“Whatcha got in there?” one of his companions calls. “Anything as fine as the outside?”

“It’s all junk. See for yourself.” He points to the wagon, and Isolde stifles a slightly hysterical giggle, wiping blood off her cheek absently. It leaves a gruesome streak from her ear to her jaw, which looks much worse than it did before.

“Doesn’t matter,” the third taunts. “Look at these wheels. We can sell the rest easy enough.”

The second man peeks inside, swinging the door wide and letting it hang there. I hear our things clatter around as he tosses them aside.

“Why have we stopped?” Olani demands, too distracted by the crowd and our pursuers to notice the Destiny. She’s still holding Raze up with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders, and he’s staring very hard at the cobblestones as if he can will himself to stop feeling sick.

“That’s our wagon!” I manage, through stiff indignation. Those things they’re putting their hands all over aren’t theirs.

As if in response, crashing sounds from inside the Destiny again. I wince, imagining my dishes breaking. It’s quickly followed by what I would think is the angry wailing of a cat if I didn’t know better, then a long string of increasingly colorful curses.

I only hear snatches of the man’s cry of alarm, mingled with shattering and thumping. “Horrible little—a cat! Listen here, you, this is our wagon now—Ha!”

Another, angrier meow fills the air, and he steps out onto the platform again. This time, he holds an enraged blur of black fluff at arm’s length, ignoring its sharp claws as it does its very best to shred his sleeves to ribbons.

“Give it here!” the third man says, grabbing Birch by the scruff and waving him high in the air like an absolutely furious flag.

A thought strikes me that, in different circumstances, would be funny...

They don’t know what Birch is. If they did, they wouldn’t have entered the wagon without iron and salt and a banishment spell, at the very least.

“What’s he doing with your cat?” Olani whispers. “Should we do something?”

A mischievous smile that I don’t think Isolde would be able to stop if she tried beams back. She’s leaning on me more heavily now, not quite steady on her feet. “We don’t have a cat.”

“Disgusting creature,” the man says, wrinkling his nose. “Go on, get!”

And then he makes his worst mistake yet.

He throws Birch to the ground, no doubt expecting him to twist in the air, land on all four paws, and slink off sulkily into the streets, evicted from his humble domain.

Instead, the second his hands leave Birch’s coat, the catlike creature hovers in midair. He bares his rows of too many tiny white teeth, and his eyes glow bright green.

It’s unnerving, to say the least.

“What—?” the cat-thrower chokes, fury and confusion thickening his voice.

A murmur goes up through the people still hanging around the square—shock and alarm, tinged with fear. The sound is joined by a growl from the back of Birch’s throat as the brownie writhes in the air, his eyes flashing as he takes in his foes, the poor fools who would attempt to drive him from his home.