“Don’t get a torch too close to his djellaba.”

“It might catch fire?”

“You might see it.”

Venerable Haroun, the blind saluqi priest of the dog-headed god Yepuet, has come to the wild and collarless Tel-Bastet, the City of Cats, for an education in mischief. 

And Haroun has never met a crime of fashion he wouldn’t commit.

Shai Madhur, the disabled human priest of Upaja, thought accepting Haroun’s leash meant being Haroun’s seeing-eye human. He wasn’t prepared for the political machinations… or for Haroun’s sense of humor.

When a kind prophet-prince goes missing, Haroun smells iniquity in the air. (Iniquity, it turns out, smells like kumiss spilled on a tomcat in dire need of a bath.) 

The problem with everyone in Tel-Bastet knowing what a Good Boy their Shai Madhur is, is that people keep trying to rescue him, whether he needs it or not. Not that he’s complaining, exactly. But Madhur swears he is never going carousing again… no matter how soulful Haroun’s puppydog eyes are.

With a splash of Studio Ghibli, a sprinkle of Roshani Chokshi, and a dash of Terry Pratchett, when the cats and dogs need to learn to live together, Haroun and Madhur take on the difference between what is seen and what is true.