"I'm very smart," Fiddlesticks agreed. "I'm lots smarter than Fatso there. Don't you think I'm smart, Morwen?"

Grendel hissed and bunched together as if he were preparing to launch himself from Archaniz's shoulder. Hastily, Archaniz put up her free hand to hold him back. "Perhaps I had better leave now," she said.

"We can finish our discussion some other-" "There's a big garden show coming up in Lower Sandis ," Morwen said thoughtfully. "Why doesn't the Deadly Nightshade Garden Club enter an exhibit? If we all work together, we should be able to put together something quite impressive."

Archaniz considered. "Monkshood and snakeroot and so on? In a large black tent."

"And if everyone sends one or two really exotic things-" "Morwen, you're a genius! People will talk about it for years, and that Airy McAiling Grinny person won't have a leg to stand on."

"I don't think it will be that simple," Morwen cautioned. "But an exhibit will buy us time to find out why he's so interested in making witches do things his way. And stop him."

"Of course," the Chairwitch said happily. "Let's see-Kanikak grows Midnight fire-flowers, and I have half a dozen Giant Weaselweeds. If I can talk Wully into letting us use her smokeblossoms…"

"I'll contribute two Black Diamond snake lilies and an invisible dusk-blooming chokevine," Morwen said. "I won't keep you any longer now; just let me know when you've got things arranged. Chaos, Miss Eliza, Scorn, wait for me inside, if you please."

The three cats sitting on the railing looked at each other. Then Chaos, the long-haired tabby, jumped down and sauntered past Fiddlesticks into the house. The white cat, Miss Eliza Tudor, followed, tail high, and Fiddlesticks fell in behind her, apparently without even thinking about what he was doing. Scorn sat where she was, staring stubbornly at Morwen.

"I'm not leaving while that idiot of hers is still here," Scorn said with a sidelong glance at Grendel and Archaniz. "There's no telling what he might get up to."