Free The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

look bad. I just want to move on with my life as if we’d never traded words.”
    “You’re right, coz,” Benedict said, nodding slowly. “She has a wretched attitude about dueling for pride.”
    The two traded another, longer look, which again made Bridget feel that she’d skipped the necessary background reading needed to understand.
    “Food?” Gwendolyn suggested suddenly. “The two of you came out here so early, you’ve missed breakfast call. Inquisition class is in half an hour, and you don’t want to run on an empty stomach after that.” She looked up at Rowl and added, “And for you as well, Master Cat. I’m buying.”
    Rowl said smugly, “This one has her priorities well sorted. Tell her my favorite food.”
    “Rowl,” Bridget said. “That is not how one goes about such things.”
    She looked up to find both of the Lancasters staring at her.
    “You speak Cat,” Benedict said. “I mean, I’d heard that some people claimed to do it but . . . For goodness’ sake, you sounded exactly like a cat just now.”
    “He has no idea how terrible your accent is,” Rowl observed.
    Bridget rolled her eyes at the cat and said to Benedict, “Yes, of course. Do you . . . not have any cats in residence at House Lancaster?”
    “Certainly not,” Gwendolyn said. “Mother wouldn’t hear of it.”
    “We do, actually,” Benedict said, cutting over Gwendolyn smoothly. “The servants have an arrangement with several cats to handle vermin. But as far as I knew, it’s an old understanding, and no one there has ever actually communicated directly with a cat before.”
    Gwendolyn blinked several times. “How is it that you know that when I do not?”
    “Because no one tells you anything, coz,” Benedict said. “Perhaps because you spend so much time with Lady Lancaster and often do not pause to think before you speak.”
    Gwendolyn tilted her head to one side as if to acknowledge a fair point. Then she blinked again and said, “Then I am afraid that I have been quite rude. I have neither introduced myself to your companion nor sought introduction to him. Please convey to him my apologies, if you would, Miss Tagwynn.”
    Bridget looked carefully at Gwendolyn for a moment, waiting for the flash of mockery that would appear in her eyes, as they would have in Reggie’s, but it didn’t come. She seemed sincere. Imperious and obsessed with protocol—but sincere.
    “What is this she asks, Littlemouse?” Rowl said, leaning forward to peer intently at Gwendolyn.
    “She seeks an exchange of names,” Bridget told him, in Cat. “Human names, not cat names. She feels she has wronged you by not seeking it sooner.”
    Rowl stiffened in indignation. “Has she?”
    “Perhaps not intentionally,” Bridget allowed. “She wasn’t sure what to think of a cat appearing among humans. I suspect she genuinely seeks to avoid giving offense.”
    Rowl’s tail lashed back and forth. “What would Wordkeeper say of her?”
    Bridget smiled slightly. She knew precisely how her father would treat Miss Lancaster. “He would ask her to tea and extend all courtesy.”
    Rowl nodded his head sharply, once, a very human gesture. “Then I will also extend courtesy. Tell her my name, and that she has not yet earned a cat name of her own, but that breakfast is a good start.”
    Bridget turned to Gwendolyn and said, “Miss Lancaster, this is Rowl of the Silent Paws tribe, kit to Maul, chief of the Silent Paws.”
    “A prince of his house, as you are of yours, coz,” Benedict noted.
    Gwendolyn evidently had the grace to avoid looking skeptical at this pronouncement. She gave Benedict a decidedly unreadable look, which only made him smile.
    He had, Bridget thought, a very nice smile.
    Gwendolyn turned back to look at Rowl seriously and said, “Welcome, Sir Rowl, to . . . the human part of Habble Morning. It would please me very much to buy you breakfast, if you would permit it.”
    Rowl promptly plopped down into Bridget’s