Abandoned at the eye of the storm, Ilego helplessly screamed out his innocence to the uncaring city walls.

"No! I didn't kill him!" Ilego tore his own robes between his hands. "I would have been prince! Me! Gilberto Ilego, Prince of Sumbria!" The man reached out to running soldiers in appeal. "Why? Why would I kill him? I would have had everything…"

Ilego slumped down into the cinders, and let the last prince of Sumbria drift through his grasp like sand. He sat in blank incomprehension as he heard his city tear itself apart.

"Svarezi…"

Ilego's eyes went wide as realization suddenly struck home. He lifted up his face and stared off into the empty sky. "Svarezi."

Hurtling ashes to the winds, Ilego leapt to his feet and felt his face drain white with rage. He shook an impotent fist at the clouds and bellowed out a wild scream of despair.

"Svarezi!"

Blades clashed in Sumbria's streets, while all around, a city burned.

"Aaaaaaaaawk!" Tekoriikii tragically held up a small glass bottle, nudging it hopefully toward Lorenzo's hand. "Aaaaaawk! Aaaaaawk!"

"Um… look, Tekoriikii, I know what it says on the bottle, but I don't think it quite works the way you think."

"Aaaaaawk!"

Sighing unhappily, the artist took the bottle, read the label, and began vigorously shaking the pot of Old Pappa Floonbat's Patent Medicinal Hair Restorer. The bird, now miserably keeping an old gray military blanket draped across his rump, shuffled awkwardly about, then uncovered his plucked, bare backside.

Lorenzo liberally splashed hair restorer all over Tekoriikii's featherless regions, then began massaging the medicine into the poor bird's flesh. Tekoriikii whimpered and closed his eyes, slumped in apathy as he mourned the loss of his magnificent orange tail.

He could scarcely dare to look in the mirror to see if the tail feathers had begun to regrow; instead, the bird sat and stared miserably at the painting of Miliana leaning against the attic wall. He gave a soft, pathetic call deep in his throat and sadly closed his eyes.

Lorenzo turned his own face away from the painting. Bedraggled, demoralized, and crushed with guilt, the artist let his chin sink to his breast with a dull, unhappy sigh.

Tekoriikii curled his long neck around and placed his head in Lorenzo's lap. The artist scratched wearily at the bird's silly plumes while both creatures let their thoughts wander along the same sad paths.

Evicted from the palace, they now hid in cheap lodgings above a smelly old alchemist's shop-one of Lorenzo's main suppliers for esoteric chemicals. Terrified that Lady Ulia would silence them by the most obvious means, Lorenzo had managed a disappearing act and had lain low for many long, tedious days.

… Leaving Lorenzo and Tekoriikii all the more time in which to contemplate their failings. They gazed through the broad, wide-open window across the city roofs, and together sank into despondent, guilty gloom.

In the distance, a crowd's shouting rose into a formless roar. Bedraggled and demoralized as they were, man and bird ignored the chaos and watched seeds spiral down from the sycamore tree that shaded the windowsill.

A bell rang as the door opened into the shop below; Lorenzo pricked up an ear in puzzlement as he heard the alchemist give out a single wild, despairing wail.

"I told you, we don't have any rings of water breathing!"

"Oh, please!" The customer seemed in a high state of anxiety. "An amulet then? Maybe a necklace?"

"No! I don't have anything…"

"Not even just a little one?" The customer's cultured voice wheedled mercilessly. "Maybe just some water breathing potions, then? Just two or three on account?"

"Look, why don't you just go away?"

"Just one potion? I can pay you tomorrow!"

Levering up the trapdoor in the attic floor, Lorenzo stuck his head through into the workshop, gasping in delight as he spied Luccio Irozzi. Luccio, now dressed in somewhat water-stained finery, shuffled on his knees as he pleaded with the shopkeeper. Luccio looked up and saw Lorenzo's dangling face; flung out his arms and shot up onto his feet in pure surprise.

"Lorenzo! Lorenzo, where in Umberlee's name have you been?"

"We've been in hiding." Luccio rapidly slid a ladder down through the trapdoor. "From Miliana's mother…"

"Her mother?" Luccio steadied the ladder, then swept his young friend into a hard embrace as he finally reached the ground. "You idiot-why didn't you tell me where you'd gone? I've had agents scouring the city streets for days!"

Tekoriikii hung his head down through the open trapdoor; seeing his friend in conversation, the bird clamped claws onto the ladder staves and slid backward to the lower floor. His talons peeled great bright strips of wood shavings from the ladder as he fell.

"Onk gronk!"

Luccio eyed the bird in astonishment. Lorenzo bowed and performed introductions between his human companion and the bird.

"Luccio Irozzi, I present the firebird Tekoriikii; big on feathers and small on tact."

Luccio made a bewildered bow; Tekoriikii replied with a warble, and ruffled out what feathers he still had in regal pride. The blanket draped about his backside rather ruined the effect. It began to slip, forcing the firebird to frantically adjust his attire.

The group retired back up into the attic, a place tastefully furnished with old crates and corn sacks stuffed with eiderdown. Tekoriikii turned himself about five or six times, treading himself a nest while the two humans settled themselves and uncorked a pewter jug of wine. Lorenzo nursed a tall, scorched, conical hat against his breast as he gazed in amazement at his friend.

"Luccio, what are you doing in an alchemist's shop?" The young artist sniffed at the air with a frown crossing his eyes. "Why are you in an alchemist's-and why do you smell of fish?"

"Never mind that!" Luccio snatched at his best friend's arm. "Now get your things. We have to leave the city-right now!"

"Why? Luccio, what's happening at the palace? Where did they take poor Miliana?"

"Oh-to the Velvet Gauntlet Finishing School for Wayward Young Ladies." Luccio dismissed the topic with a hasty wave. "She's safe enough-it's we who have to worry. The whole city is in revolt! Didn't you hear the riots outside?"

Riots! Lorenzo sat bolt upright, Miliana's image branded hard upon his heart. He heard the firebird warble something to Luccio, and kept a vague track on his friend's reply.

"Prince Mannicci's dead. The noble houses are about to fight a civil war!"

Sycamore seeds came spiraling down past the open window-the tiny leaf-blades of the seedpods whirring around and around. Lorenzo leaned out and snatched one as it passed, then held it tight inside his hand as he stared blankly off into the sky.

"We have to rescue her!"

"What?"

"Miliana! Someone will hit on the idea of marrying her-or killing her-to control her father's men. We have to save her from this finishing school!

"Tekoriikii-we'll all escape from Sumbria together! She can finally be free!"

Tekoriikii roused himself, gaping wide his beak to give a keening scream of joy; the raucous sound set Luccio's teeth jangling. The firebird tried to flounder clean out of the window to instantly begin a rescue, but Lorenzo caught the bird and held him back, dragging him bodily across the floor.

"Luccio-we need a feather restorer. There must be something…?"

"The hippogriff stables will know of some kind of spell." The young courtier scratched one fish-scented hand against his brow. "I'm sure a veterinarian might be induced to make a house call."

"Fine-fine, that's great…" Lorenzo opened his hand and stared at the seed lying on his palm. "Fantastic… all right-so, we just get Miliana out of this heavily guarded school, escape a rioting city, and all run off to Lomatra once and for all!"