Come meet me at Sycamore Coast in a day’s time, Rivasoa had sent. We can trade information.

Yes, questions were the way of it.

She’d acquired a goal for her leave, and that left her with plants which could survive at least a while without her there to water them, and a cat, which could not. And Splodge was alarmingly apathetic already. Orfeus tucked the porter into her cloak and sat looking at Splodge thoughtfully. The question was how much trouble was worth it for the sake of a cat.

“I’ll see which of my allegiances here I can burn through,” Orfeus said resignedly, and knelt to pick up Splodge and heft it close to her chest, where it curled quietly, not purring. “And if no one’s willing, I suppose you and I are just going to have to journey together, my kit. Up we get.” She stood carefully and ventured out into the base with her feline burden.

Out and around through the winding dark corridors, navigating more by feel than anything else, with the confidence that eventually she’d either find who she was looking for or someone who could help her find him. It would be a relief to be by the coast, to see sunlight on blue waters.

Splodge sat unresistingly in her arms. She was really starting to worry. At this point she’d welcome a yowl and scratch across the nose.

Orfeus looked up and stopped short as Faolan approached from the other direction. The cat shifted at last as Orfeus’s grip unconsciously tightened, and it let out a low griping growl.

Faolan was dressed for combat, clad in his tough armour and equipped with glove and knife. The sweat on his skin and a certainty to his stride made her wonder if he was still sent on missions without her occasionally, regardless of what Luga had said.

He stopped short when she did and met her gaze, his brown eyes doubtless full of the usual contempt. He stared in rather more bafflement at Splodge.

“The missing man’s cat?” he said.

“Splodge,” Orfeus said. Faolan stared at her.

Faol took a step forward, then stopped. “Cats don’t need to be walked,” she said, but just a little bit doubting: do they? It made Orfeus want to laugh.

She loosened her grip enough Splodge wouldn’t feel threatened, though hopefully not enough it would wriggle free. “I’m off to the coast, to lounge in sunlight and evade my responsibilities for a few days,” she said. Faolan’s scowl darkened. Something about her poor opinion always made Orfeus want to act down to meet it. “So I need a catsitter, or at least a catfeeder.” The more Faol stared at her incredulously, the more she wished she’d just rigged up a timed-release food mechanism: worth the risk to save on the glares. “Uh, I was going to…ask the Shark…”