Trixter by Alethea Kontis

nose and mouth, a feature that enhanced the cat’s large silver-green eyes. Trix had encountered mist that same color in the Wood and had avoided it along with the rest of the animals. Magic ran wild in that mist, adding an element of madness to everything it touched.
    “What is your name, child?” the cat’s words were a wheeze and a hiss, as if his voice, too, was only able to half-materialize in this world.
    “Trix Woodcutter, your majesty.” He bowed low.
    Papa Gatto let out a mumbling rasp and coughed a little. Trix wondered what a semi-incorporeal hairball might look like. “Why did you, Trix Woodcutter, lie to my goddaughter Lizinia?”
    Trix furrowed his brow. Of all the things he’d not expected the cat to say, this hadn’t even made the list. Trix had been accused of many things in his life, but lying was not among them.
    “Forgive me, your majesty, but…I don’t actually know what you’re talking about.”
    “I see all and know all,” the cat said hoarsely. “Now more than ever.”
    Trix was happy for the cat’s new abilities and appreciation of such, but he still didn’t see what any of it had to do with him. Still, the cat seemed to be waiting for Trix to admit something. “Yes, sir.” It was all he could think to say.
    The cat sighed and shifted his fluid, ethereal girth. His long tail swept across the floor like Mama’s mop, stirring more bright dust into the shaft of light around him. The edges of his soft coat faded in and out of existence. “You introduced yourself to Lizinia as ‘a poor boy.’”
    “But I am a poor boy,” said Trix. “My family and I live in a humble cottage on the edge of the Wood.” Assuming it was still there after the floodwaters rose. “There used to be a treehouse too, but it got swallowed by a beanstalk. We don’t even have a cow because…well, I sold her and bought the beans that created the beanstalk.” Trix continued to rack his brain. “Mama and Papa have a goose now that lays golden eggs, but I wouldn’t say that classifies us as rich.”
    Papa Gatto coughed again, many times in succession. If the cat hadn’t been dead already, Trix would have called out for help. And then he realized Papa Gatto was laughing. At him.
    “You are yet a child, but I would never call you poor, Boy Who Talks to Animals.”
    “Ah. That.” Perhaps if Lizinia had been an animal he might have introduced himself as such, not that he ever needed to, since this blasted prophetic reputation obviously proceeded him. “I’ve only been told that tale recently—it’s definitely not how I think of myself. I would not presume a sophistication I do not feel I own.”
    A cloud moved over the sun; the cat faded out of existence and then back in as the shadow passed. When he spoke again he mumbled, as if his cheeks were filled with cotton. “You do think of yourself as a brother, do you not?”
    “Seven times over,” Trix said proudly.
    “And who is your sister?”
    Trix opened his mouth to ask the cat which sister he meant, and then shut it once more. From the way Papa Gatto had phrased the question, only one sister mattered. When Trix took a moment to think, he realized the answer was obvious. He exhaled in defeat. “The Queen of Arilland.”
    Which I reckon makes you a prince.”
    Trix shook his head. “That it does. But the title is still new to me—not so new as that other one, but new all the same. I do not live in the palace”—Trix shivered at the thought of being cooped up in a place like that, no matter how sprawling—“nor do I present myself as a prince to anyone. Ever.”
    The cat scoffed. “Prince or no, I cannot send my dear Lizinia off in the company of a liar.”
    Trix squinted at the cat. Papa Gatto’s edges were fading again. “With respect, your majesty, I don’t believe that’s your decision anymore.”
    Papa Gatto hissed and pranced about on his short legs. “Impudent scamp,” he wheezed.
    Trix pointed at the cat. “Now that’s more