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Mittens.
It’s fucking stupid, is what it is, bringing a cat all the way from Seheron to Minrathous and an unknown future. It ought to be more trouble than it is in the end—the ship’s captain compliments Mittens on his rat-catching, a sailor loans Tarquin a basket to transport him through the city, and the landlady of the shitty flat Tarquin leased by letter says he’ll have plenty to keep him busy around the place. And, watching Mittens sniff curiously under the moldering bed, Tarquin thinks maybe he was right to hope there would be something better across the sea.
***
Kinloch.
“Not my dog,” Tarquin says, the first time one of the Shadows asks him about Kinloch.
“I’m not the one who leaves the door open for her,” he says vaguely, when Dorian asks why the dog is always at the Shop.
“You’re the idiot who named her,” he says, when they have to abandon their hideout for a while in the wake of a compromised agent and it appears Kinloch will be back on the streets.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Tarquin says accusingly to Mittens, when she gives Kinloch a single sniff before curling up beside her.
***
Hope.
Tarquin needs another pet like he needs a punch to the face, but he can hardly leave the little kitten he finds in a pile of rubble to starve. He tucks her gently into his tunic where she’ll be warm and goes back to work. That night, he brings her back to the bed he isn’t supposed to be sharing with Ashur, and lets Mittens and Kinloch—improbably rescued—sniff curiously at her as he falls asleep. He wakes only briefly at the soft feel of Ashur’s lips pressed against his, a murmured “Another pet, Quin?” and a quiet laugh.