Well, at least I can make my way back to the King’s bedroom without arousing suspicion. I do my best to place the book back on the shelf without slobbering all over it, and sneak away.

Not sneakily enough, unfortunately. Otto almost trips over me, then steps back, eyeing me warily.

“Otis?” he calls. “It's the cat again.”

Otis practically sprints over from a few hallways away. “Princess? How’d you get out?” Suddenly, his tenderness melts into terror. “The King!”

They run to the King’s bedroom door, still ajar from when I failed to push it shut. Cats: can leap great heights and distances, useless at shutting doors behind them. I learn something new about myself every day.

“Your Majesty!” Otto shouts, flinging the door open.

The King doesn’t stir. I know he’s only sleeping, but I understand how anyone else might think he’s already dead. Otto moves to check his body, holding his lantern aloft.

“Locked from the inside,” says Otis, peering at the windows. “I didn’t see anyone out there, did you?”

“He’s still breathing,” Otto reports. “Your Majesty? Your Majesty!”

I leap onto the bed, batting at the King’s face. To the guards, I must seem concerned about my owner, but I’m just hoping he wakes up so he can put their minds at ease without inconveniencing the entire castle. Imagine waking the doctor on call for a case of heavy sleeping. The guards would surely be reprimanded for not being able to read the situation. Alvin would find too much glee in firing them.

Finally, the King blinks awake, arm raised to shield himself from the light. “Princess? Is it morning already? Are you hungry?”

Otis and Otto exhale twin sighs of relief. “The door was open, Your Majesty,” Otis explains. “We apologize for the intrusion, but—”

“Oh.” Suddenly the King becomes a King, putting on his glasses and crossing over to take a better look at the offending door. “Nothing broken, the lock unpicked?”

“And the windows weren’t touched,” says Otto.

“We did find Princess wandering about outside.” Otis’ voice softens at the mere mention of my name. I almost feel I don’t deserve this sort of affection.

I feel even less worthy of it when three sets of eyes focus on me, with varying degrees of exasperation and fondness. If only I could explain it all to them. Well, perhaps not all of it, only the part where I opened the door for reasons I can’t explain. But that would, of course, beg the question of why is this cat talking?

To compensate, I meow.

“Must’ve fancied a midnight stroll,” says Otis. “Cats aren’t meant to be locked in like this all night. They’re nocturnal, you know.”

“Crepuscular, actually,” says Otto, then freezes.

So does Otis. “Crepuscular?”

Otto looks like he wishes he’d never spoken out loud in his life. “Means they’re most active at twilight, not nighttime.”

“You know a lot about cats?”

“I know a little,” Otto admits, as if he didn’t just use the word crepuscular.

“I thought you didn’t like them.”

“I don’t have to like them to know about them.” Shooting a guilty look my way, he adds, “And don’t say that in front of her. I don’t want to be rude.”

“Well,” says the King, treading the fine line between amusement and bemusement, “now I know. Thank you, both, for telling me.”

“Otto was the one who knew,” says Otis.

“Please don’t mention it,” says Otto.

“I can’t very well leave my door open at night,” the King muses. “Do you suppose if I buy her a bed and leave it out in the chamber, she’ll be all right?”

“We’ll do our best to guard her from Alvin,” Otis promises, and is rewarded with a laugh.

“What do you think, Princess?” The King scratches my ears, making it difficult to think at all. “Would you like that?”

No more trying to open doors without opposable thumbs! I’ll be able to get away for my nightly human transformations more easily. I could even go see Dinah. I meow my approval, and the King nods.

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Good night, Your Majesty.”

The guards exit, and the King returns to his bed. “For tonight, I’m afraid you’re still stuck with me,” he says. “Did you get all that roving out of your system?”

I’m almost positive I won’t be turning back into a human tonight. I curl up in that magnificent warm silk, and fall fast asleep.

**

The day that follows is a flurry of deliveries, in and out, in and out. As it turns out, the afternoon I assumed the King spent in a council meeting, he spent in town, placing custom orders for all sorts of cat toys, accessories, and furniture I never knew existed. A tall post wrapped in what looks like rope mystifies me—am I to hang mice off it? But once I get my claws on it, my skies.

“If she gets in that habit,” Alvin warns as he assembles a towering set of platforms, “she’ll do the same to the upholstery.”

“They’re just couches, Alvin,” the King says airily, doing absolutely nothing. This time, I do feel the pang on Alvin’s face. These couches aren’t just couches, they’re silk-lined clouds that cost more than our lives. I didn’t know a body could be so comfortable. No wonder rich people are always so relaxed.

Speaking of comfort and relaxation, the bed he gets me! My favorite part is the pink silk canopy, as if he thought a cat might desire some privacy. Yes, I’m always looking for unoccupied corners and shadows to shield my human form, but would my human form fit under that canopy?

Come to think of it, it might. It’s a big bed.

I’m so consumed with the scratching post, the shiny toys, the plush bed, that I almost don’t notice it’s lunchtime. I’m starting to understand how those books of his might distract a person from mealtimes after all. But if the King doesn’t eat, then I don’t eat, and it would be a shame to starve to death before getting to enjoy this plunder.

Enjoy? Am I enjoying this? This is a curse, I remind myself. A horrible, embarrassing, inconvenient curse. It isn’t my fault that scratching at rope feels, for some reason I can’t fathom, better than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.

Focus, Lurina! I nose at the King’s shoe, and today that’s enough to get his attention, which he now knows to redirect to the clock.

“Come on, Alvin,” he says, “the rest of this can wait after lunch. You don’t mind, do you, Princess?”

As if I’d mind any scenario that lets me eat. Is this what it’s like for all animals?

Today, with such pressing matters as assembling cat toys on the afternoon agenda rather than the usual council meeting, lunch is held in the private dining room with only Alvin in attendance. Even Demetria is with the council. The King’s barely in his seat before he asks the scullery maids, “Have you heard anything about Lurina’s whereabouts?”

Viola and Judith are on lunch duty, but I’m certain Gertrude and Eveline told everyone in the kitchens what happened at dinner last night. They exchange a glance before Judith curtsies and says, “No, sir, Your Majesty.”

“And she isn’t in her room.”

Another curtsey. “No, sir, Your Majesty.”

“I suppose she was never ill at all.”

Another curtsey again. “No, sir, Your Majesty.”

Alvin grunts in annoyance. “So she shirked her responsibilities and ran away. Why are we still discussing this?”

“You speak of responsibilities,” the King says thoughtfully. “I have a responsibility to everyone in my kingdom, certainly everyone in my household. She could be lost in the woods, struggling for survival, and that would be my fault, for leading her to believe I would be angry enough over a simple mistake that being at the mercy of the elements would be preferable.”

“Gus, please, with all due respect—”

“We should send out a search party.”

Alvin looks faint. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re right,” says the King. “I should lead the search party.”