"Well, that's a thought, but mainly because I may have found some elements of interest to the Durona group, here."

"If they impinge on my investigation, I want to be fully apprised.  Or even if they don't."

"Understood."

Miles waved him back to work, then made his way back down through the basement maze and up to Jin's rooftop.

#

As they unloaded the van, Consul Vorlynkin came out to see what all they were dumping in his back garden.  Mina danced ahead of him and pounced on Lucky with an excited cry, rubbing her face in the soft fur.  "Lucky!  I thought you were dead!"  The old gray cat endured the hug, but wriggled free promptly.  "Do you still have your ratties, Jin?"

"Yes," said Jin, lifting the cage he was lugging to show them off.  "Jinnie and most of her children."

"Handsome," said Vorlynkin, inspecting Gyre, chained to his perch, from a prudent distance.  "How do you keep it from eating your chickens?"  Galli and Twig, released from their transport box by Lieutenant Johannes, ran past his knees, flapping their wings and squawking, then slowed to stare in apparent amazement at the grass patch before them, warm and green-smelling in the noon sun.

"Well, the big ones sort of defend themselves.  I had to keep Gyre chained to his perch when the chicks were littler.  I'll have to keep him chained here anyway, till he figures out this is where he belongs."  Jin watched as Armsman Roic, with due care, unloaded a stack of terrariums onto the shelf they'd brought from Jin's refuge.  Tucked up against the back of the house and sheltered by its eaves, concealed by the house, the tall stone garden walls, and all the trees and bushes, the shelf and its contents would be almost as safe as in his tent-shelter at Suze-san's.

"Cats and mice together as well?" Vorkynkin went on.  "What next, lions and lambs?"

"Rats," Jin corrected austerely.  "Though I wish I might have a lion . . . !  Anyway, Lucky's too old and lazy to bother the big ones, and I keep the little ones in cages with tops."  He looked around with satisfaction.  "Now that I have all my creatures back, you can keep Lady Murasaki," he told Mina generously.

She made a face.  "But Lucky's half mine.  Because she wasn't yours to start with, you know, even if you did steal her away."

"I saved her from Aunt Lorna," Jin reminded her.

Lucky curled around Vorlynkin's ankles, rubbing her chin to scent-mark him as her new property and leaving a trail of hairs plastered to his formerly-tidy hakama trousers.   He bent rather absently to scritch her spine, and she arched shamelessly under his hand.

Mina addressed him anxiously, "Oh sir, can we keep Lucky inside?  Till she knows this is home?  Cats do get lost, you know!"

Looking down into Mina's upturned face, Vorlynkin said reluctantly, "Is she housebroken?"

Mina nodded vigorously.  "I can fix her cat pan in my room!"