Royle woke up to a cold splash, his heart burning as if he had been sprinting for hours. He shuddered. The night chill joining the cold drenching down to his shirt. What had happened?
There was a pounding against his right temple, and with a hiss, Royle touched it, tentatively because it hurt. A painful hump had formed there because someone had knocked him out.
“You’re awake.” A vaguely familiar voice dragged him back to the present.
Groaning, Royle sat up. “What…”
Something soft flicked against his chin. Royle looked down at his lap to find a midnight black cat staring up at him. He flinched, pushing it off him and scrambling to his feet. A cat. A cat.
Min-Min.
It all came rushing back to him now. The carriage ride under the moonlit sky, the cat on the ro
