When I arrive back at our apartment, it is Darcy whom I find happy and cheerful as a bluebird.
"Icy, you won't believe this!" exclaims Darcy excitedly.
"Believe what?" I ask.
"I've been promoted to Section Head with my own office and staff," beams Darcy.
"Congratulations," I tell her sincerely, "that is a lot better than the mound of paperwork you were expecting to greet you this morning."
"Yes," she agrees, "I couldn't believe my ears when I got the news. An office, staff and a huge stipend and all I have to do for it is supervise my staff and come up with good ideas on how to manage the Cloud Tower budget more efficiently."
"That sounds great, Darcy," I tell her. "What is your staff like?"
Her staff, it turns out, is a trix of Margay Cat-Witches and, if I possessed cat's ears and a tail, they would all be standing at attention as my interest is peaked. From Darcy's description they are a rambunctious trio more interested in chasing each other, scrapping and other rough-and-tumble than doing any serious work but once you got them settled down what they could do with numbers and with such great efficiency made one's jaw drop.
A week later, I have them over for dinner and seat them between Darcy and Stormy on one side of the table while I sit directly in front of them on the other side. Dinner is devoured with much purring, munching and chops licking as the triplets dig into the huge fish with all the side dishes and trimmings that I have cooked up for them. Within a short time, they have eaten half the fish and are fidgeting on their chairs like three children waiting for their parent to excuse them from the table so they can go outside and play. But I want information and I am banking that the food, drink, and urge to go out to play will loosen their tongues.
"So, you are Parsley, you are Sage and you are Rosemary," I begin having committed to memory the variations in the patterns of stripes and splotches that distinguish the three.
"Very good!" says Sage. "You wouldn't believe how many people have trouble telling us apart," she says, grinning at Darcy.
"Is there a Thyme in your group?" I ask, trying to be witty and put them more at ease.
The three look at each other for a moment. "Oh, our father Thyme," says Sage. "He's on the home world. He lives on an island called The Bottle."
"Thyme, bottle," sniggers Parsley. "That was a good one, Sage."
"Well, I hear that he'll be living on the mainland soon, so...," begins Rosemary and the other two chime in with, "Thyme is on the move," and break into gales of cattish laughter while Darcy starts squirming on her chair.
"Have some more crab cakes, dears," I say while proffering the plate. "So I guess you must find it a bit lonely here being the only Margays?"
"No, we're not lonely at all with all the other Cat-Witches here," says Rosemary. "We think of them all as Sisters."
"Ah, then you know Matchka?" I ask.
"Yes, we know of her but she is no longer at Cloud Tower," replies Parsley. "She has been taken back to her home world because she had problems."
"Here, have some more fish," I tell them. "So what was Matchka's problem?"
"It seems," continues Parsley, "that some stupid Witches started a war a few years back with a bunch of dumb Faeries over something called Worm Breath."
"Wait a..." Darcy begins to protest but, unseen under the table, I kick her shins hard and she yelps.
"What's with the boss?" asks Rosemary.
"Oh, she's just putting on the dog," I reply and the three of them twitch their ears confused. "And so what has this to do with Matchka?"
"Her sister was killed in the fighting," says Parsley, "and so Matchka was out on a one Cat-Witch vendetta to see that the Witches who started it all ended up in the same condition."
"So, we get to the truth of it at last," I'm thinking.
The one thing I could never understand of the Faeries is how they could gloss over and make light of all the events of the Alfea War as if it all happened in just one day and they defeated us clad only in miniskirts and the only deaths were those of the rot-worms and the rot-monsters. No, this was a dirty little war with no glory in it whatsoever that dragged on for months and saw each side use every battle strategy and every trick fair or foul to try to defeat the other. And in the end, it was all for naught. All it brought was death and destruction on both sides. For it was not only rot-creatures that died but Heros died, Faeries died, Pixies died and so, it would seem, Witches died. And as for Darcy, Stormy and me... none of us came out of the fighting unscathed either. I was nearly burned to a crisp by the very Dragon Fire I was trying to capture and to this day parts of me still feel like they are on fire where the Dragon Fire licked me. Darcy bares pock marks around her midriff where one of Flora's thorny vines wrapped itself around her and would have snapped her in two had I not been quick enough to freeze it solid so Darcy could break free. Stormy nearly had her eardrums burst and her brains scrambled when she took one of Musa's boom-blast attacks straight to her head. Stormy's special shielding may have softened the blow but now I believe that blast set the preconditions that would eventually see Stormy reduced to the woman-child she is today. And Bloom got caught dead centre of one of my ice-dart attacks. I failed to kill her and she got away but only with deep cuts all over her body, a hole punched through one of her wings that I could put my fist through and one foot hanging on to the rest of her leg by merely a sinew and a bone fragment. All I can say about her survival is that either Alfea College has one heck of a healer I don't know about or – and said with great respect – Bloom is one tough-as-nails bitch to try to kill.
"Anyway," says Rosemary with almost childish glee, "they'll fix her up good and proper. They'll adjust her and she won't remember having a sister or an argument with those idiot Witches."
"Rosemary! Smarten up!" snarls Sage and swats her sister hard upside her head. "Adjusting is something done as a last resort and is not to be made light of."
"But..." hisses Rosemary but Sage gives her such an ice-cold angry look with her nose wrinkled and her whiskers twitching that all protest dies in her mouth and cowering she submissively lowers her ears and tail and Parsley on the other side is doing likewise. Then, suddenly, Stormy throws her arms about Rosemary, holding the little Margay close to her, rocking her and murmuring softly to her while gently stroking her head as I do when she is frightened all the while her eyes burning with accusation aimed at Sage. Sage turns her face away from Rosemary and Stormy, breaths deeply a few time and flexes her claws once or twice and says, "Okay, you're forgiven this time," and puts her arm around Rosemary and Stormy on one side and Parsley on the other and for about five minutes there is a three kitty-cats plus Storm-Witch love-in as they bunt each others cheeks and lick faces.
"Here," I say, "there are some dormice left. Why not finish them off before they go cold and I have to throw them out?" and within seconds they are back to purring, munching and licking their chops.
"I'm sorry that Matchka didn't succeed in her quest," says Parsley flexing her clawed fingers. "Those Witches deserve to be gutted and their innards hung out to dry."
"Yeah," agrees Sage, "but I hear that some redheaded Faerie named Petunia kicked their butts and now they're serving a life sentence in Lighthaven."
"Humph!" growls Rosemary. "Lighthaven is too good for those Witches. They should be garrotted and their bodies thrown into the deepest peatbog. It took decades for the Sisterhood of Witches to finally come to terms with the Faeries of Alfea and build a foundation of mutual trust and respect so we could live with them in harmony and in peace. And then... these upstarts have to come along and pick a fight and destroy everything. It will take centuries to regain all we have strived for and then lost in that war and most likely we'll never be trusted by the Faeries ever again."
"It makes my blood boil just thinking about it," says Parsley wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Those Witches must have sawdust for brains to have done such a thing. Even garrotting is too good for them. They should be drawn and quartered afterwards."
"And the pieces burned at the stake and the ashes ground into dust, mixed with salt and then cast into the deepest peatbog," puts in Rosemary.
"Yea, Sister!" chime the other two and they all give each other the high-five.
"And that," concludes Sage, "is how we'd fix traitors and troublemakers."
"You are really nice ladies," says Rosemary. "Surely you wouldn't do such a lame-brained thing as those Withes, would you?"
"It never would have crossed my mind," I tell her sweetly.
"Definitely not," says Darcy coldly.
Dinner concludes shortly afterwards and Darcy and I escort the Margay Trix to the door where I present each of them with a sachet stuffed with catnip which is received with much purring and tail swishing and then I see them out.
"I am going to cut off their tails," steams Darcy, "and then use them to hang them from the rafters and afterwards I am going to find out just how well Margay fur translates into a new hat, gloves and slippers. And what's the big idea of kicking me?"
"I'm sorry, Darcy," I tell her, "but I had to keep those three talking. We need to get information on what is really going on around here."
"Why can't we simply use a Spiare spell to find out what we want to know?" asks Darcy.
"Because, Darcy dear, you know very well that any Witch worth her salt can detect, counter and trace such a spell back to its owner," I tell her, "and that would bring the wrath of M'Trika and Lady Griffin down on our heads in no time flat."
"I see what you mean," says Darcy. "Not good. I want keep myself as far from M'Trika's notice and scrutiny as possible."
"Yes," I continue, "but people cannot seem to stop spilling secretes even when a Margay is standing there in plain view of all. That makes them our perfect little spies. So, I want you to do all you can to encourage the Margay Trix to keep their eyes and ears open and to stick their sweet little pussycat noses into everyone's business and to report back to us everything they learn."