked over to the docks. Why couldn’t we find Phlebus, for that matter? He was ALWAYS at the library, but not now. He had not been seen for weeks.
 
During the search for Kitty, while we were so close, I swung by my family boarding house, where Torgin and Phlebus usually stayed in Central Brittany. It was a spit and a jump away from Elnoth’s Cartage and Storage. After a quick update on the state of the boarding house accounts, Gwen Trelawny let me know neither of my friends had been there for weeks, and she was a little concerned too.
 
“Sorry Gwen, I don’t know where they are either. Have you seen a snowy white lynx wandering around the street by any chance?” I asked.
 
She laughed long and hard, then answered, “Nope, but if I did, I would lay off the special reserve from your Uncle Owain. Have you hit your head?” Then she chortled again and waved before going back to her work.
 
Imagine, the Southern Red Syndicate was nested right in my own neighbourhood in Central Britanny, and I’d never heard a whiff about them before this adventure! What is worse, is the knowledge that the moon towers in Central Britanny were not actually protecting the citizens of Central Britanny from the infiltration of Obsidian magic. Something was wrong. Something very big was very wrong.
 
At the busy docks, we did find the town crier that Lucy knew would be there. After they exchanged a warm and familiar greeting, she asked him to keep an eye out for Torgin’s large snowy lynx and he agreed. Then, we were introduced all around. After flirting shamelessly and outrageously with each of us (one after the other) and in no way finding each rebuff to be personal, he cheerfully pointed the way to Kal’s Unfortunate Apothecary over in the west of the city. I am glad for the crier’s detailed directions because even with them we had a few false starts. Finally, after several hours of wandering up and down the knoll where the castle is built, we arrived at the correct location.
 
“There it is.” Zyrina pointed.
 
I paused to catch my breath after climbing up the steep path to the little magic shop. It’s tucked in near one of the moon towers and attached to a much larger building of the same grey somber square stone and spiky metal style; I had assumed it was part of the bigger building.
 
“It almost disappears if you don’t know exactly where to look for it,” Lucy said.
 
“Yup.” I nodded.
 
I had been on this street several times before but had not noticed the Unfortunate Apothecary, let alone heard any rumours about a secret meeting place in it.
 
Aslinne then started wondering out loud the thoughts I was wrestling with. “Does the queen of the city know about this? It is Arabella’s city, and it’s supposed to be safe from the influence of the Obsidians. Finding them this close, and underneath the city is disquieting.”