"But, my dear Lorenzo-how can you get your lady love out past the school battlements?" Luccio seemed quite at a loss. "For that matter the whole city is locked in! How do any of us escape the town?"

"Tekoriikii and I will manage Miliana; you get ready and meet us by the city's water gate. I'll need probably-what-three hours?" Lorenzo turned to consult with the bird, who replied with a nod. "Three hours to prepare."

Lorenzo began gathering up charcoal, steel rulers, and an abacus. "Now, if I make us breathing tubes, do you think we can escape out by the river? We might need assistance-something to help us swim under the gate."

"Oh, yes! Yes, certainly!" The mere mention of water brought stars to Luccio's eyes. "But how do we finance the healing spell for the bird?"

"Tekoriikii-Tekoriikii, say 'aaaaaah'…"

Lorenzo wrenched open Tekoriikii's beak, dove his hand down into the astonished firebird's crop, and came up with an amber necklace and a silver whistle on a string. These rather shop-soiled items were slapped down into Luccio's disgusted hands.

"There! Sell those, and use the money to buy everything we need." Lorenzo paced rapidly back and forth, maniacally ticking items off against a list in his whirring mind. "We need a long rope, pulleys, ball bearings, a water barrel, four twenty-foot-long birchwood boards, a pole, woodworking tools, and the heaviest anvil in the city!"

"Right!" Luccio slung the loot into his pockets and made his way to the ladder. "When do you need it all by?"

"Twenty minutes." Watched by a fascinated Tekoriikii, Lorenzo had begun furiously sketching plans on the back of an old shopping list left in the shop by some local sorcerer. "Meet me out front-in a wagon!"

Luccio made an exit, stage left. Tekoriikii the firebird waddled over and closed the trapdoor behind him; then leaned his neck across Lorenzo's work and cocked one yellow eye up to the page.

"Gronk-nonk?"

"What are we doing?" Lorenzo smudged a line of charcoal with his thumb, deftly shading his design. "We, my friend, are going to rescue Miliana from the jaws of death! We are going to save her, give her back her hat, and make a new life all our own!" The inventor held his plans up against the light and gave a wild, triumphant smile.

"Now do be a good chap and see which way the wind is blowing. We'll be rescuing Miliana before the sun goes down."

The firebird eagerly floundered over to the window and stuck his head out into the breeze. Watched by bewildered crowds, the great bird lifted up his head, opened up his yellow beak, and shook the city rooftops with a ghastly hunting cry.

"Tekorii-kii-kii!

"Tekorii-kii-kii!"

The rescue party was on the way; Miliana's worries would soon be at an end!

The Velvet Gauntlet Finishing School for Wayward Young Ladies stood coldly isolated from the temptations of the city streets; a blank, monolithic structure that spoke only of despair. Towering walls made from flawless, slick marble-utterly devoid of both window or handhold-had proved insurmountable to hundreds of lovesick suitors. The school balconies looked only inside to the open courtyard, where stood a white, empty pillar, there to remind the girls of the futility of pride.

The pillar also had a second use; disobedient girls were tethered to it through ice-cold nights. Since they acted like beasts, reason held that they should be treated as such. It served as a useful object lesson for the frightened girls.

Linked to the column by an iron chain, Miliana Mannicci stood stiffly in the dust and jammed a sewing needle through a highly incompetent piece of embroidery. Barefoot, dressed in a vile gray dress, and with her long hair stiffly braided back into a bun, Miliana bitterly kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

Needlepoint was just one more worthless female skill Miliana had never bothered to acquire; stealing a few bits and pieces from other girls had been enough to divert Lady Ulia's ire. Now well and truly under supervision, she had no choice but to stitch and sew while planning her revenge.

They had tried to beat her with a cane and had suffered the inevitable results. Watched over by a pair of female tutors, Miliana was now treated with hostility and caution. She had already managed to stab one woman with a sewing needle, and could hurtle the things with enough force to penetrate naked skin. Held tight by her chain, Miliana felt her eyes smarting with hidden tears. Her spectacles hid her eyes as she jammed the needle through her sewing cloth, twisting the tiny blade like a stiletto as she let her mind dwell on vengeance and escape.

From outside the school, there came a distant swirl of sound; crowds yelling, or possibly cheering-the dim crackle of spells, or more of the Shou fireworks. Miliana lifted her head to hunt down the sound; a tutor raised her cane and instantly advanced.

"Keep sewing! The outside world does not exist! Good can only be discovered when the distractions of worldliness and wilfulness are flensed away."

The teacher hissed with pleasure, keen to begin the flensing process anew. Miliana faced the creature like a wildcat and took a turn of her own chain between her hands-either to use as a garrote, a shield, or a flail. Her attacker balked, retreated, and began to stalk Miliana just out of reach of the deadly chain.

"Miliana Mannicci!"

The voice, which could have came from Lady Ulia's evil twin, pealed out across the courtyard like a fractured temple bell. Miliana kept her thin body facing her opponents and flicked a glance at the stairs.

Standing up above the courtyard was the headmistress of the Velvet Gauntlet, a vast woman shaped like a cavalry regiment in a skirt. The woman seared her gaze down into Miliana, then dismissed the tutors with one snap of her fingers.

"Mannicci-since you are obsessed with the offal of the outside world, then you may wallow in offal indeed." The woman stared at Miliana as though she were a particularly noisome form of garden slug. "You are a disgrace to the discipline of home economics. To the kitchens with you! You can squat there and work until supper time."

Tutors edged closer, then decided that discretion was the better part of valor and simply tossed Miliana the keys to her chain. The girl unfastened the collar about her neck, let the chain, needles, and sewing drop into the dust, and walked under the headmistress's hostile eye and deep into the school's narrow corridors.

Miliana was frog-marched down the halls, then halted as locks, chains, and slide-bolts were duly wrenched aside.

The school kitchens were a true anteroom to the Abyss. Vats of hideous porridge boiled, while ranks of pans hung like dented battle helmets on the walls. The door was flung wide open, and Miliana found herself hurtled inside.

"My special provisions have arrived." The headmistress's voice boomed like the slamming door of a tomb. "I want the meat gutted and dressed, the vegetables peeled, the wine barrels decanted into proper bottles-and get those jugs of cream whipped before it's time for my morning scones and tea!"

A trolley held a gigantic serving platter capped off with a silver chafing cover. Beside it stood a wine barrel almost six feet tall.

"It has all been thoroughly checked. The meat has been inspected, and the wine barrel has been pierced with a spear." The headmistress fixed Miliana beneath a violent, suspicious eye. "We perform the same checks on outgoing refuse-lest you think you can hide in the bins and be tossed out with the other garbage tomorrow morning…

"Now to work! And I want that meat sizzling within the hour!"

The door slammed, the locks snapped shut, and Miliana found herself alone in a wilderness of chopping boards and tethered cooking knives. She dejectedly wandered out into the room, noted that the fireplace chimney was blocked by an iron grate, and sank into a sad little bundle on the stairs.