CHAPTER 1: THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS
Professor Simoon and Anemo were fast asleep, completely dead to the world, the son on the sofa and the father in the armchair. Their snoring—a chorus in canon, neither too soft nor too loud—would not normally have bothered Remi, but right now, still trapped in her white Angora cat body, she could not catch a wink of sleep.
The air inside the old Cairo apartment was still scorching and heavy, thick with the scents of tea, spices, and the smell of asphalt, fuel, and dust. Throughout the day, the thick walls had fed on the blazing sun, and now they breathed out a stifling heat that was hard to bear, especially for people who had lived their whole lives on an emerald island where heatwaves had never been an issue. And for an Angora cat, with her long, fluffy coat, it was an absolute nightmare.
Remi moved onto the mosaic floor, hoping the stone would feel cooler, but sleep simply would not come, and through the open window, the city that never sleeps pulled her like a magnet.
Outside, car horns honked as if communicating in a language of their own, Arabic music played, and people laughed and chatted. Nearby, a few cats seemed to be putting the world to rights. A child was speaking in Arabic, a language that Remi-Bise discovered, to her utter amazement, she could understand perfectly. She had never studied it and it was her very first time in this country, but she realised the collar around her neck had many secret powers, and the magic keeping her captive in this cat body was now giving her a sort of superpower.
She stood up from the floor without making a sound and stepped like a queen through the wide-open balcony doors. From the high railing down to the pavement, it took just a single, light leap, executed with the grace of a ballerina.
The cats she had heard and the child—a boy of about ten or eleven—were right beneath the balcony Remi had just jumped from. There were seven large cats in total. They did not look like strays; their coats were sleek and well-groomed. One was ginger, instantly reminding Bise of Sirocco. There were also two black cats—one completely dark, the second with a white patch on its left ear—, two identical grey-tabby twins, one with long, shaggy, almost blue-toned fur, and the last one had all the colours of the others mixed together in no particular order. The boy was sitting cross-legged, surrounded by the cats, and after just one glance at the group, Remi realised immediately that he was actually talking to them and understanding them. Her heart leapt and began to thud loudly in her chest, but she stepped bravely towards the group and greeted them politely:
"Good evening!"
Every eye in the group turned towards the white cat. The boy’s jaw dropped. He looked up at the sky, then at Remi-Bise, and pressing his hands together, he said:
"Shukran lil-alihah! Thank the gods!"
And the rest of the cats repeated after him like an echo:
"Shukran... lil-alihah..."
The ginger cat, the two black cats, the tabby twins, and the one with the mixed coat bowed their heads before her, as if Remi-Bise were a deity that had stepped straight off the ancient altars of Egypt. The only one to take a step forward was the shaggy, dusty-blue cat, who replied exactly to the white cat's greeting:
"Good evening to you, stranger! The heavens have guided you to us, to this child, just when you are needed most."
"Me?" Remi said in wonder.
"You, The White One. This child's brother is on his deathbed, and no human hand can cure him. Only you..."
Remi grew more and more puzzled as she looked at the cat assembly and the boy, who clearly possessed the exact same superpower as Fleor back home.
"But... but I'm not even a real cat! I, I..."
"You have the collar!" the blue cat said. "Do you think the collar is with you by pure accident?"
"Er... yes. If I hadn't been foolish enough to put this thing around my neck, I'd still be an ordinary woman right now."
"You wouldn't, believe me, The White One! 'Ordinary' does not apply to Your Highness."
The boy stood up from the circle of cats, approached Bise, and knelt before her.
"I slipped the collar into the professor's backpack. I thought I had lost you and that you had turned back into a woman, White One. Two weeks ago, I waited for you at the airport... but you weren't there. Thank the gods you are here now and that you found us. Will you come?"
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