Reserved for the Cat

Table of Contents

 

 

“The fifth in the series involving the mysterious Elemental Masters, this story of a resourceful young dancer also delivers a new version of a classic fairy tale. Richly detailed historic backgrounds add flavor and richness to an already strong series that belongs in most fantasy collections. Highly recommended.”

—
Library Journal

 

“The Paris of Degas, turn-of-the-century Blackpool, and the desperation of young girls without family or other protection come to life in a story that should interest a broad readership.”

—
Booklist

 

“This most recent entry in Lackey’s series is a nicely paced, pleasant read. Nina is a sympathetic protagonist readers will root for, and the story holds together well.”

—
Romantic Times

 

“A fantastic cat-and-mouse game among a shape-changing troll, Elemental Masters and a gifted dancer in Victorian England makes Lackey’s latest Elemental Masters installment a charmer. This is Lackey at her best, mixing whimsy and magic with a fast-paced plot.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 

 

 

 

THE HERALDS OF
VALDEMAR
ARROWS OF THE QUEEN
ARROW’S FLIGHT
ARROW’S FALL

 

THE LAST HERALD-MAGE
MAGIC’S PAWN
MAGIC’S PROMISE
MAGIC’S PRICE

 

THE MAGE WINDS
WINDS OF FATE
WINDS OF CHANGE
WINDS OF FURY

 

THE MAGE STORMS
STORM WARNING
STORM RISING
STORM BREAKING

 

VOWS AND HONOR
THE OATHBOUND
OATHBREAKERS
OATHBLOOD

 

THE COLLEGIUM
CHRONICLES
FOUNDATION

 

BY THE SWORD
BRIGHTLY BURNING
TAKE A THIEF
EXILE’S HONOR
EXILE’S VALOR

VALDEMAR
ANTHOLOGIES:
SWORD OF ICE
SUN IN GLORY
CROSSROADS
MOVING TARGETS

 

Written with
LARRY DIXON:

 

THE MAGE WARS
THE BLACK GRYPHON
THE WHITE GRYPHON
THE SILVER GRYPHON

 

DARIAN’S TALE
OWLFLIGHT
OWLSIGHT
OWLKNIGHT

 

OTHER NOVELS:

 

THE BLACK SWAN

 

 

THE DRAGON JOUSTERS
JOUST
ALTA
SANCTUARY
AERIE

 

THE ELEMENTAL
MASTERS
THE SERPENT’S SHADOW
THE GATES OF SLEEP
PHOENIX AND ASHES
THE WIZARD OF LONDON
RESERVED FOR THE CAT

 

 

And don’t miss: THE VALDEMAR COMPANION
Edited by John Helfers and Denise Little

Copyright 2007 by Mercedes R. Lackey.

All rights reserved.

 

 

DAW Books Collectors No. 1417.

 

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

 

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

 

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Paperback Printing, October 2008

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-14373-5

 

S.A.

To the volunteers of the Emergency Animal

Rescue Service (EARS)
who are selflesslty going into disaster areas to
save our best friends.
http://www.uan.org

N
INETTE Dupond lined the toes of her pointe shoes with lambswool carefully, making sure there were no little bits of grit or near-invisible lumps that would make themselves known in the middle of the performance. Then she took surgical tape and bound her toes, so that if the inevitable blisters
did
break and bleed, the blood wouldn’t seep through and stain the pink silk of the shoes. It did not do for a pretty little sylph to have bleeding feet. It spoiled the illusion.

She had already spent half an hour pounding on the toes of her shoes with a hammer to break up the glue just so.
Old shoes for practice, new shoes for performance.
It was a mantra, like so many other mantras of a ballet dancer. Ninette was only a
sujet,
a soloist, and a new-made one at that—one step up from the
coryphées
, and two from the
quadrilles
of the chorus, but not yet to the exalted status of the
premier danseurs
and as far from the
etoiles
as she was from the stars in the sky.
Coryphées
did not often have new shoes; one could see them backstage at rehearsal covering their old shoes with new silk, reblocking and reglueing the toes. A soloist, yes, as a soloist she got a pair of new shoes for every new production.

Ninette did not get the sort of pampering that the
etoiles
got. But as a soloist, she could, at last, do what she was here to do in the first place.

Not to become a star performer, oh no. Her goal was more oblique. To catch the eye of a rich old gentleman.

Her mother Marie Dupond had made no bones about it when she had enrolled her daughter in the ballet school of the Paris Opera. There were not many options open to a pretty little girl like Ninette, alone with her mother in Montmartre. She could become a washer-woman and starve, and possibly marry some poor workingman who would overlook the fact that she had no father, and bear a dozen children, bury most of them, and die young. She could work for the painters, as her mother did, and also starve. With them she would have no reputation, and go to bed with them because at least they
had
beds and food most of the time, and were always generous if improvident. She could simply become a whore, because no respectable man of any means would marry a girl with no father. Never mind that her mother had a marriage license and all; such things could be faked and when there was no live father and no grave—

And even if one accepted the license, well, the man had deserted the woman. Likely he had a dozen wives or more, which would make Ninette a bastard. Not many respectable men with good positions would take the chance on marrying a pretty girl whose background—or relatives—might come back to haunt him.

So Ninette could marry a poor man, who would not have such concerns. Or she could put herself where rich men would see her and become something better than a mere whore. She could become a courtesan.

One of the places to be seen by men with money was on the stage, preferably the opera or ballet, though the
Folies
were marginally acceptable. And it was clear to Marie Dupond, when she saw her flower-like child dancing almost before she could walk, that the place for her was the Paris Opera Ballet. Many rich old men in large fur coats took mistresses from among the little ballerinas. And if the girls were clever, they kept their rich old men very happy and were given a tidy little something as a parting gift when another little ballerina took their place. By then they were known at Maxim’s and on the boulevards and another rich old man would quickly take the place of the former one.

If they were not clever, of course, they ended up drinking absinthe to excess and showing their legs at the
Moulin Rouge
or even less desirable places, and ended up as washerwomen and starved. But along with ballet lessons, little Ninette received lessons in being clever from a very young age.

And the very first one, repeated so often that Ninette thought if one were to take off her skull it would be engraved on her brain, was this:

Maman had fallen in love. She had fallen in love with an Englishman, and they had even married—she truly did have the license to prove it—and set up housekeeping in a little garret apartment and, Ninette supposed, had been very happy. Then one day shortly after Ninette was born, when she was wailing away in her cradle and Maman had been at her wits’ end to soothe her, Papa had gone out.