"Miliana! Miliana! Open up this door and speak to me at once!"
Tekoriikii began to flap madly about the room, rebounding off the ceiling, cupboards, walls and floors in panic as Ulia's voice pealed through the air. Miliana stuffed her toadskin scrolls inside her pointy hat; then helplessly tried to latch her hands onto the bird.
"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"
"Miliana! Miliana, what's that sound?"
The princess managed to grab Tekoriikii's yellow feet and anchor him to the floor. Her clothing whipped backward in the breeze of frantic wings.
"It's-it's just me looking for clothes!"
"Clothes? What do you mean clothes?"
"I can't open the door!" Miliana hurtled her arms around Tekoriikii and wrestled his writhing bulk to the ground. "I-I'm unsuitably dressed!"
"Not dressed? Sooth, girl! I am your stepmother, not your sweetheart!" Ulia's fist pounded at the door until the tower foundations began to quake. "Now open this door!"
Miliana stuffed the firebird under the covers of her bed and pathetically tried to smooth the blankets down. It was a little like hiding a landshark in a china teacup. Backing frantically toward the door, the girl tried to motion Tekoriikii to stay hidden, then whirled about and ripped open the door locks.
"Ulia! Stepmother, what a surprise to find you up at this late hour."
"And when can I be expected to sleep?" Ulia sniffed in indignation. "The palace has over thirty guests. Thirty!" Pulling up her hems to reveal ankles like oak trunks, Lady Ulia Mannicci stepped across the threshold. "This festival shall be the death of me yet. Now, what was all this chaos and cacophony I heard from the corridor just now?"
Miliana twittered her fingers in the air with a devil-may-care wave.
"A sneeze… it was just a sneeze."
"A sneeze?" Ulia swelled like a mushroom after a summer rain. "What made you sneeze?"
"Um…" Not dust! Dust would make Ulia send for the cleaners. Miliana desperately tried to wrench inspiration out of thin air. "It was… feathers!"
Eyes narrowing in sharp suspicion, Ulia swept about the room. Miliana tried to guard the way into her bathroom, feeling a sweat of fear break out all along her spine.
Disorder attracted Lady Ulia like honey drew flies. She spied Miliana's disheveled bed, and before the girl could even squeak, her stepmother had whipped away the covers. There, sitting on the mattress for all the world to see, was a giant peacock/rooster/phoenix creature with giddy golden eyes.
Tekoriikii had frozen in pure fright, rooted to the spot by his first face-to-face encounter with Sumbria's most notorious secret weapon. Lady Ulia turned her back, waved an imperious hand over the paralyzed bird, and glared her stepdaughter straight in the eye.
"Well? I trust there is an explanation for the presence of this…this…thing?"
Tekoriikii went from mere paralysis into a boneless state of limp, abject terror. Miliana picked up his neck and felt it hang like boiled spaghetti in her hands.
Her thoughts came very, very slowly-dragged through a thick curtain of dismay.
"It's… a… costume."
Lady Ulia slowly raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?"
"For the ball tomorrow night." Miliana's lie finally found its feet. She shook out the comatose Tekoriikii like an old blanket across her bed. "I thought I'd wear it for the masque."
"But my dear, I though you'd wear your little fairy costume. I did so like the wings." Lady Ulia picked up Tekoriikii's head. "What an amazingly stupid face! You operate it as a sort of puppet, I suppose?" Miliana's stepmother hoisted up Tekoriikii's tail. "Do you put your hand up here?"
"No!" Miliana lunged forward in alarm. "No… it's… the glue's still drying."
"Oh, of course. Please don't mind me, child. The evening has me so very, very tired." Ulia rolled her eyes and sighed. "Thirty guests. Did I tell you? We have thirty guests!"
"Have we really?"
"Yes-now what did I come in here for?" Lady Ulia bustled herself out into the palace corridors. "Now do get some sleep, child. The ball is tomorrow night. There's the Sun Gem to receive, elven ambassadors to welcome, and I still have no idea where I shall show this silly painting from Lomatra…"
The great lady cruised off into the darkness in a confused babble of her own woes, and Miliana gratefully slammed the door shut behind her. Miliana wearily wiped sweat back from her eyes and prayed that Ulia had been mollified for yet another day.
From beneath Miliana's pillow, a muffled voice nervously explored the air.
"Glub glub?"
"Yes, she's gone." Miliana peeled herself away from the wall. "You can come out now."
Tekoriikii had hidden himself by the simple ruse of stuffing his head under the eiderdown. Inch by inch the creature cautiously emerged; his beak now looked a distinctly ashen shade of gray.
He had been lucky; a close encounter with Ulia could age some creatures by twenty years.
A light tap came at the sealed shutters of Miliana's window. The girl ignored the noise and made her way over to the bed, where she tried to prop up the bird and bring the life back into his limbs.
"Well it's your own fault, you know. All princesses are guarded by monsters. This one's just a bit louder and more powerful than most." Miliana removed her spell scrolls from inside her hat, which now had a pungent smell of sun-dried toads. "Come on-cheer up, eat your biscuits, and we'll go and have some fun."
A sharper rap came at Miliana's window. She briefly scowled, removed her spectacles, and polished the lenses on Tekoriikii's tail.
There it came again! Sharp and brief, like a night bird smacking into the shutters, or a branch flicking at the walls. Miliana heard the sound for a fourth time, rose, and opened her shutters to scowl out into the night.
A stone smacked her right on the brow. With a curse that would have made a drill sergeant blush, the girl fell back from the window half blinded in pain. Like the well-brought-up young lady that she was, Miliana furiously snatched the rock and pitched it straight back down into the dark. A rich, meaty thump followed by a piteous wail of pain rose from the courtyard below.
Lorenzo staggered out into the lamplight, looking up at Miliana with accusing, wounded eyes.
"What did you do that for?"
The girl leaned from her balcony, wondering if she should let down her hair; Lorenzo could then climb into reach so she could strangle him. Miliana rubbed ill-humoredly at her smarting forehead and glared down at the young man.
"Did you throw rocks at my damned window?"
"I wanted to quietly attract your attention." Lorenzo drew stares from three passing gardeners, a night watchman and a maid. "I want you to come out with me, in secret!"
Miliana glared at the staring servants through spectacles that shone blank as ice.
"He's the jester for tomorrow night. He's just practicing his routines." A maid looked at a gardener, seeming timid and unsure. Miliana sent them scuttling for cover with a roar. "Haven't you people got work to do? Or does Lady Ulia have to come on another inspection tour?"
The courtyard cleared with unbelievable speed and Lorenzo was left alone amidst a cloud of dust left by fleeing servants. He looked about himself in awe, then stared happily up at Miliana's face.
"I'm planning a fact-finding tour of the city. Will you come? We could take our feathery friend…"
"Shut up!" Miliana pegged her shutters open one by one. "Just climb up the jasmine creepers before somebody sees you!"
Shouldering an untidy parcel-his sketch pads, books and pens-Lorenzo made a creditable show of swarming up into the princess's balcony. He sprang into Miliana's rooms without the slightest hint of terror or embarrassment.