By the time we got to the Bishop’s Palace on the far side of the Temple, the sun had come up. I wished it was me that Motley Owl was carrying, and not my boy. I was beat and had a nasty magic-overuse headache. Still, it was nice to walk with Wren, Cloud Eye, and Blue Fox. I had missed them over the last few days when our parties split apart. Then it sunk in that if Cat was properly restored as the Crown Prince, neither he nor I would see our Elvenhome beds ever again. That felt sad to me. I understood, maybe for the first time, why Cat did not want to be king. It wasn’t a kingdom he wanted, it was a family and the elves gave him one.

“Hey,” Wren tugged my ear, “why the droopy face? Didn’t we just gain our objective? King restored, Regent pulled down? You should be happy, Fuzz.”

* With the King back on the throne, he will want Cat by his side as his heir, and I’m sad that we won’t be living together anymore. *

“I’m sure something can be arranged,” Wren smiled. “Father is very fond of Cat Rider. I was amazed that he gave Cat Rider his chain of leaves. That’s a big deal to an elf. I am confident we will be seeing each often, even if Cat has to move back to Tammerhof. You two are family and elves always take care of their families. So worry less. It will work out, Fuzzy. Silly mountain cat.”

The King explained he had stripped the uniform off a dead guard so he could exit the palace safely without being spotted. Duke Sven sent one of the elven archers to his Tammerhof residence to get clothes for the King since Stephano had nothing to wear. The two brothers were almost identical in size when Stephano was up to weight. Clothes would be baggy on him for a while.

Storm Eagle, Duke Sven, and Father Garshom walked with the King into the Bishop of Tammerhof’s Palace and put the fear of the mother goddess into the staff. The steward tried to give Garshom some lip about taking over when the good Bishop Geralt de Ramnerberg was out of the city on a diplomatic mission. The look on that man’s face was precious when the old priest informed him of what the goblins had done to the bishop.

That was just the first mistake the steward made. The second was to protest that it was not fitting to house heathen elves in the Bishop’s Palace. In the same breath, the man decreed that no pets were allowed. My ears flattened and my growl started before I realized it.

“Fuzzy, no!” Storm Eagle’s hand fell on my skull and took a good grip. “We’re not at home so try not to eat the help.”

King Stephano’s head turned and he studied me, “so you’re Fuzzy. I thought you might be.” He looked at the steward, “Lady Fuzzy is our guest. You will provide her with her own room, preferably on the ground floor with a door so she can go outside or into the garden. If you call her a pet ever again, I will allow her to eat you.”

* Thank you for that, King Stephano, but humans don’t taste very good. *

The look on the steward’s face when he heard me mind talk was worth the effort.

“You have been such a help to me,” Stephano’s face was solemn. “You restored my wits. I wouldn’t be alive right now if not for you.”

* I do not need my own room, * I mind talked, though I was so tired it was difficult. * I sleep with my boy. Put me in the same room as my boy. Make sure the bed can take my weight, please. *

My head was pounding and I was miserable. * Father Garshom, can you do something with my backlash headache? I hurt more than I want to admit. *

“You idiotic excuse of a divine beast,” Garshom started, “have you forgotten everything I taught you about mage craft, especially about over-use and backlash? What possessed you to put out the fire by yourself? And how did you do it? That should have been impossible! It takes at least four mages to call the downpour spell for something as big as the palace and temple.”

* I didn’t use the normal rain spell. I cast a new spell to modify a spell that already existed. *

“Two spells?” Father Garshom looked most unhappy. “Not just one, but two? You’ll destroy your nerves if you keep this up.”

* Hey, in case you didn’t notice, I put the fire out so lighten up a bit please, I have a terrible headache. *

Father Garshom and Duke Sven navigated the King into an armchair in the first room inside the Bishop’s Palace. Then Father Garshom came back for me. I dropped to all four on the floor. I didn’t realize I had dropped my chin too until I nicked my tongue with my teeth. Father Garshom put his hand on my head and took the sharp edges off the headache.

“What did you cast?” Garshom asked softly, rubbing one of my sweet spots on my snout, the wretch.

* The base spell was the snowstorm spell Cat invented to tease Roaming Wren. It was the spell I cast through the scrying crystal on Queen Griselda several days ago. It was a cute miniature blizzard that dropped snowflakes on her continuously. So the spell was already in existence. Instead of the huge draw of power needed for the downpour spell, all I needed to do was use a farming spell for growing plants. So I cast the plant-growing spell on the pre-existing mini-blizzard over Griselda. I upped the amount of moisture as an afterthought. So instead of four mages casting one spell to create rain from nothing, it took one mage to modify a pre-existing spell. It should probably be two mages to use this approach for fire fighting. It was the cloud, not the snow, that put out the fire. The spell was anchored on Griselda’s head and whatever the cloud touched, that’s where the fire went out. *

By the time I was done talking, Father Garshom had reduced the pain to the ‘I might live’ stage.

“Fuzzy, I think you just invented a new way to fight fires with magic,” Garshom stroked my ears while he pondered that thought. “Sorry I snapped at you. I worry about you two. You and Cat never cease to surprise me.”

“So that’s how you modified the spell,” Cat’s soft baritone reached my ears. He must have woken up after fainting. Owl was still holding him in his arms. “I bet it works because of the cold. Dropping temperature is easier for a mage than making raindrops. Fuzzy, this has some great potential.”

* Cat, what you did to save your sister was dangerous,* I chided him. * Brave, noble, and all that, but also dangerous. *

“I was cautious. I turned the secret mage's dagger into sourdough bread, Fuzz, before I attacked," Cat's soft rebuttal fell into my ears. "That was the easy part. The hard part was stuffing the sword through that guy. I had to cast an augmentation spell on myself to do it, which depleted the last of my magic."

Owl lowered Cat into the armchair next to his father. “Do you think you can walk after this?” Owl asked Cat. “You overexerted yourself again, didn’t you?.”

“I’m probably a complete invalid for the next day or so, Owl. I’m sorry. I know I promised you not to do this to myself but I’ve completely depleted all my magic reserves. I stopped the collapsing wall of the palace from falling on Cloud Eye and Beaver Tail, so it was worth it.”

“Then I’ll pretend that nothing happened,” Owl decided with a judicial nod of his head, “so don’t worry about it.”

The King struggled to his feet and pushed his brother's hands away. He walked the short distance to Cat's chair in short unambitious steps, got on his knees, and wrapped his son in a hug with his long arms. "I thought you were gone forever,” his voice caught on a sob. “I did so many things wrong after the fire. Will you ever forgive me?”

“It would be unkind to blame you for doing what you thought was best,” Cat remarked and he leaned forward and hugged his father back. “I missed you, Dad.” There are days when I think my boy is not sixteen but sixty.

Well, they went on like this in a mushy weepy exchange for a while longer. I confess I lack patience with the two-footeds when they get like this so I had to work at not listening or I might have gagged from breathing in too much sentimentality.

When Stephano finally recomposed himself, he sat back on his heels and made a face at his son, “your eye socket when you faced down the queen was filled with starlight. Now you have two matched green eyes. Is that a glamour? How are you doing that?

“Merciful Matadee!” Garshom exclaimed, shaking his head, “not again!”