She has the heart. This message traveled fast, as fast as Marmalade could dash from the Jardin des Tuileries, past the Louvre and down rue Saint-Honoré. The street was not named after the prickly one, but it did lead back to the bakery, and once the tom reached Stohrer and signaled the Whisper Network, word would be well on its way to her. Fable would take it to Nix, who would pass it on to the rest of the Père Lachaise strays, who would go to the outskirts of the city and talk to the farm cats. Then this news would prowl through France’s fields. It would slip through barns where retreating soldiers lay their heads on bales of hay. It would search through orchards thick with apples—still a sickly, unripe green. It would find Honoré Côte in the form of a young black kitten, who did not quite understand why the knight started tearing up when she saw him, or why she cried even more when he mewled his missive: What was lost has been found.
Come home now.