Ben shook his head quickly. “Dirk, I can’t just …”

“Let me finish!” the cat snapped. “When in the world will humans learn to start listening to cats?” The green eyes narrowed. “The fairies sent me to help you, High Lord, but they left it to me to choose the means. They did not advise me on what I was to do or say. They did not tell me why it was that they believed I could help. Such is not the way of the fairies—nor is it the way of cats! We do as we choose in any case and live our lives as we must. We play games because that is who we are. Cat games or fairy games, it is all very much the same. Ours, High Lord, is a much different world from your own!”

One paw lifted. “Hear me well, then. No one is entitled to be given answers to the problems that beset them. No one is given life on a silver platter—cat or King! If you wish to know the truth of things, you must find it out for yourself. If you wish to understand what puzzles you, reason it through for yourself. You believe yourself mired in insolvable dilemmas. You believe yourself incapable of breaking free. Your identity is gone, your kingdom stolen. Your enemies beset you, your friends are lost. It is a chain of complications in which the links are joined, Ben Holiday. Cut free a single link, and the chains fall apart! But you are the one who carries the cutters—not me, not anyone else. That is what I have been trying to tell you from day one! Do you understand?”

Ben nodded hastily. “I understand.”

The paw lowered again. “I hope so. Now I will say this one more time. The magic you struggle against is magic of deception—a mirror that alters in its reflection truths and makes them half-truths and lies. If you can see past the mirror, you can set yourself free. If you can set yourself free, you can help your friends. But you had better get busy!”

He stretched, turned, walked several paces away, and turned back again. The forest glade was quiet now; even the birds in the trees had gone still. Sunlight continued to shine out of the skies from overhead, casting the dappled shadows of the leaves and branches across the clearing beneath, leaving Ben and Dirk spotted and striped.

“The dark wizard is frightened of you, Ben Holiday,” Dirk advised softly. “He knows you to be close to the answers you need to break free, and he will try to destroy you before that can happen. I have given you the means to find the answers that will defeat him. Use those means. You are an intelligent man. You have been a man who has spent his life ordering other men’s lives. Man of law, man of power—order now your own!”

He moved soundlessly to the glade’s edge, never looking back. “I have enjoyed our time together, High Lord,” he called back. “I have enjoyed our travels. But they are over for now. I have other places to be and other appointments to keep. I will think of you. And one day, perhaps, I will see you again.”