Most of them moved to remote islands or deep forests, just to get away from the pestering. It's all very well for you, Morwen, living out here in the Enchanted Forest anyway, but I-" A loud yowl interrupted the Chairwitch in mid-sentence. An instant later, four cats tore around the corner of the house. The one in front was a heavy, shortlegged tomcat with yellow eyes and fur as black as night. Behind him came a fat, long-haired tabby tomcat and two females, one a large calico and the other a fluffy white cat with blue eyes. The black cat streaked out into the front yard, made a hairpin turn, and leapt for the porch, where he clawed his way up Archaniz's skirts to a perch on her shoulder.

The three pursuing cats jumped gracefully onto the porch roiling and sat down, curling their tails around their feet, just as Fiddlesticks poked his head out of the front door.

"What's all the noise about? Who's shouting? Is it a fight? Who's winning? Can I join?" With every question, Fiddlesticks pushed a little farther, until he was entirely outside the house, staring up at Archaniz and the cat on her shoulder. "Who's that?"

"Mrow!" said the black cat in a complaining tone. "Yow wow mrr"Oh, yeah?" said Trouble. "Well, your father wears boots!"

Morwen gave the black cat a speculative look. "One of these days, I am going to have to work up a spell that will let me understand other people's cats as well as my own," she said to Archaniz. "What was that about?"

"We caught him nosing around in back of the garden," the long-haired tabby growled.

"He had no business there," the white cat added primly. "He's not one of us, after all. So we thought we would drive him away."

"Stupid creature was babbling something about a rabbit," the calico cat said with a disdainful look at the black cat. "As if that was any excuse."