"My friends," Morwen said. "You'd better back up. There's not much room to spare, coming through that window, and Killer's never done this before."
"Killer?" The man backed up hastily. "Good grief, it's blue."
"Oh, really?" said Scorn, her voice dripping sarcasm. "We hadn't noticed."
"You know, I don't think his wings will fit through the opening unless he folds them," Trouble said. "I wonder how he'll manage?"
Killer flapped higher, then dove for the window, folding his wings at the last minute. His momentum wasn't quite enough to carry him through, and for an instant his front hooves flailed uselessly against air inside the tower while his back legs hung outside. Then he kicked, wiggled, and tumbled into the room, where he sprawled six inches above the floor, panting loudly. The sudden jerk tore Cimorene loose, and she landed next to Killer with a thud.
"Ow!" said Cimorene. "Morwen, are you all right? When the basket didn't come down again, I got worried."
"Everything is fine," Morwen said. "Telemain is even beginning to come out of the initial stages of backshock."
"Then what took you so long?" Cimorene demanded.
"I was chatting with our host…" Morwen turned expectantly to the red-haired man.
"Brandel," the red-haired man supplied. He still sounded sullen, but there was an undercurrent of interest, too. "I suppose that, since you're in, you can stay." He looked from Morwen to Killer to the cats to Cimorene.
"But you're going to have to explain yourselves."
"In a minute," Morwen said. "First, we have to tell Kazul what's been going on. Unless you want a worried dragon tearing your tower apart."
Without waiting for Brandel to answer, she leaned out the window and began shouting reassurances.
Explaining to Kazul took some time, and after that they had to haul the laundry basket back inside. Once it was in, they discovered that Killer had kicked a hole in the side in his last desperate lunge through the window.
This put Brandel out of sorts again.
"I should throw you all back out the window immediately," he grumbled.
"You're nothing but a lot of vagabonds."
"That doesn't sound right," Killer said, climbing to his feet. "Unless vagabonds is a word for a witch and a magician and the Queen of the Enchanted Forest and the King of the Dragons and some cats. And me.
Is that what it means, Morwen?"
"Not exactly. Brandel is just grouchy."
"Oh." Killer shook himself, which made his wings flop open. He had to flap them once to keep his balance and then again to get them back in position. "I thought having wings would be interesting, but they're just a big trouble."
"What was that about queens and kings and magicians?" Brandel asked Morwen.
So Morwen made a round of formal introductions, which soothed everyone's feelings. Then, just when they were getting ready to sit down and talk, Telemain stirred again and Morwen had to quiet him.
"I thought you wanted him to wake up," Killer said.
"I do, but thrashing around won't help him recover," Morwen said.
"He needs to keep quiet."
"No problem," said Trouble. He stood up, stretched, strolled over to Telemain, and draped himself down the center of the magician's chest.
"How long do you want him like this?"
"Thank you, Trouble," Morwen said, feeling relieved. Not only would Trouble's efforts hasten Telemain's recovery, but keeping Telemain quiet would also keep Trouble from getting into trouble. Given a specific job, the cat was quite reliable. "Two or three more hours should do it, now that he's warm. Then we can wake him, feed him some broth, and put him to bed."
"I bet he won't want to go," said Scorn.
"Three hours. Right." Trouble yawned and put his head down on his paws.
"I thought regular witches were supposed to have black cats," said Brandel, looking from Trouble to Scorn. "Unless-are you a fire-witch, too?"
"No," said Morwen. "But I don't see why that should limit me to black cats."
Brandel started to ask something else, then stopped, frowning. "No.
I'll ask you about that later. Right now, you're here and you're all settled, and I want my explanation. Before something else happens."
"First, I'd like to know how you feel about wizards," Morwen said.
"I've never met one," Brandel replied. "And I'm not sure I want to.
They don't have a very good reputation."
"Good," said Cimorene. "It's like this…" And she launched into the explanation.
Brandel listened with interest, but when Cimorene reached the end of her tale, he frowned. "How did you get by the invisible dusk-blooming chokevines? I thought I'd gotten all the openings near the tower filled in."
"Kazul burned a path through them."
"Mmph. Must be handy, traveling with a dragon."
"Sometimes," said Morwen. "Other times it's an inconvenience."
Suddenly, Scorn's ears pricked up and her whiskers twitched forward.
"Well, well. What's this?"
Morwen glanced sideways to see what Scorn was watching so intently.
On the top step of the staircase, a large, fluffy cat stood gazing at the newcomers. He was mostly black, with a white chin, white front paws, and a white tuft at the very end of his tail, and his expression was wary and disapproving.
"So you've finally decided to come see what was going on, have you?"
Brandel said to the cat.