This must have been how parents felt when dropping off their children for the first day of kindergarten. Anxiety. Guilt. An involuntary sense of peace.
The only problem was that the child was ten times more anxious than the one-day-old parent. Awake, unwilling, and clawed onto the prince's legs with all its strength. It had been doing the same since entering the garden.
The wild cats in the greenhouse-plus-cat shelter were quite affectionate. They had managed to get the baby kitten to warm up to them before lunch, with much coercion, which Reis didn't want to be involved in.
But now the furball was refusing to let go again. Reis scooped it up into his palms and lifted it to eye level. "Look, I'm not abandoning you."
The kitten let out a tiny, heartbroken mew and began to nuzzle into the crook of Reis's thumb. "Don't do that, I have something to do, and I can't take you there. Wait with them for a while, I'll be right back."
