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Cat occasionally wondered whether he ought to be calling Millie Aunt. When he mentioned this to Janet, she reached over to ruffle his hair, so much more physical than Gwendolen, and shook her head.
"I know we could, but truly I can't imagine," Janet said, screwing her face up. "Even less Chrestomanci, and he actually is our relative. Uncle- Uncle- no, Chrestomanci isn't his name, I forget. Does he have a name?"
Cat didn't know, so they asked Julia and Roger.
"It's Christopher," Julia said, carefully knotting in her handkerchief as Janet was doing with a piece of string. "Not that anyone uses it except Mummy. Besides, they're not really your aunt and uncle, so should you be calling them that?"
"I've never had any relatives," Cat admitted. "My parents both got disowned when they married."
Janet said, looking up as she pulled the knot tight, "Mum's mother was the only one I ever met. I know Dad had a sister, but I don't know much about her. But lots of my friends called their distant cousins Aunt and Uncle if they were old enough."
"Mummy won't mind if you start using it," Roger said without looking up from his book. "I'd like to be there if you use it with Daddy, though. Either he'll go all vague or he'll actually be surprised." Janet chuckled at the thought, and even Julia smiled. Cat chewed his lip. He wasn't sure yet, but if he didn't then Janet soon might.
Janet, in fact, was clearly still thinking about the matter a little later, when she and Julia had begun rearranging the dollhouse again. There were several styles of dolls, clearly chucked together from years of presents so that the mother of one set became the daughter of another, or the cat of one constituted a strange horse for a smaller set. At present the adults of one set were the children of a larger set; Cat rather thought there would be grandchildren soon enough.
"How are we related? Is there a family tree we can look at?" Janet asked Julia. All three of the other children stared at Janet, quite surprised.
"Father's just cousins with your parents," Julia said, confusedly. "I mean, maybe your father, because we're all Chants."
"Our parents were first cousins," Janet said. "So he must have been cousins to both of them. So we must be second cousins? Is there any of the removals?"
"What is a removal in a family tree?"
"I know it isn't a disowning," Roger piped up, setting his book aside and moving to the cupboard to draw out some paper. "You'd be off the family tree entirely if it was. I think Grandmama drew me up one once when she visited-- let's see how much I remember."
It wasn't a very big tree, left blank in several patches with Mother of and Father of where they didn't know names but estimated relations. Janet remembered her parents' Christian names, and made Roger write them in under each of his grandfather's brothers. He hesitated at writing the name that came before Cat's, glancing at Janet, but Janet took the pencil and smartly wrote Gwendolen, and then crossed that out to write Janet underneath.
"That'll have to do," Roger said when none of them could remember anything more. "I expect Mummy'll know if we missed anything."
Julia was leaning over, across Janet, squinting at a corner of the tree. "Since when did Grandmama have a brother?"
"He mightn't be Grandmama's brother," Roger admitted. "But Mr Roberts did work for him, at least I heard him say so when he and Daddy and Mummy were talking last year. 'Your uncle', he said."
Janet frowned at the mysterious Brother of Miranda Chant née Argent. "If he was talking with both your parents, he could mean Millie's uncle instead. Or one of our grandfathers."
Roger pointed at the lone branch that said Millie, with no surname. "Mummy doesn't have any family. Well, she's got a High Priestess, but that's different."
"Don't let Mother Proudfoot hear you say that," Julia said. "Anyway, if it was Mr Roberts, it can't be either of your grandfathers. Only our branch does magic full time as a trade."
So they had to leave it as a mystery until dinner. Cat, who had stayed silent, scrutinised the slanted lines of the tree and Roger's tidy writing. All these people he didn't know. Who, if his parents still lived, he never would.
If his parents still lived, they might have missed Gwendolen's using his lives until he was used up. He put that thought aside, shut in a box. He thought he was getting better at that. At least he could sit in the sunshine and they'd call him at dinnertime.
---
There was a boy on the hill. He was too slim and too pale to be Roger, and the other boys had grown up and left the year before anyway, so it must be Christopher's young cousin. Tacroy walked slowly, slantways, so that the boy didn't notice him approaching. His attention seemed to be away besides, captured by the cat that twined between his ankles and over his knees. As the cat was similarly distracted by said boy, Tacroy got quite close before they realised he was there.
The boy startled when he saw Tacroy at the edge of his vision. The cat, which eyes had been half-closed with pleasure, yowled at being tipped out of a comfortable lap, and clawed as it twisted and landed in the grass. The boy winced and lifted his hand, but then the cat sat up and lifted its paw as if in pain.
Tacroy stood still, to let them take him in and find him unthreatening, but the boy had gotten up on his elbows, obviously wary, and the cat had gone up in that arch that Rosalie always called 'your little-big n', the way he wrote.
"Hallo," he said, carefully spreading his hands wide, showing himself. "Are you Eric?" It seemed not to be taking: there was open suspicion in the boy's eyes, which really he couldn't blame, not after the events months ago with the elder sister.
"You oughtn't be here uninvited," the boy said, tense in a way that told how he'd go running at the slightest excuse. The cat was like to start hissing at any moment, too. Tacroy took a carefully measured step back, making sure he had his footing before shifting his weight. He didn't move his hands from their show of emptiness, though it would have helped his balance.
"I haven't got a paper invitation, but I am invited." An unwise thing to say, as this heightened the boy's suspicion of him even further. He didn't look down at the cat, but time with Throgmorten and the rest of Millie's group of strays had taught him that it was more than likely the cat at their feet had grown its claws. It was not on his side.
"Miss Bessemer will have one for you, I expect," the boy said, clearly trying to be as polite as his mood allowed, which was not much.
All right," Tacroy said, raising his hands in a peacemaking gesture, and backed away. They'd see each other at dinner.
He wondered what Christopher thought of his cousin.
--
Cat stumbled as he saw the man from that afternoon, sitting across from Chrestomanci at the dinner table. Julia, who was behind him through the door, shoved gently at his back to stop him from blocking the entrance, and so he managed to get to his chair and drop into his seat without tripping over himself further. Julia should have been behind him, but when he looked back she had stopped with her father and the man, smiling shyly at the newcomer as if she knew him well. He was so clearly someone familiar to the others at the table that Cat felt himself sinking down in his seat in embarrassment. It was impossible that his rudeness would go unmentioned.
Janet leaned over to him to whisper while he was ruminating on the impending lecture. "Who's that? Is he going to expect me to be Gwendolen? I hate having to correct people now." Despite the flurry of arrests, some aspects of the incident hadn't spread as well as others.
Cat shook himself and whispered back, "I've never seen him before either. We'll both be introduced."
"Good, it's been so troublesome. He looks nice." Janet leaned to her other side to talk to Roger, letting Cat stew. He watched Julia finally, reluctantly move to her seat as the newcomer said something that made her blush, and Chrestomanci smile in that vague way that Cat considered far too dull to be real. Millie laughed and reached across the table to pat his forearm.
The thing that was worst about dinner was that Mordecai Roberts was nice. The adults had obviously been looking forward to his coming to dinner, chatting about how it was too bad that Miss Rosalie, whoever she was, would only be able to come next week because poor Gabriel (why was that name so familiar) couldn't be left alone, and how they loved seeing them both. Julia and Roger knew him well and chattered happily about whatever they fancied. Mr Roberts laughed at every anecdote and told very good jokes of his own.
He didn't even mention the meeting on the hill when Cat and Janet were introduced, just smiled at them from down the table and said how very nice it was to meet them. Cat took a big bite of broccoli right then, in part embarrassed and also to have an excuse not to talk, but Janet liked him just as much as Julia and Roger did, and told him stories about her life in Twelve B that she normally would come out with once or twice and then be quieter after for an hour or two. Mr Roberts was so warm and personable that Janet seemed not even to register how much she usually missed the place she had left. It made Cat squirm, about as much as if he'd been rude to a popular teacher.
His discomfort increased when it was clear that Mr Roberts would be spending the night. It was almost a sure thing that Chrestomanci would want Cat to talk to him. He wouldn't have come close that afternoon otherwise.
--
Cat spent breakfast the next day with his shoulders almost around his ears, he was that tense. The others couldn't help picking up on it, watching Cat carefully as he slopped marmalade on one side of his toast and then spread butter on the other side, assuring that his hands were sticky and making his cup and other utensils just as covered in sweet grease.
When he spilt salt into his tea, Julia had had enough. She couldn't quite reach his cup from her seat, so she stood and walked around the table, letting him sip his salted tea and catching the cup just as he dropped it, startled. "Daddy isn't going to like you coming to his office like this. You'll leave marks everywhere. Go wash up- you won't be late if you hurry."
He leapt up, ears burning and toast half-eaten. She was right, now that he looked down at himself. Not only were his hands and face sticky, there were drops of tea on his shirt and splotches of marmalade on his cuffs. Janet called something after him, but the door swung shut on her words, so he had no idea what it was.
--
It was good to talk with Christopher like this. Certainly there were letters, but the visits were getting farther and farther apart. He and Millie would come for an afternoon, but spend more time with Gabriel than with he and Rosalie. Tacroy didn't begrudge them that- Gabriel's lives were many but getting shorter and fewer- but he wished there was more balance in their schedules.
He told Christopher about meeting Eric. Of course he did. Christopher told him about all that had gone on first, much longer than the terse letters summarising the necessary news and even the newspapers' embellishments of crosswise truth. Any child would be wary of strangers after all that.
Tacroy had occasionally wondered whether it was better to be trained early as Chrestomanci. He knew, a little, how Gabriel had taken the revelation, the way his future had suddenly narrowed from the range of possibilities he had looked forward to. Christopher had risen admirably to the task, but Eric was even younger than that.
Perhaps it was better to be too young to see that horizon spread ahead, to expect the unknown journey only to find the narrow pass instead. He put this thought to Christopher, who made such a face that Tacroy half expected him to be back on the beaches in his too-small clothes.
"Oh, Lord, let's not," he said, energetically stirring too much sugar into his tea. "He needs to be able to control his magic or he'll be twice as frightened as we were, but I don't plan on retiring for a long while yet. Youth and power never mix well- he'd go the opposite of his sister, I'm sure, but that oughtn't mean he can't explore a bit without this shadowing him."
"You're not planning to throw him out on the World Edge and let him find his way back, I suppose," Tacroy said, amused. "The boy looks too used to tagging along."
"Far too much," Christopher admitted. "We've talked enough now that I'm sure that's how Gwendolen began using him. A child playing on her trusting brother's emotions to steal anything of his is a recipe for disaster, but bringing magic into the equation simply adds gunpowder. Janet's a great help in that regard. It's callous, but her being a reasonably thoughtful Gwendolen who'll look after him is a relief. I don't know what other pillar we can give him to cling to while he finds his feet."
"Start him on building his own. Not about being Chrestomanci- just about being himself. The girl will help with that. Child's got a good head on her shoulders, for all the adjusting she's done." Not that she'd said anything at dinner, but Tacroy could read between the lines.
Christopher was silent a while, stirring his tea, and Tacroy thought he was on the verge of speaking again when a knock came at the door. Eric entered when welcomed, looking hunted and as if he would bolt at any moment. His shirt was rumpled as if it had been pulled from the wardrobe in a hurry, and there was a damp stain on each pant leg hinting that he'd recently wiped damp hands.
"Have a seat, Eric," Christopher said, nodding at the remaining chair. Eric sat down, mumbling morning greetings, and Tacroy decided to put him out of his misery.
"It's all right," he said kindly. "I would have acted the same in your shoes after what happened. You didn't even curse me, so you've already behaved better than I used to." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Christopher sipping tea in his disinterested way, as if there was nothing so mundane as admitting to cursing strangers as a youth.
"I should still apologise," Eric said, wringing his hands briefly, only to stop when he was handed a cup of tea. He didn't drink it, but there was always something to be said for holding a warm beverage to calm oneself.
"Enough of that or we'll talk of nothing else," Christopher said, efficiently bailing him out of the mire. "Cat, this is Mr Roberts. He cares for Gabriel de Witt, together with Miss Rosalie. She'll be visiting next week, but I thought it best you meet them both before we visit Gabriel ourselves."
This startled Eric (well, Cat) much more than Tacroy expected.
"But- I don't understand- you care for his grave? Do people want to dig him up, or something, if it can't be let alone?"
The two men stared at him for a moment and then burst into laughter together. It took a while for both of them to calm, because when one was winding down the other would hiccup and start up again, so that Tacroy laughed because Christopher was making little snorting noises, and Christopher laughed because Tacroy was trying so hard and failing so badly to stop laughing. Cat stared at them both, bemused, but he seemed less worried than before. Laughing at the idea of grave desecration was so absurd that it wound its way from shame at clearly having got something badly wrong to relief that it was wrong enough to be laughed at.
When at last they quieted, Christopher said, "No, Gabriel isn't dead. He's old enough that magic can't compensate for health totally, but he's quite hale even so. More lives than you or I, even."
"He'll live a long time yet, I expect," Tacroy said. "Enough lives to let him. And sharp enough still, too."
"And- and he's just... resting? Retired?"
"Certainly. You'll let me do the same eventually, I hope," Christopher said, putting a hand on Cat's shoulder. "Barring unforeseen circumstances."
Cat looked at his cousin, and Tacroy read mild worry in that gaze. Two lives in between an aged and infirm predecessor and a young and unformed successor: unforeseen circumstances could be very unforeseen.
"Well then, Cat," Tacroy said, putting his mind at last to business. "Perhaps start with how else you think this works. Let's see how much more misinformation Christopher's managed to confuse you with." Christopher looked equal parts amused and annoyed at this, but Cat had relaxed enough, finally, to sip his tea. It was a good start.
"We- me and the other children- we were wondering about our family, actually..."