Look.

Driven by the unnatural pull, James stepped deeper into the storeroom. He needed light. His hands, trembling slightly, swept across a dusty crate near the door. His fingers brushed something cold and metallic—a candelabra. A little further, he found a small, brittle box. Matches.

He took one out, his thumbnail scraping the rough striking strip. It snapped. He tried another. The head crumbled to dust. Desperate, silent urgency pulsed from the voice in his mind, an impatience that was not his. *Light it!* He took a breath, Focusing, and struck a third match with slow, deliberate care.

A tiny flame bloomed. He carefully touched it to the wicks of the three-pronged candelabra. One by one, they caught, throwing the dusty room into dancing shadows.

He held the light aloft. The first thing he saw was that Fangtail was gone from his side. He swung the candelabra around, illuminating piles of forgotten furniture. His gaze fell upon a small, ornate wooden box perched on a stack of old ledgers. He didn’t know why, but he felt pulled toward it, certain this was what he was meant to find.

He set the candelabra down and opened the box. Inside, nestled on faded velvet, was a single, plain silver ring.

The urge that followed was immediate and overwhelming, a physical need that bypassed all rational thought. His hand moved of its own volition, plucking the ring from its velvet tomb and sliding it onto his finger.

A jolt, sharp and electric, shot up his arm—like lightning trapped in his bones. The sensation rippled through his skull, and suddenly he could *feel* something new. A part of his mind he’d never known existed unfurled like a flower opening to sunlight. It was slippery, elusive, like trying to grasp water with his bare hands.

He reached for this new awareness, trying to understand it, but the effort made his head throb. The harder he concentrated, the more it seemed to slip away, leaving him dizzy and drained. What was this? What had the ring done to him?

Then, soft as a whisper, he heard it.

‘James?’

 The voice was gentle, uncertain, coming not through his ears but directly into his mind.

‘James, help me.’

His heart leaped. “Fangtail?” he whispered aloud, sudden concern replacing confusion. The ring—somehow it let him hear his cat’s thoughts. All the strange incidents, the way Fangtail always seemed to know things… it made sense now.

He turned, ready to find his companion and help with whatever was wrong.

And he froze.

There, in the flickering candlelight, were two identical ginger cats.

His mind stuttered. Two? It was impossible. He blinked hard, expecting one to vanish, but they both remained, perfect mirror images of his companion. One stood near the doorway, body low to the ground, a guttural hiss rumbling in its chest, radiating feral aggression. The other perched on a high crate, looking small and utterly terrified.

Which was which? Which was his Fangtail?

The hissing cat took a step forward, muscles coiled for violence. The one on the crate pressed itself lower, trembling. A fight was coming—he could feel the tension crackling in the air like lightning before a storm. But whom should he protect? Whom should he defend against?

‘James!’ The voice came again, sharp with terror. ‘That thing—it’s not me! It’s trying to hurt me!’

James’s gaze snapped between the two cats, his heart hammering. The voice seemed to come from the terrified one on the crate, but how could he be sure? The aggressive one below looked ready to pounce.

Then he felt it—the weight of the ring on his finger, warm and insistent. The strange new part of his mind pulsed, and with it came a wave of certainty. He could feel his connection to one of them, a familiar warmth he’d never noticed before but somehow recognized.

The hissing cat below took another step forward, and suddenly James was somewhere else entirely. He was in the courtyard, watching Marcus and his cronies corner Fangtail against the wall, their faces cruel with anticipated violence. The memory hit him like a physical blow—the way they’d laughed as they raised their sticks, the helpless terror in his cat’s eyes.

The distrust crashed over him in waves. Of course there would be an imposter. Of course something would try to hurt the one thing that mattered to him. The world was full of lies and betrayals, false faces and cruel intentions.

More memories flooded through him, each one a sharp stone of resentment. Mrs. Gable giving extra portions to other boys, never to him. Father Sam’s casual affection for Thomas, warmth James had never received. Philips choosing Finn’s company over his. And Fangtail—even Fangtail had trotted away from him to join the beach trip, choosing the others, choosing to leave him alone.

But not anymore. Not this time.

The aggressive cat below tensed for a leap, and James felt his anger crystallize into cold, hard purpose.

‘James, please!’ The voice in his mind was desperate now. ‘I’m scared! Don’t let it hurt me!’

“I won’t,” James said, his voice low and fierce. He glared at the hissing creature on the floor. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

But even as he spoke, a deeper need clawed at his chest. The fear of being left alone, of being abandoned again, of having the one loyal thing in his life choose someone else.

“Promise me,” he said, the words torn from the wounded depths of his soul. “Promise you’ll be loyal. Promise you’ll never leave me alone again.”

The voice In his mind hesitated. ‘A cat has its own business, James.’

The response sent a spike of panic through him. Not again. He couldn’t bear it again.

The hissing cat below gathered itself for another leap.

‘It’s coming! Please, James!’ The voice shrieked in his head, pure terror flooding his thoughts. Then, abruptly, the tone shifted. ‘ I promise! I promise, James! I’ll never leave you! I’ll stay with you always!’

The words were exactly what the wounded part of him needed to hear.

“Alright!” James said, something inside his chest giving way. A strange exhaustion flooded through him, as if something vital had been drained away. “You can go… a certain distance. But you stay close. You stay with me.”

The exhaustion made him stumble. His shoulder brushed a stack of loose boards, sending them clattering to the floor. “Come on, Fangtail,” he said quickly to the cat on the crate. “We need to move before that thing attacks you again.”

A maniacal laugh, loud and triumphant, echoed through the room—and this time, it was not in his head.

“Fangtail?” James stared in horror as the creature on the crate dissolved in a flourish of black powder, reforming instantly into a sleek black cat with eyes like burning embers.

“It is Soot, you foolish, foolish boy,” the creature hissed, its voice a dry rustle of autumn leaves. “And I am free!”

James’s gaze snapped to the floor, where the real Fangtail stood frozen, staring at him with eyes full of accusatory betrayal.

“Free!” Soot cackled, its new form a blur of manic energy as it leaped from crate to dusty shelf and back again. “Free at last!”

James’s mind went blank with shock. Not knowing what else to do, he lunged forward, his hands closing on nothing but stale air as the black cat vanished. He heard a scuttling sound from a crate behind him. Fangtail launched himself in pursuit, a blur of ginger fury with claws extended. He too met only empty air and dust.

A wild, fading laugh echoed from the corridor outside the storeroom. “Free! I am free!” The sound moved away faster than any creature should be able to run.

James stood panting in the sudden, deafening silence, the three-pronged candelabra casting long, wavering shadows around the room. He was alone with his cat, his betrayal, and the terrible, echoing silence of a mistake that could never be undone.

His mind, a moment ago a blank wall of shock, now churned with terror. He couldn’t stay here. With trembling fingers, he pinched the wicks of the candelabra, extinguishing the three flames one by one, plunging the storeroom back into near-total darkness. He pocketed the half-burnt candles and the small box of matches, his only proof of what had transpired.

He traced his steps back out of the storeroom, his movements stiff and mechanical. He looked over his shoulder at every flicker of moonlight, listened for the dry rustle of Soot’s voice, but there was nothing. The halls were empty. He glanced into the refectory as he passed; Father Sam was not there. No one was.

He didn't make It all the way to his bed. He reached the shadowed outer section of their dormitory and simply sank to the floor, his back against the cold stone wall, his legs giving way beneath him. The strength that had carried him through the night vanished, leaving him utterly hollow.

Fangtail padded over, silent as a ghost, and after a moment’s hesitation, climbed into his lap. The cat made no sound, just curled into a tight, warm ball, a solid weight of comfort in a world that had just dissolved into madness.

James stared down at the ginger fur, his hand resting on the cat’s back. “Why, Fangtail?” he whispered, his voice raw and broken in the darkness. “Why did we go there? What have I done?”

He shook his head, confusion a physical ache behind his eyes. An hour ago, the world had been a set of grim but predictable gears. The politics of the Fathers, the practicalities of survival in a place like Saint Ursa’s… he had felt the cool satisfaction of understanding the machine. Now, a single, impossible event had shattered everything, leaving him staring into the wreckage.

“I don’t understand anything anymore,” he murmured, the admission a quiet, final surrender. “What have we unleashed?”

Fangtail didn’t respond, but lifted his head and stared intently down the long, dark corridor toward the west wing, as if he too were trying to comprehend what terrible thing had just been set free.

And so they sat, huddled together in the deep, watching shadows of Saint Ursa’s, the boy and his cat, partners once more in a terrible new secret.