"Milady? How are you going to explain the broken ceiling?"

"I'm working on it." Miliana propped her chin on her knees and watched the glorious bright bird. "Let's just take one thing at a time…"

Skies darkened, starlings whirled, while in Miliana's room, Tekoriikii the firebird posed for Lorenzo's sketching charcoal with every appearance of joy.

Smeared with dust and cobwebs, Orlando Toporello thundered in through the Mannicci stables and slung his cloak across a stall. Mice squeaked and skittered from his path as he chased grooms out from hiding and bid them attend to his mount. Prince Mannicci watched all from his perch atop his own great golden horse, then swung himself down to greet his friend man-to-man.

"No sign, Toporello?"

"No sign, my lord!" Old Toporello slashed at a night-spider's web with his riding crop. "Another necklace stolen last night, right from under the eyes of the patrol. I have men combing every street, and there's not even a footprint to this cat-burglar's name."

"The festival will calm him." Prince Mannicci fell in step beside his oldest friend. "The parties will fill the palaces and give our thief too many eyes to dodge. We have a week in which to think of better plans."

Plans. Toporello sat and rested his weary bones on the edge of a fountain, cracking shoulders stiffened by long, hard years of drill and war.

"Speaking of plans, my lord, have the Lomatrans made any offers for your daughter's hand?"

"The bridegroom has asked to stay in the palace. He must be pressing forward with his suit."

"And what of the girl? Does she find the match worthwhile?"

"If it keeps Ilego from the door, it's well worthwhile."

Prince Mannicci had given his daughter his own sharp wits, clear mind, and stubborn will. The only thing he had refused her was his time. Toporello cast a glance toward the princess's little tower and chewed a strand of his own mustache.

"I see a pattern forming. Unless this boy is a better specimen than the last, I fear he shall soon discover the special joys that earwigs can bring."

"Earwigs?"

"Merely a reflection, lord, that clever sparrows can have sharp beaks." Toporello gave a sigh and heaved himself erect. "In any case, my lord, 'tis time for bed. Tomorrow brings the festival-and the dance with Ilego can grow tiring for old bones."

"I intend to see that we both make old bones." Prince Mannicci tightened the fit of his gloves. "Goodnight, old friend. Guard your back well."

Toporello faded into the evening gloom, leaving his monarch standing alone inside the fountain yard. Tugging his gloves hard down across his wrists, the prince stood and stared in silence at his daughter's balcony before stalking back inside the palace halls.

In the last flickers of the evening light, when the horizon swam stark with streamers of eggplant purple and shimmering gold, a convoy of carriages made their way in through the gates of Sumbria. Creaking softly, their dray beasts plodding slowly with the fatigue of a long day's travel through the burning hills, the overdecorated coaches passed by the city gates, then moved down toward Sumbria's busy inns.

Lords and ladies alighted: Colletro's gentry come to do duty by the victors of this year's campaign. They were handed down from their carriages by Sumbrian footmen, then met by lines of heralds, torch-bearers and trumpeters. With stiffly formal manners, hosts and guests made bows; then the purely theoretical enemies went together into the great hollow squares of palaces to while away the nighttime hours.

Preparations for the Festival of Blades were gaining momentum day by day; jugglers and puppeteers were installed at every plaza, while children ran about the streets fighting ferocious mock battles with painted wooden swords. Watching the melee swirl past, Blade Captain Gilberto Ilego leaned idly against a tavern door, breathed in the nocturnal airs, and heaved a contented sigh.

The evenings of late summer always seemed to sizzle with the delicious scent of hot, scorched dust. Dressed in bonnet and plume, jerkin and tight hose, Blade Captain Ilego savored the night's bouquet as though it were a primrose bloom. He watched the carriages winding inward through the gates, watched the delicate ladies and swaggering gentlemen enter their palaces and towers, and let his face draw into a slow, cool smile.

The city brimmed with guests-creatures of a hundred different races. The festival drew them as moths gathered to a candle flame. Slim elves could be seen watching the puppet booths and games, bulb-nosed dwarves from the Great Rift came to trade for surveying instruments, and a gnome illusionist astonished children with clever magic tricks. Most astonishing of all, a nixie damsel-a sharply beautiful water maiden with scales of pink and rose-was borne down the street in a glass-sided sedan chair filled with lake water. As she slid past, the creature gave a smile and locked with Ilego's eyes.

A shadow fell across the streets; wing feathers beat up a storm of dust as a great black form settled down into the central plaza of Sumbria. Ilego tossed aside his musings as though casting a flower out into the road, and settled back to watch Colletro's senior Blade Captain scanning Sumbria in scorn.

The man wore the most elemental of costumes: a brigantine of black velvet lined with silver studs and a barbute helmet covered in wine-dark cloth. His hippogriff-a shrewish, violent mare with elongated claws and a wicked eye-luffed its eagle wings and searched the streets for handy prey. Finding nothing worth killing close at hand, the creature muttered softly to its rider, then sank onto its haunches to let the man slide to the ground.

The Colletran noble had an escort, four of Sumbria's air cavalry all armed with light crossbows. Their prim white mounts shook out their feathers in disapproval of their guest's surly beast, stepping pointedly aside as the creature hungrily eyed their haunches.

Ilego detached himself from the tavern door. The motion caught the Colletran's eye, who turned about to stand posing in the open shadows with one hand upon his blade. Ilego moved himself deliberately out into the open street, placed one foot behind the other and spread his arms open in his courtliest of bows.

"Honored Blade Captain Svarezi. How very good of you to come."

Ugo Svarezi-armored, armed, and squat-glared at the intruder with eyes of watered steel.

"Why am I here?"

"Surely to enjoy the festival." Ilego stood, his dark eyes missing nothing as he drank in the foreigner at a glance. "I have come to meet you. To extend Sumbria's most gracious hospitality.

"Pray, let your beast be stabled, and we shall walk the streets a while."

Svarezi flicked a glance at the crowded streets, the rooftops and the shadows, then judged himself to be under little threat of assassination. Ilego, he dismissed as a lighter, less armored man with a blade fit only for tickling boys. With a side glance at his host, the Colletran bowed slightly forward in acknowledgment.

"Shaatra. Follow."

The black hippogriff answered with an evil-tempered hiss, gave up her attempts to snatch a piece out of passing pedestrians, and favored her master with a series of beak clicks and caws. The man answered in kind, the hippogriff regarded Ilego through seething ice-blue eyes, and then Svarezi took his place at Ilego's side. Followed by a lean and hungry monster, the two nobles moved down a street filled by puppet plays, sausage stalls and dust.

Gilberto Ilego-tall, smooth and suave-tried his level best to begin a conversation.

"Your beast, sir-the hippogriff. I cannot help but notice that it speaks."