I applied a healing ointment to the cut on my palm as I contemplated the idea of trying to summon old Elsa's abyssal form. Since I was going to extract the abyss from one of her belongings, it would probably be weak. So there was no reason to be afraid of her. Also, both Yazara and Amelia's abyssal forms had been quite subservient when summoned. So I didn't expect her to try anything funny with me.

If I actually managed to summon old Elsa's abyss, it would only prove more beneficial to me instead. I could get more information on the liberation ritual from her. Or ask something about witchcraft that I had to know.

I didn't bother making a new pentacle for this second summoning. I simply took Amelia's mirror off the eye at the centre of the star and set the bottle of scent in its place. I cut my palm once again and dripped the blood onto the pentacle.

I waited for the room to go cold and the whispers to begin again. I waited for the black mist to start swirling. But nothing happened.

I frowned as my blood kept dripping onto the pentacle. "Why didn't it work?" I mumbled.

I took the bottle of perfume off the eye inside the pentacle and placed it back in (this was probably the witchcraft equivalent of plugging and unplugging the wifi cable to see if the internet starts working again). But nothing happened. The room was silent.

I healed the cut on my hand again and left the room after erasing the pentacle off the ground. The frown never left my face as I walked back upstairs to the apartment.

If Elsa was really dead then I should've been able to communicate with her. But the subject being alive hadn't been a problem while summoning Yazara's abyssal form. And it had been fairly easy to summon Amelia's abyss from her compact mirror.

Could the reason be that old Elsa wasn't really attached to the perfume Lily gave her? Should I have placed the cold cream in the pentacle instead? Is it even necessary for a person to be attached to their belongings in order to extract their abyss from the object?

I might need to run another experiment later. There were other matters at hand that I had to take care of. I had familiarized myself with most of Elsa's belongings and skimmed through half of the hexonomixcon. But I still didn't know everything that Old Elsa knew about Lily or Smokewell or other people from her life.

That would have to wait though. Right now, the more important matter from all those matters was clearing our names from the Inquisition's burn list.

I entered the apartment. Lily and Smokewell were up and awake.

"Morning Miss Elsa!" Lily greeted from the kitchen.

"It's afternoon, Lily," I said.

"Oh," she said, looking out the kitchen window. "I didn't even notice that. All I keep thinking about is the golden skeleton and all the money we'll get after selling it off."

"Stop talking about money all the time, Lily," Smokewell said from the couch, licking her paw, "You sound like someone who is broke."

Lily rolled her eyes. "That's because we are."

"You are the one who is broke. Cats don't need money to stay alive."

"I guess we should leave you by a trash can so you can go and fend for yourself then?" I say playfully.

Smokewell threw me a deadpan glare. "You can try that. I'll simply go to the Inquisition and report your sorry carcasses to them along with your location. I’ll even tell them that I was a lively, beautiful woman who got cursed by you witches. The non-users are so dead inside their heads they’ll actually take a talking cat’s testimony seriously."

I smirked. “I don't think you'll do that,” I said. “Since you admitted yourself how you turned yourself into a cat so you could mislead the Inquisition from coming after us.”

The cat turned her head away. “Shut up.”

I leaned in close, egging her on. “You act all stoic on the surface but deep down you really are a fluffy little–”

Scratch!

I whimpered as I dropped myself on the couch, tending to the scratches the cat had given my face. "We need to prepare ourselves for our move against the Inquisition."

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"You came up with the plan. Why are you whining about it now?" Smokewell said.

"Because it's still dangerous," I said, "Dangerous enough to get one of us killed."

"No," Lily said as she walked into the living room with a tray with three cups of tea and a bowl of milk for Smokewell, "I trust in Miss Elsa's plan. It is risky but so is life."

I smiled ruefully at the girl as I took my cup and raised it to my lips. "Where is Asmod?" I asked.

"Right here," the short man said as he entered the apartment with a bundle of papers under his arm.

"Right on time, Mr. Asmod!" Lily said, "I made tea for everyone."

Asmod didn't seem pleased. He seemed rather terrified.

"If you were a non-user, I would've said you looked like you saw a ghost," Smokewell said as she licked the milk from the bowl.

"I saw something worse," Asmod said. His voice was hoarse. He hastily stepped towards the couch and laid down the Morning Newspaper on the coffee table. "This," he said, pointing at a column on the front page. "They've appointed a new general for the witch hunter Inquisition."

"Um, why is this any worse news than the fact that the Inquisition is still looking for us?" Lily asked.

"Because apparently the previous General's methods of investigation were not up to the standards required for the so-called direness of the situation," Asmod said, "The new General of Inquisition, Lloyd Hopper, has a record of carrying out fifteen successful trials around the cases of unethical practices of witchcraft which has led to thirty seven executions!"

"Says who?" Lily said.

"It's all in the paper!" Asmod jabbed his finger down at the column.

Smokewell leaned in to read further. "I know this man," she said, "Those thirty seven so-called witches he had executed were some poor beggars who had been accused by some brat. None of them were actual magic users practicing witchcraft."

"How are you so sure all of them were non-users?" I said.

"No one who is familiar with our trade ever lets things get that out of hand while possessing the talent of witchcraft," she said.

"There's more!" Lily leaned ahead as she read further in the column. "He has already lined up twenty people suspected of practicing unethical witchcraft. The trials will begin in two days."

"I'm surprised there is no mention of the priority burn list," I said.

"They won't print that information in the papers," Smokewell said. "That would only alert those whose names are in that list. But I'm sure he is probably going to amplify the efforts to arrest the people on the list."

"You know what this means, right?" Asmod said.

"We'll have to start acting on Miss Elsa's plan right away," Lily said.

"Not yet," I said, "This man is dangerous. I want to do some prior digging up on him before we dive in with our plan."

"Asmod, do you have any contacts that might be able to tell you more than what we read in the paper?" Smokewell asked.

Asmod sighed. "I can try but don't get your hopes up. I'm not as well mixed up with the non-users."

"Why don't you sneak into the Inquisition's headquarters, Madam Smokewell?" Lily said. "No one would suspect you since you are just a cat, well on the surface, at least."

"I wouldn't risk it." Asmod shook his head. "This man, Hopper, has put people on trial just because someone spread the silliest rumors about them. And I'm certain he has heard of the folk tale of witches turning themselves into cats to fool people."

"Well, it seems like there's no other way then," Smokewell said before turning to Lily, "Go and get that remaining sìth bread."

Lily did as she was told. Smokewell pulled out her ivory pipe, filled the well with the bread crumbs and asked Asmod for a light. Then she took a deep drag.

****

The four of us sat around the coffee table, looking at the omens the cat had laid out for us. The cuckoo clock from Asmod's kitchen, a knife (also from the kitchen), a candle and a hammer.

"I'll go first," Lily said, "the hammer probably signifies the justiciar's mallet. There is some kind of trial at the end of this thing. A big decision is about to be passed."

Everyone nodded. "That's actually quite a sensible deduction," I said.

Lily smiled proudly.

"What about the candle?" Smokewell said, "Is someone still going to be burned?"

"It might also signify shedding light onto something," Asmod said.

"Now what about this?" Lily picked up the knife.

I frowned. "If there's a trial, then maybe the verdict will divide people?" I said. "The knife signifies cutting up the groups, I think?"

"I can't think of anything other than death at the omen of a knife," Smokewell said.

"Don't you all use knives to carve up ritual symbols?" Asmod said, "Maybe it signifies you having to carry out an important ritual?"

"That might be possible," Lily said.

"Now the clock." Smokwell laid a paw on the cuckoo clock.

Lily rolled her eyes. "It probably signifies the time that we are currently racing against."

That's when my gaze happened upon something outside the kitchen window. I rose from the couch. "Or maybe, the clock signifies something that is inside that thing." I pointed at the clock tower in the distance, visible from the window.