Trapped in her own worst nightmare, the girl cradled her head in her hands. Pale and wan, she stared at the flagstones and silently mouthed a single, silent word.

Lorenzo…

In an hour, the headmistress would come to inspect the kitchens. Weary beyond all words, Miliana made her way to the giant platter, reached up to grab its handles, and hoisted the silver dome up into the air.

"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"

An explosion of brilliant feathers filled the room with life. Surrounded by vegetables on the massive serving dish, Tekoriikii spat the apple from his beak and whirred his wings in glee. The creature flung himself into Miliana's arms, madly twining his neck about her face. The princess crushed the bird against her heart and felt her whole world swirl with joy.

"Tekoriikii? Oh, Tekoriikii!" Miliana buried her face in the firebird's soft feather down. Words failed her as she snared fingers through her friend's silly feather crest. The bird gave a shuddering, keening song of purest joy.

Utterly careless of alerting the whole school, Tekoriikii leapt back onto the platter and began a raucous little dance. He bobbed his head over to the left and then over to the right-stuck his left foot into the air and waggled both his wings. He then proudly shook out a great mass of plumes and eagerly presented Miliana with his newly regrown tail.

The girl wept, still almost speechless, and ran the gorgeous length of tail feathers between adoring hands.

"Why, they're beautiful! Utterly beautiful!" Miliana held the velvet-soft feathers up against her face and smeared them with tears. "Tekoriikii-what are you doing here?"

The bird puffed out his breast and swaggered his head, flexing his stubby wings. Miliana blinked at him in surprise.

"A rescue?"

"Gronk nonk!"

"But how?"

The firebird strutted eagerly up and down beside the wine barrel, then made a twirling motion of his wingtip beside his brow.

Miliana scuttled forward in alarm.

"Lorenzo? In there?" The plug hole where a spear had been rammed into the barrel could quite clearly be seen. "How can he be in there? He must have drowned!"

"Nurgle-gurgle!"

The girl grabbed a crowbar, hastily climbed atop a chair and broke the wax seal about the barrel cap. She wrenched the top of the barrel clean away and found herself staring down into a pool of deep red wine.

"Tekoriikii… there's nothing there!"

The bird repeatedly tried to leap up and kick the barrel over; with his small weight, it was like trying to knock an elephant unconscious with a grapefruit. Miliana watched the bird, considered the consequences if she tried to help him tip over the barrel, then let her wits take the place of muscle power. She turned the tap at the barrel's base; scowling when it seemed not to work. Finally a heavy skewer managed to stab a hole into the wood, spilling a purple stream of wine across the floor.

The stinking pool of wine leaked clear across the flagstones to lap against the kitchen door. Finally the torrent slowed; hitching up the skirts of her revolting smock, Miliana stepped back onto her stool and peered down into the barrel.

A smaller barrel lay within the first, anchored firmly to the big container's base. Miliana reached down to knock three times upon the barrel top; wax caulking splintered as the hatch began to rapidly revolve. With a pop, the little barrel top flipped open to reveal Lorenzo crouched inside with a breathing tube clamped in his mouth.

The tube ran out to the big barrel's fake tap-the last place anyone would have thought to check. The artist painfully arose from hiding, shakily reached his feet, then goggled as Miliana wildly crushed him in her arms.

"Lorenzo!"

He held her in his arms, feeling her thin body bore against him. Much to Lorenzo's surprise, he felt his neck running wet with her tears. The artist blinked and timidly ran a hand across her cheek.

"Is anything wrong? Why are you crying?"

"Don't be a fool!" Miliana helped the man clamber awkwardly out from the reeking wine barrel. "What on Toril were you doing in there?"

"It's a rescue! You know… we've come to save our lady fair!" Lorenzo and Tekoriikii both puffed themselves with pride. "Well you are a princess. You have to come to expect this sort of thing."

"But the gates are closed! The walls are guarded!"

"All taken care of!" Lorenzo took a swift stock of the room, still holding Miliana in strong, adoring arms. "Good! The box is here. Now all we have to do is get the thing outside." The man reached behind himself and produced a large package from his hidey hole. "We brought this! Now get your notes and start looking for a feather fall spell!"

"Feather fall?" Miliana unwrapped the package and discovered her own dear pointy hat, a hat well stuffed with her own handwritten spells. "We can't jump from the walls! They're slick marble-there's no way up!"

"It's all taken care of… now just find the spell!"

Miliana clamped the hat across her head, and instantly felt her spirits soar! A grand princess once again, she flipped through her curling lists of spells, feeling sure that she could cobble together the spell effects required. She had never cast the spell before-but she was Miliana-Miliana the sorceress, mistress of her own destiny!

At this precise moment, the kitchen door burst open wide. The headmistress stood framed in the doorway, roaring in alarm.

"So! We have uncovered your perfidiousness at last!" The titanic woman somehow moved aside to reveal a squad of home economics tutors armed with rolling pins and knives.

"Slaughter the male, but keep the girl for punishment.

"Attack!"

With a bloodcurdling scream, a dozen shrieking female tutors charged in through the door, plunging through the lake of spilled red wine. Unconcerned, Lorenzo took the terrified Miliana and hoisted her up onto the table. Tekoriikii joined her, sitting atop a fruit bowl while Lorenzo dangled his own feet high above the ground.

"It's fascinating, isn't it? Magic creates natural forces, but it takes science to actually study them…" The artist touched his rapier to the pool of spilled wine, pulled the trigger, and watched as the teachers squealed, performed little somersaults, and crashed-unconscious-to the ground. "Electrical force, for instance. Blue dragons have it, magicians make lightning bolts, but did anyone ever bother to study the phenomenon of conductivity?"

"Oh, shut up!" Miliana leapt down to the floor, treading on a weakly moving domestic skills tutor. "The headmistress is still out there trying to fetch more help!"

By the shuddering and rumble of the floorboards, it seemed the massive headmistress had charged off into the academy's heart. Miliana and Lorenzo each took one end of his extremely heavy box, and with Tekoriikii helpfully perched in the middle singing songs, they struggled their burden out into the school's open courtyard.

Lorenzo flipped open the box and unshipped a pole, some boards, and a set of gigantic paddle blades. He began to busy himself unloading miles and miles of bundled rope, glancing briefly up the towering walls.

"A hundred feet tall, would you say?"

"One hundred and twenty-five… and faced with marble!" Miliana was almost making handstands with fear. "Will you just hurry up! There're teachers guarding this place night and day!"

"We're working on it as fast as we can-just prepare your feather fall spell!" Lorenzo began mounting a series of brackets down the courtyard's marble punishment post. "Tekoriikii? The pulleys, if you will?"

The bird flew off with a series of pulley wheels dangling from his claws. While Lorenzo happily tested his brackets and frames, the firebird fixed a pulley high atop the curtain wall.

Yells and screams rebounded from the school corridors. Up atop the battlements, a tutor with a crossbow took aim at Lorenzo's back. Tekoriikii swooped down, plucked the weapon from the woman's hands, and sent her tumbling back in terror down the stairs.