Outside the school, fireballs and lightning bolts crashed against the gates; it would only be a matter of moments before the doors came crashing down. Lorenzo ripped off Miliana's hat and began flipping frantically through the spell sheets one by one.

"How does it start? Can you remember what the page looks like?"

"There was a sort of curly thing… it looked like a pot." Miliana faced Lorenzo with a nearsighted scowl. "I don't know! I've never really cast the thing before. I thought it was a spell for magic missiles…"

A pot-a pot-shaped symbol. Lorenzo frantically sorted tiny scrolls, each scribbled in Miliana's shocking handwriting.

"Aha!" He found something that looked like an inverted cup. "Here's a pot, but it's upside down."

"That's it!" Miliana clamped her pointy hat upon her brow. "That's the one!"

"You never said it was upside down. How was I supposed to find it if it was upside down?"'

"It doesn't matter!" Miliana tried to cuff Lorenzo on the ear, and missed him by a mile. "Now just try to retrace the symbols on something big-really, really big… so I can see!"

A fireball lit the courtyard with a bang; the gates sagged, hinges turning red-hot from the blast of magic flame. Lorenzo tried to choke down the panic, looked across the courtyard, and felt a new idea strike home to his mind.

"Wait-just wait. I'll only be a minute."

Capable of seeing nothing but the vaguest blurs, Miliana moved cautiously to her feet. If she strained herself, she could just make out the curtain walls; Tekoriikii was either the vague orange wobbly thing to her left, or else the warm surface she was currently standing on. The princess wandered slowly forward as the gates cracked clean in two, then suddenly felt herself grabbed by the arm.

"There! Will that do?"

Lorenzo seemed triumphant; the girl adjusted her empty frames out of habit, and squinted closer at the courtyard floor.

The shapes of spell symbols stood out in bold gray lines. Miliana murmured words under her breath, suddenly remembered the gestures to the spell, and felt herself light into a smile.

"That's it! I've got it!" She reached out with groping hands as she settled the spell formula in her mind's eye. "Where's the headmistress?"

Miliana was led to the great fallen whale; the Princess waved her hands, spoke a loud, triumphant syllable, and cast one of Tekoriikii's down feathers to the winds. Lorenzo saw the headmistress's body flicker with purple energies, and signaled Tekoriikii to take off into the air.

The bird latched onto the ungainly burden and effortlessly carried her aloft. The drive-rope trailed neatly behind, the slack slowly disappeared, and Lorenzo led Miliana to the flying machine to clamp herself against the steering rings.

Another fireball detonated, and the school gates exploded with a roar. Standing clasped about the shaft of his new flying machine, Lorenzo had to shout above the screams of charging warriors.

"How long does that feather fall spell keep working?"

"I don't know!" Miliana felt the desperation of uncertainty. "Someone told me it depends on the weight!"

Tekoriikii gave a squawk as his burden suddenly dropped from his claws. The headmistress plunged toward the city cesspits, the rope whipped tight, jerked the flying machine hard against its brackets, and suddenly the drive shaft began to blur with speed.

The propeller blades whirred, the rope snapped free, and the headmistress hit the dung pile with a meteoric splash. As a hundred pikemen and halberdiers came thundering across the fallen bodies of the teaching staff, Miliana and Lorenzo shot skyward and up across the school walls. A storm of crossbow bolts followed them aloft-one passing mere inches from Miliana's hat.

Clutching blindly to the handholds and feeling a storm wind blowing past her ears, Miliana could only blink her eyes and frown.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." Below Lorenzo, the dreadful school dwindled; outraged soldiers worked to break up Miliana's spell formula which had been laboriously formed from the posed bodies of unconscious home economics tutors. The wind blew, the bright sun shone, and it felt marvelous to simply be alive. Tilting his face like a hound sniffing the wind, Lorenzo thrilled to the joys of flight.

Beneath the noisy rotor blades, the sounds of crashes, swordplay, spells, and cries of anger and fear hung loud across the city. Lorenzo gazed down across the streets far below, staring at the war-torn thoroughfares in dismay.

The flying machine worked quite well; Lorenzo confessed himself to be well pleased. The bearings whirred, the body balanced well, and the sensation of flight sent a dizzy rush of freedom through his veins. Tekoriikii circled happily nearby, noisily flapping his wings as he gave a cheery cry.

"Tekorii-kii-kii!"

Feeling her captivity sliding far away, Miliana risked loosening her handhold and groped for Lorenzo's arm.

"Lorenzo?"

"Yes?"

"Well done."

Swelling with pride, Lorenzo gazed below as he felt the craft begin to descend.

"Ah, good-there's Luccio-and there's the river now."

Miliana gave a great relieved sigh. "So we're landing by the river?"

"Um… not exactly…"

Miliana had enough time to blink, then gave a great unhappy wail. The flying machine plunged neatly into the drink-inventor, princess, silly hat, and all.

Tekoriikii watched the whole process from above, then landed gracefully on the wagon Luccio had parked on the riverbank. Luccio and the bird watched as Miliana and Lorenzo struggled damply toward them through the river mud.

"Well, all in all, Lorenzo, I think that was one of your better plans." Luccio reached down to proffer a kiss to Miliana's muddy hand. "Dear lady… so good to see you safe, and at liberty."

Luccio unshipped a bag of snorkels and alighted from the wagon top. "Alas, there is a swim ahead of us. The river is the only means of escape. The streets swarm with ten thousand blades."

"Why?" Miliana stood wringing out her muddy hair, then capped herself with the ruins of her pointy hat. "Is there a bread riot on? What's all the noise?"

Luccio looked at her, unable or unwilling to break ill news. Biting his lip, Lorenzo came forward to gently put an arm about Miliana's shoulders.

Her face had already drained ashen white. Creeping quietly into Lorenzo's touch, she let him quietly lead her away.

Lorenzo softly whispered to her. Luccio began to unpack his wagon, laying out snorkels, food packages, a toadskin book, and spare spectacles salvaged from the ruins of Miliana's room.

"Nurgle?"

"Just a moment, old chap. Leave them together for a while." Luccio quietly placed a hand on Tekoriikii's back. The bird mournfully strained toward Miliana, made anxious by the half-heard sound of tears.

Sunning herself on the riverbanks, there lay a long, exquisite female nixie-a curvaceous humanoid with webbed feet, webbed hands and dainty gills. Luccio introduced her to the curious firebird with a schoolgirl's blush.

"Tekoriikii? This is the Princess Krrrr-poka, of the Akanamere. She… ah, she owed me a favor." Luccio sealed his packages inside little wooden casks. "You can fly over the river; the rest of us will use snorkels, and she will tow us underwater past the armies and the gates."

Beside the river, Lorenzo stood with Miliana leaning on his arm. The young couple gazed in silence in the direction of Miliana's old home, which now formed the center of a distant storm of screams.

Miliana was free.

And Sumbria was burning.