After bidding farewell to Mr. Goodman, Jenkins turned and headed straight ho. There was nothing particularly important on his schedule for the day, save for an interesting adventure with Magic Miss planned for the evening.
He had woken up far too early; the milkman and the postman had yet to make their rounds. Back ho, Jenkins started preparing breakfast. At six o'clock, right on schedule, he heard Chocolate owing from the bedroom directly above. The cat had likely discovered Jenkins was gone and was voicing his displeasure.
By the ti the sleepy, food-loving cat ca bouncing down the stairs, breakfast was already laid out on the dining table. The cat was quite miffed at the absence of his sweetened milk, only perking up when he heard the clinking of a glass bottle being set down at the door.
As Jenkins was warming the milk for his cat, the postman arrived. Chocolate, hearing the sound first, left the dining room, padded through the living room into the foyer, and slipped out through the small cat flap at the bottom of the door. A mont later, he returned, tail wagging, with a letter in his mouth. He dropped it at Jenkins's feet and then squinted his eyes in pleasure as the man stooped to stroke his fur.
Jenkins always received a lot of mail, so the small cat had probably just brought back the lightest envelope. Still, the gesture was enough to move Jenkins deeply.
The letter Chocolate had retrieved was a rather formal missive, sealed with a round red wax emblem bearing a noble family's crest. Jenkins didn't recognize which family it represented. After all, his etiquette lessons had been a crash course with Miss Stuart, and the princess of the Hamparvo Kingdom was certainly not going to teach him the heraldry of the Fidektri Kingdom's nobility.
Since the incident at the opera house, Jenkins had received many similar letters, most of them inviting him to various banquets or balls. The stated reason was always "to express gratitude for the rescue at the Royal Opera House." But Jenkins had consistently declined in polite letters of his own, citing church business as his excuse.
This letter followed the sa pattern. Count Hermon, a resident of Nolan who had also attended last week's opera premiere, wished to thank Jenkins by inviting him to a ball at the count's residence the day after tomorrow, on Tuesday evening.
But Tuesday nights were for the Ruen gathering. There was no way Jenkins would give up a chance to see Alexia for so boring ball.
He spent the otherwise unremarkable breakfast hour reading the newspaper. Nolan had discovered five more suspected sources of the plague, with the nearest case only three streets away from St. George Avenue. The news worried Jenkins.
When he flipped to the third page, he found so unexpected news. It was usually the section for crossword puzzles and advertisents, but the left half of the page had been sectioned off, bearing the headline: Conscription Mobilization.
He couldn't help but let out a long sigh. The damned war was going to start after all.
Although the conscription notice was troubling, the crossword puzzle was at least entertaining. Jenkins was stumped by a clue in the second row: "A cute animal," "lives only in the north of the continent," and "hates Sman carrots," requiring a three-letter answer. He repeatedly told Chocolate that the answer was not the word "cat," but the cat stubbornly pressed its paw on the "A cute animal" clue, staring up at him with wide eyes. Jenkins had indeed read the clue aloud, and it seed Chocolate had understood.
Trying to explain the rules of a crossword puzzle to the illiterate Chocolate was a difficult task, so Jenkins just tossed the paper aside and decided to forget about it for the mont.
After breakfast, he went to the station to welco his returning family. The train, for once, was not on ti—it had arrived early, an even rarer occurrence than being punctual.
Mary rushed forward to embrace Jenkins, deeply worried about her second son who had stayed behind in Nolan alone. The newspaper's coverage of the poisoning incident last week had been overly sensationalized, and even though the family had received a letter from Jenkins assuring them of his safety while they were away, they had remained anxious.
He escorted his parents and younger brother back to Maidenhaven Road and, declining their invitation to stay for lunch, finally made his way to Pops Antique Shop a little after eleven. Papa Oliver happened to be looking at the sa newspaper. He inford Jenkins that the answer to the three-letter crossword clue—"A cute animal," "lives only in the north of the continent," "hates Sman carrots"—was "Icefield Rabbit."
Chocolate was displeased for quite so ti after hearing this, and only cheered up when Jenkins promised him "roasted Icefield Rabbit" for lunch.
"Speaking of Icefield Rabbits, I imagine you rember their special subspecies."
Papa Oliver inquired, sounding as though he was about to conduct one of his trademark pop quizzes.
"Do you an the kind that can live in temperatures of minus forty degrees? Their pelts are quite expensive, but the ladies all love them," Jenkins replied, cautiously fishing for a clue.
"No, the kind that breathes fire," Papa Oliver prompted.
A rabbit living on the ice caps was unlikely to evolve the ability to breathe fire naturally, and it certainly couldn't have migrated from sowhere else. This narrowed the search considerably, but even so, it took Jenkins a long while to dredge up the mory of that rare rabbit species from the depths of his mind.
He had co across information about them last year while researching demons. It was suspected that these extraordinary creatures, living in a world of ice and snow, possessed the ability to breathe fire because their ancestors had so connection to demons, thereby inheriting the gift of hellfire.
"I know! The Blackfire Snow-Rabbit!" Jenkins declared, blurting out the answer.
"Yes. The fat of that rabbit is an excellent material for rituals. The Church recently acquired a large shipnt from the northern dioceses. If you want to use so, you should apply quickly. It's in high demand."
As he spoke, Papa Oliver gestured for Jenkins to pass him the feather duster from beside the counter.
"But aren't those rabbits incredibly rare? They only live on the northernmost ice caps, which are difficult for humans to explore."
"Sothing has taken over their habitat. Now, large numbers of them are migrating south from the ice caps. Because so many have been captured alive, the northern dioceses are planning to collaborate with the Church of All Things and Nature to try and breed them in captivity."
"What could have taken over their territory? I rember reading that the Blackfire Snow-Rabbits are extrely fierce... more so than the average housecat."
Chocolate shot Jenkins a look, feeling personally implicated.
"Have you heard of A-01-1-8322, the Snowman Legion?"
Papa Oliver placed the duster back next to the unlit fireplace, then settled back into his rocking chair and picked up the newspaper again, turning to a page that showed a group photo of the city counciln.
"I have."
How could Jenkins not have heard of the Snowman Legion? He had been hearing about that very Cursed Item from Miss Stuart frequently since last winter.
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