Shalizar pushed the door open, tail twitching. It was his job to guide us, since I had never left my room.
“Follow me,” he said, and slipped into the hallway beyond. I followed unsteadily, unsure of my new limbs.
The hallway was well-lit by torches and empty. Shalizar looked at me. “Where are we going?”
“To find a girl named Snow White.”
Shalizar’s left eye widened skeptically − the cat equivalent of raising an eyebrow. “Her?”
“I know she’s creepy. But you saw the Hunter! I am the reason he’s after her and I don’t like having a guilty conscience.”
Shalizar shrugged. “The Hunter’s all right. He paid me a lot of tuna after I killed a rat for him once.”
“Why wouldn’t he kill it himself?”
“He’s afraid of them. I find them quite tasty. Rats are nothing to fear.”
I grinned. “Then let’s find some rats as soon as we get to Snow White.”
Shalizar looked at me for a long, long moment. “You have absolutely no plan, do you?”
“Nope, no plan. I’m making it up as I go.”
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Shalizar led us through six corridors, down two flights of stairs, and up another flight. Then we went in one end of a storage closet, out the other, and through three more corridors. I was beginning to get dizzy. And my legs hurt. I wasn’t used to walking this much!
Scratch that, I wasn’t used to walking at all. And Shalizar was bounding along like there was a fire at his tail. I could barely keep up.
We stopped for a break. I rubbed my aching legs and Shalizar licked some nonexistent dust off his spotless paws.
“You have absolutely no idea where we’re going, do you?” I snapped as I leaned against the wall.
“Of course I know,” Shalizar said unconcernedly. “But we can’t just walk out the front gate. I am going o take us through the servants’ quarters and out a secret entrance. Or exit, as the case may be.”
“Isn’t there a faster way?”
“No.” Shalizar rose, shook out his bushy tail, and resumed walking. Fuming, I followed him.
It was at the bottom of the fourth set of stairs that we ran into trouble.
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