The sun finds me first.

Of course it does. The window faces east, the chair sits where the light pools, and here I am. The fabric holds my shape—a shallow bowl worn into the cushion from a hundred naps, a thousand afternoons, all the slow hours spent soaking in warmth while dust drifted through the light.

I stretch. Back legs first, driving against the armrest until claws snag the weave. Then the front. Spine arching. A long pull of muscle and fur. I am awake. The day can begin.

The kitchen smells like static and burned toast. The Witch is standing at the counter, back to me, but I know what she's doing. I can hear the tink-tink-tink of the metal spoon against ceramic. She isn't holding it. She never does before her first cup.

I trot in, tail held high. The air in here feels thick—like the sky right before a storm breaks. It makes my whiskers twitch.

"Morning, Missi," she says. She doesn't turn around. She doesn't have to.

The kettle on the stove screams, then cuts off abruptly as she flicks a finger. The water lifts itself—a shimmering, steaming ribbon—and pours perfectly into the mug. No splashes. I weave between her ankles. Enough with the floating water. The bowls. Look at the bowls. They are empty. A tragedy. An oversight of criminal proportions.

"Alright, alright," she sighs.

She reaches for the cabinet—not the handle, just the air in front of it. The wood groans, the latch clicks, and the heavy bag of kibble slides out, drifting down to the counter with the grace of a falling feather. I respect the efficiency, mostly. It gets the food into the bowl faster. She snaps her fingers. The bag splits. The kibble rains down—_clatter-clatter-clatter_—filling the ceramic dishes.

Only then does she pick up her mug. The spoon stops spinning and drops onto the counter with a wet clatter. The static fades. The air goes back to smelling like regular morning dust and coffee. Magic is useful, I suppose. But it doesn't taste like anything.

Jake is finishing breakfast in his spot behind the water bowl, where he thinks he's invisible. I don't need to look. I know the sound of his chewing—quick, nervous bites, glances flicking to the door, to the shadow in the corner that has never been anything but a shadow.

Jake is afraid of everything. Loud noises. Unfamiliar smells. His own reflection, if the light catches wrong. An orange giant terrified of the world. I was the scared one when we were kittens—he was the brave one. Somewhere along the way, we traded.

First, the Steroid. Back to 1.0. Missi knows this one. She hates it, but she swallows the fishy sludge with grim resignation. One enemy she's learned to tolerate.

Then, the new one.

I shake the bottle. I draw up the clear oil. It smells like rancid chemicals—sharp, medicinal, wrong. I hold Missi tight. I have wrapped her in a towel—a "burrito," the Healer called it—so she can't claw me. She is tense against my chest, body rigid. Her nose twitches toward the bottle.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry."

My hands are shaking. I have to grip the syringe harder to keep it steady.

I squirt the oil into her mouth.

The reaction is instant. Missi gags. She throws her head back. She doesn't swallow; she shakes her head violently, spraying droplets of oil onto my shirt, onto my face, onto the wall behind me.

Then comes the foam.

Thick, white bubbles erupt from her lips. Long, stringy ropes of saliva hang from her jaw, dripping onto the towel, onto her paws, onto the floor. She is drooling like a rabid beast, her mouth working frantically to get the taste out. Her eyes are huge, whites showing. Her body convulses with each gag.

"It's okay!" I grab a tissue. I try to wipe her mouth, but the foam keeps coming. "It's just the taste, Missi! It's okay!"

She wrenches free from the towel. She runs.

She runs to the rug and drags her face across it, leaving a snail-trail of slime. She runs to the kitchen and shakes her head, flinging white foam onto the cabinets. She runs in circles, gagging, pawing at her mouth.

I stand there, the empty syringe in my hand.

I did this. I held her down and I did this to her. The Healer called it a taste response. It looks like a seizure. She said it looks worse than it is. It looks like torture. She promised it works. I watch my cat drag her face across the floor, and I pray she wasn't lying.

This is what helping looks like. This is what love looks like. This is what I have to do every single day for the next two weeks, maybe three, maybe longer.

I smell the oil on my fingers. I go to the sink. I wash my hands. I wash them again. The smell won't come off.