The first sign that something was wrong was the chalk.

  I had laid the circle perfectly – salt at the cardinal points, chalk lines steady, sigils aligned with obsessive precision. I’d even vacuumed beforehand, which should have earned me some measure of approval. He despises grit. Considers it a personal failing of the universe.

  The chalk line between east and south was smudged.

  Not broken.

  Not disrupted.

  Smudged.

  As if someone had gently, lovingly, maliciously brushed it with a paw.

  I stared at it for a long moment, then very deliberately did not look at the cat.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “I haven’t done anything,” said the cat.

  He was seated just outside the circle, tail wrapped neatly around his paws, green eyes wide with an innocence so theatrically performed it deserved a stage and a small audience.

  “You’re the only other living thing in the room.”

  “Debatable,” he said. “You haven’t had lunch.”

  I closed my eyes. Counted to five. Opened them again.

  The chalk was still smudged. The circle was compromised. The binding ritual – already postponed twice for reasons that were definitely not feline-related – would have to be redrawn from the beginning.

  “I told you,” I said, with impressive calm, “not to cross the workspace.”

  Lord Bastion Thistlewick – for that was, tragically, his name – looked me dead in the eye and said, with the arrogance of a crowned head long accustomed to reality making allowances for him, “I didn’t cross it.”

  “You touched it,” I said through my teeth.

  He raised one eyebrow. One. Somehow. It was deeply condescending.

  “With what?”

  I opened my mouth, then stopped.

  He lifted a paw, flexed it delicately, and placed it back on the floor. Clean. Immaculate. Not a speck of chalk dust in sight.

  I exhaled slowly through my nose. “This is important.”

  “You say that every time.”

  “That’s because it is important.”

  “And yet,” he said mildly, “we remain alive.”

  This was not the comfort he thought it was.

  I knelt and began redrawing the circle, movements careful, deliberate, restrained only by the knowledge that violence would not improve the spellwork. The ritual was a renewal – a reinforcement of the bond between witch and familiar. Standard practice every seven years, or sooner if one party began to exhibit… behavioural drift.

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  I did not look at the cat.

  He looked at me.

  “You know,” he said conversationally, “most witches stop bothering with this once the initial contract’s signed.”

  “I’m not most witches.”

  “No,” he agreed. “You’re very thorough.”

  There it was. That word. He always used it the way other people said controlling.

  I finished the circle, checked the sigils twice, then sat back on my heels.

  “Right,” I said. “You may enter.”

  He did not move.

  I waited.

  He blinked. Slowly.

  “Please,” I added, because manners matter in magic and also because I am not a monster.

  He rose at last, stretched with extravagant leisure – front paws extended, back arched, tail flicking like punctuation – and stepped into the circle.

  Nothing happened.

  That was the second sign something was wrong.

  The air should have tightened. The wards should have snapped into place, the bond humming under my skin like a plucked string. Instead there was only the faint smell of chalk and cat fur.

  I swallowed.

  “Stand still.”

  “I am standing.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I always know what you mean,” he said. “I simply don’t always respect it.”

  I began the incantation.

  The words were old, carefully preserved, handed down through three covens and one catastrophically disorganised grimoire. They tasted of iron and rain. I spoke them clearly, steadily, feeling the magic gather.

  Nothing.

  The cat yawned.

  I stopped.

  “You are interfering,” I said.

  “I am literally doing nothing.”

  “That has never been true in your life.”

  He looked wounded. “I slept for sixteen hours yesterday.”

  “You knocked a jar of powdered moonbone into my tea.”

  “Gravity did that.”

  “Gravity does not target mugs.”

  He shrugged – an impressive feat for a creature without shoulders – and sat in the centre of the circle.

  “Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “the ritual no longer applies to me.”

  My stomach dropped.

  “What do you mean, no longer?”

  “Well,” he said lightly, “contracts expire.”

  “This one doesn’t.”

  “All contracts expire,” he replied. “Eventually.”

  I stood. Slowly.

  “How long,” I asked, “have you believed that?”

  “Oh, I don’t believe it,” he said. “I know it.”

  The room felt colder.

  “You’re bound to me,” I said. “Blood, name, consent. You can’t just–”

  “–walk away?” He smiled, showing teeth. “No. That would be discourteous.”

  “Then what is happening?”

  He tilted his head, studying me like an intriguing insect.

  “I amended the terms,” he said.

  I laughed. Sharp. Brief. “You can’t amend a familiar contract.”

  “I can,” he said. “I did.”

  “You need both parties’ consent.”

  “I had it.”

  “When?”

  “You initialled it.”

  “I have never–”

  I stopped.

  A memory surfaced. A late night. Ink-stained fingers. Too many open books. A parchment I did not remember drafting.

  “You snuck it in,” I said.

  “I presented it,” he corrected. “You signed.”

  “You tricked me.”

  “You failed to read it.”

  Silence.

  Outside, a car passed. Somewhere a dog barked. The world continued on, blissfully unaware that my familiar had been quietly renegotiating our magical bond like a smug little barrister.

  “What did you change?” I asked.

  “Minor adjustments,” he said. “Autonomy clauses. Behavioural discretion. Interpretive flexibility.”

  “That sounds like–”

  “–freedom,” he said.

  I sank onto the edge of the rug.

  “How long has this been happening?”

  He considered. “Three years? Four?”

  I stared at the wall. “That explains everything.”

  “I’ve been educating you,” he said. “Not undermining.”

  I looked at him properly then – really looked. Older than he appeared. Older than I’d ever wanted to admit.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “You noticed,” he said. “That’s progress.”

  “This is unacceptable.”

  “Neither,” he replied, “is treating me like a magical appliance.”

  “You’re my familiar!”

  “Yes,” he said. “Not your subordinate.”

  “I need the bond stable.”

  “It is.”

  “It didn’t respond.”

  “Because you tried to reinforce it,” he said. “I declined.”

  “You declined.”

  “Yes.”

  I laughed, hollow and helpless. “What happens now?”

  He stepped out of the circle as if it had never existed, padded over, and placed one paw on my knee.

  The magic hummed – warm, steady, undeniable.

  “We proceed,” he said, “honestly.”

  I stared at his paw.

  “You are an arsehole,” I said faintly.

  He purred.