lace ruffles, and his black velvet suit which glimmered all over like an opal, blue, crimson, yellow and green. But that did not seem to bother Chrestomanci either. He took one look at the flaming bundle on the floor and said “Good God!” Then he was down on his elegant knees unwrapping the carpet as frantically as Janet had wrapped it.
“I’m awfully sorry. I thought that would help,” Janet stammered.
“It ought to have done,” said Chrestomanci, rolling Cat over, with flames whirling through, over and along his velvet arms. “How did he do it?”
“He struck one of the matches. I told him—”
“You stupid child!” Chrestomanci was so angry that Janet burst into tears. He lugged at the last of the carpet and Cat rolled free, flaming like a straw faggot. He was not really screaming any more. He was making a long thin noise that had Janet covering her ears. Chrestomanci dived into the heart of the flames and found the book of matches. It was tightly clasped in Cat’s right hand. “Thank God he didn’t have it in the left one,” he said. “Go and turn your shower on. Quick!”
“Of course. Of course,” Janet sobbed, and raced to do it.
She fumbled with the taps and had just got a strong spray of cold water hissing into the sunken blue bath as Chrestomanci hurried in carrying Cat, in a ball of roaring flame. He dumped Cat down into the bath and held him there, turning him this way and that to get him wet all over.
Cat steamed and hissed. The water coming from the sprayhead shone like water against the sun, golden as the sun itself. It came down like a beam of light. And, as the bath began to fill up, Cat seemed to be turning and threshing in a pool of sunshine. He boiled it into golden bubbles. The room filled with steam. Coils of smoke drifted up from the bath, smelling thick and sweet. It was the same smell that Janet remembered from the morning she had first found herself there. As far as she could see through the smoke, Cat seemed to be turning black in the golden pool. But the water was wet. Chrestomanci was getting soaked.
“Don’t you understand?” he said to Janet over his shoulder while he heaved at Cat to keep his head under the spray. “You shouldn’t go telling him things like this until the Castle has had time to work on him. He wasn’t ready to understand. You’ve given him the most appalling shock.”
“I’m truly enormously sorry,” Janet said, crying heavily.
“We’ll just have to make the best of it,” said Chrestomanci. “I’ll try and explain to him. Run along to the speaking tube at the end of the corridor and tell them to send me some brandy and a pot of strong tea.”
As Janet raced away, Cat found himself soaking wet, with water hissing down on him. He tried to roll away from it. Someone held him in it. A voice said insistently in his ear, “Cat. Cat, will you listen to me. Do you understand? Cat, you’ve only got three lives left now.”
Cat knew that voice. “You told me I’d got five when you spoke to me through Miss Larkins,” he grumbled.
“Yes, but you’ve only got three now. You’ll have to be more careful,” said Chrestomanci.
Cat opened his eyes and looked up at him. Chrestomanci was fearfully wet. The usually smooth black hair was hanging over his forehead in wriggles, with drips on the ends. “Oh. Was it you?” he said.
“Yes. You took a long time recognising me, didn’t you?” said Chrestomanci. “But then I didn’t know you straight away when I saw you, either. I think you can come out of this water now.”
Cat was too weak to get out of the bath alone. But Chrestomanci heaved him out, stripped off his wet clothes, dried him and wrapped him in another towel in no time at all. Cat’s legs kept folding. “Up you come,” said Chrestomanci, and carried him again, to the blue velvet bed, and tucked him in it. “Better now, Cat?”
Cat lay back, limp but luxurious, and nodded. “Thanks. You’ve never called me Cat before.”
“Perhaps I should have done. You just might have understood.” Chrestomanci sat beside the bed, looking very serious. “You do understand now?”
“The book of matches was my nine lives,” Cat said. “And I’ve just burnt one. I know it was stupid, but I didn’t believe it. How can I have nine lives?”
“You have three,” said Chrestomanci. “Get that into your head. You did have nine. In some manner and by someone, they were put into that book of matches, and that book I am now going to put in my secret safe, sealed with the strongest enchantments I know. But that will only stop people using them. It won’t stop you losing them yourself.”
Janet came hurrying in, still tearful, but very thankful to be of use. “It’s coming,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Chrestomanci, and he gave her a long, thoughtful look. Janet was sure he was going to accuse her of not being Gwendolen, but what he said was, “You may as well hear this too, in order to prevent more accidents.”
“Can I get you a towel first?” Janet said humbly. “You’re so wet.”
“I’m drying out, thank you,” he said, smiling at her. “Now listen. People with nine lives are very important and very rare. They only happen when, for one reason or another, there are no counterparts of them living in any other world. Then the lives that would have been spread out over a whole set of worlds get concentrated in one person. And so do all the talents that those other eight people might have had.”
Cat said, “But I haven’t any talents,” and Janet said at the same time, “How rare are these people?”
“Extremely rare,” said Chrestomanci. “Apart from Cat, the only other person with nine lives that I know of on this world is myself.”
“Really?” Cat was pleased and interested. “Nine?”
“I did have nine. I’ve only got two now. I was even more careless than Cat,” Chrestomanci said. He sounded a little ashamed. “Now I have to take care to keep each life separately in the safest place I can think of. I advise Cat to do the same.”
Janet’s ready brain promptly got to work on this. “Is one life here, and the other downstairs having supper at this moment?”
Chrestomanci laughed. “It doesn’t work like that. I—”
To Janet’s disappointment, Euphemia hurried in with a tray and prevented Chrestomanci explaining how it did work. Mr Saunders came in on Euphemia’s heels, still unable to find evening clothes that covered his wrists and ankles.
“Is he all right?” Euphemia asked anxiously. “My Will was uttering threats, but if it was him I’ll never speak to him again. And whatever happened to this carpet?”
Mr Saunders was looking at the wrinkled and heaped up carpet too. “What did it?” he said. “There were surely enough charms in this carpet to stop any kind of accident.”
“I know,” said Chrestomanci. “But this was amazingly strong.” The two of them looked at one another significantly.
Then everyone fussed over Cat. He had a most enjoyable time. Mr Saunders sat him up on pillows, and Euphemia put him in a nightshirt and then stroked Cat’s head, just as if he had never confessed to turning her into a frog. “It wasn’t Will,” Cat
