Miliana turned over in her bed, groaning in distant agony. Beside her bed there lay a bucket as well as a pointy hat, which presumably was for use if the bucket should grow full. Tekoriikii crept toward the girl with exaggerated stealth, cunningly laid the pearl pendant on her pillowslip, then withdrew to gaze down at her in love.

Very, very small, and speckled delicately with brown; she should not let her lack of feathers distress her so. After all, not everyone could be a handsome firebird.

Tekoriikii drew the blankets up around Miliana's slender neck, clucked like a broody hen, then hopped back up into the ceiling to go about his own affairs.

The Palace of the Manniccis decked itself out gaily for the Festival of Blades. The ritual never failed to amuse Miliana, who thought the candy daggers and swords now being hung from all the roof beams were particularly inappropriate for a happy festival.

Passing along the courtyard, Miliana maneuvered oh-so-carefully, balancing her head atop her neck as though it weighed five hundred pounds.

Miliana had just been through the most unspeakable experience of her life. She had awoken to find herself still thoroughly drunk; the whole bed had been spinning, and the room shifted like a child's kite blown willy-nilly through the sky. She had somehow made her way to the palace shrine and had begged a blessing against poison from the family's private priests, claiming that she had eaten Lady Ulia's infamous blowfish casserole. Now, with her bloodstream purged but her body still feeling as delicate as glass, the girl took a quiet turn about the palace and tried to gather strength for the evening's affairs.

The breeze blew cool and calming; the promised headache never came. All she needed was a few moments of absolute peace, and she would feel her old self again.

On a fine silver chain about Miliana's neck, there swung a single rose-pink pearl-a large, teardrop-shaped affair that perfectly complimented her coloring. Feeling its unfamiliar weight settling on her skin, the princess drew out the pendant and eyed it with a soft, fond smile.

"Miliaaaa-naaaaaaa!"

The piercing summons caused the girl to close her eyes and freeze, waiting for a migraine headache to begin; luckily, the priest's spells had been first class. With an air of deep and quiet calm, Miliana managed to face Lady Ulia and her father with a smile.

Plucking out her skirts and sinking a wee curtsy, Miliana nodded her tall hat in gentle greeting to her stepmother. Her father-rigid, dignified, and foreboding-gave a brisk nod of his gray beard to his daughter.

"Ah. Miliana." The prince gazed at his daughter without any real interest. "You appear to be well. How do your lessons go?"

The man had hardly spoken more than five sentences to his daughter in her entire life. Cowed, Miliana made a set of suitably dutiful noises-the lessons went well, she found needlepoint occupied most of her time, and the lavender smoke which yesterday exploded from her fireplace was most definitely the result of diseased firewood. Her father nodded, not bothering to listen to a word she had to say.

Her duty done, Miliana turned herself to the ziggurat of silk that was Lady Ulia. Swallowing carefully, Miliana congratulated herself on her survival thus far, and wished Lady Ulia the best of the day.

"Lady Ulia-is it not a perfect evening? I trust you find the airs as pleasant as I?"

"Pleasant?"

The cry caused Miliana to draw a little breath in pain. Coiling her head backward atop its great abundance of chins, Lady Ulia Mannicci blinked in horror at the girl. "Have you heard what the caterers are doing to my feast? There is still no centerpiece for the table. I desired a great bird, and what am I offered? A cuttlefish of the most revolting size! I can hardly have a mass of tentacles splayed out amongst the silverware before all of our guests!"

The tirade of woes quickly lost its force; Lady Ulia had dragged in the whalebone and case-hardened steel of her corsets several inches too tight, and the constriction left her short of breath. The woman retreated into the solace of her waving fan and cast her eyes across her stepdaughter's decolletage.

Spying the pearly pendant about Miliana's tender neck, she suddenly snatched up a quizzing glass and bent her head down to examine the object in suspicion and alarm.

"A pearl?" Ulia blinked in blubbering surprise. "Sooth, it is a pearl. A pearl of the first quality!" Miliana's stepmother drew in a breath and examined her smiling stepdaughter with a great, foreboding eye. "And just where, my lass, did this come from?"

Something stirred under Miliana's hat. Peeling a dizzy swoop of headache threatening to emerge, Miliana attempted to turn her face into a model of unconcern.

"It just came from… an admirer."

"And who, pray tell, is this admirer?

"Well-I don't actually know." Miliana felt a warm glow as she felt the pearl between her breasts; she polished one of her reserve pair of spectacles to cover her unconscious blush. "Just… someone."

"A young lady does not accept gifts from unknown sources." Lady Ulia reexamined the pearl with a mixed air of outrage, pomposity, and scorn. "Particularly not young ladies who already have approved, valid suitors seeking for their hand!"

Suddenly, the entire palace shuddered to an enormous bang. Miliana staggered, went green, and clapped her hands across her aching brow.

Prince Cappa Mannicci stared in the direction of the guest quarters in alarm.

"Great Lords of Baator! What was that?"

Miliana looked up in alarm.

"It wasn't me!"

"Of course it wasn't you! How can a mere girl make an explosion?" The Prince separated himself from Lady Ulia. "It's from that boy's quarters… the one from Lomatra…"

Lomatra. The thought made Prince Mannicci turn a cold gaze to the palace's west wing.

"Tonight, daughter, you shall devote an evening to our errant suitor. This time next year, I wish you to be a Lomatran bride."

"Father!" Miliana's eyes blinked wide; appalled, she took a step closer to the prince. "Father, no!"

"I wish it. It shall be done."

Face set and angry, Miliana used the mask of her great lenses to hide her cold, determined eyes. Headache forgotten, the girl gave an obedient curtsy, then smartly turned about and marched herself away.

A Lomatran bride indeed! Miliana clenched a hand about her brand new pearl-Lorenzo's pearl-and felt it spread a spell of warmth past the fury in her soul.

She had a friend now-a real friend. And a more-or-less magical bird monster-thing to stay by her side. Between them, they would blow her father's plans straight to the Abyss!

Back in the courtyard, Lady Ulia watched Miliana leave and let a crease of suspicion gouge a line across her brows.

"Why, my dear, do you suppose your daughter is so compliant today?"

The Prince of Sumbria focused his attentions on the girl.

"Perhaps the seriousness of life has finally sunk home."

"Yes-or, perhaps, a double life…" Lady Ulia turned the horns of her great lime-green hat belligerently toward her prey. "There have been some very strange things going on within this palace.

"I think Miliana's activities deserve a closer scrutiny, my dear. It may prove to be the very-pearl-of the problem."

"Lorenzo? Lorenzo!"

Moving with all due caution, Luccio Irozzi peeked his head about his apartment's door, then edged into his quarters at the head of a band of nervous palace workmen. Moving like men venturing into a dragon's lair, the little procession scanned the room's bewildering array of pipe work, burners, and bubbling pots; they crept across the floor as though expecting pitfalls or showers of burning oil.