If it were just Cricket she might be able to leave him. He might want her to, she can imagine him snarling in his language about how they can all hang for trying this stunt and he'll take bits of them when he goes. But it's not just Cricket. If he dies -

(She has a mental image of her mother sitting up a her-shaped vegetable in bed and force-feeding it broth. Kinder to just kill the unmade, Iobel thinks, but Raney has never believed that, and Iobel supposes unmade she might as well go to serve her mother's preferences since she'll be little fit to do anything else -)

"So when's the wedding?" she mutters.

If they don't give her cat back she will assess the elsewise horror of the situation and maybe she'll just off herself. Cricket gets a clean end that way, she can't exactly ask him but supposes he'd rather it to being shut up wherever they've secreted him away.