It was dark and quiet one night, in a simple, quiet town. Everyone was sound asleep in their beds-save for a cat. Silently it wandered through people’s dustbins and across their dark, silent windowsills like the fleeting shadow it was. It stopped in caution when an ornately carved door creaked open, letting hearthlight spill over the steps and onto the cobbled street. The cat stayed in the shadows as a young man stepped out. He was finely dressed, with much gold and silver draped on him like so many toys. A woman on the other side stopped in the light and looked up in the light, startled. He smiled smoothly and called out to her in a language the cat didn’t understand. She shook her head vehemently and hurried on her way. He laughed and put one foot over his doorstep-that was all it took. Just one foot. The cat blinked twice and suddenly a calico was standing in a heap of silk and metal. The woman’s wide eyes found the cat and she nodded gratefully to Artemis, the goddess of maidens, in all her feline glory.