My own mess? What did Anthea mean by “my own mess”? Was she blaming me for everything that had happened in Serica both before and after the day I’d died?

Because if that were the case, did I have news for her! Not even Heavenly bureaucrats continued to track your influence after your death. (At least, not for the purposes of your karma total, and who cared about anything else?)

Except I couldn’t fling that back in her face, because I wasn’t telling her about the karma system.

I’d have given anything to smile my old, poisonous smile, the one that always drove her to stamp her feet and start shrilling at me while I stared back imperiously – but beaks just didn’t curl the right way.

Well, no matter. After I finished setting up the Temple to the Kitchen God, the Heavenly Accountants would have to award me so much positive karma that it would catapult me past all the other types of birds right into the middle of Black Tier where all the cute mammals (i.e. foxes) were! After that, once I reincarnated as a fox, all I had to do was stay alive for a hundred years, and I’d be a fox spirit again! And after that, I just had to make sure that I stayed alive for another nine hundred years, to accumulate all my tails….

“Hello? Piri? Why in the names of all the gods are you attempting to trill? You’re not a songbird! It doesn’t sound good. And if that’s supposed to be happy humming, stop!”

Anthea’s rude voice yanked me back to the present.

Even if I could no longer manage poisonous smiles, I was more than capable of filling my tone with saccharine malice. But little one, I’m just so happy that you’ve sought me out for advice. It’s just like old times, isn’t it? Doesn’t it bring back all those delightful memories?

From the way her half-human, half-racoon dog face contorted, it did.

In my magnanimity, I left it at that. I didn’t push further, to find her breaking point, as I might once have done. Would once have done.

And anyway, I’d just been thinking that I needed someone who was familiar with the political currents at court. That most patently was not Anthea, but maybe I could extract some intelligence from that addlebrained head of hers anyway.

So – you’ve come here to implore me for help because you’re in over your head in court politics again, are you? Do elaborate on the circumstances.

Anthea clenched her fists – not well, because her claws got in the way of really balling up her hands – and gnashed her teeth, and then breathed in and out several times until most of the fur had sunk back into her skin. It was a gruesome sight.

Good thing Lodia wasn’t around to see it. The girl might have fainted, or abandoned all her pretty fantasies about her employer.

Once Anthea was mostly human shaped again, apart from the dirty-grey ears and bushy striped tail, she grated out, “Piri – ”

Will you stop calling me that! I’ve already told you that it’s not safe for either of us if you do that.

“Who’s here to hear?” she asked, looking pointedly around the empty room. “And don’t worry, nobody’s eavesdropping at the doors either. I’d hear their breathing if they were.”

Wow, just rub it in that I’m no longer a spirit, why don’t you? But I didn’t give any outward signs that I was seething. Instead, I cocked my head back and stared upwards.

“No one’s hiding in the ceiling rafters either, Piri. Maybe the room’s too dark for your eyes, but I’d see them if they were.”

The dense creature. Did I have to spell everything out for her?

Heaven has eyes and ears everywhere, you know.

She, of all people, should know that. Her patron god was literally Heaven’s eyes and ears on Earth.

“I’m sure the Kitchen God already knows about you. If he hasn’t done anything, it’s because he believes you’re a useful tool. Thus far.”

Unfortunately, she was right – absentminded and absentee Director of Reincarnation though he might be, the Kitchen God had gone back up to Heaven multiple times since the Goddess of Life had compensated me for Cassius’ meddling by granting me the right to keep my mind when I reincarnated. No one else on Earth had that right –

Wait.

Stripey.

Our promise to meet again at Honeysuckle Croft when he awakened.

But wherever and whatever he was now, he hadn’t kept his memories when he reincarnated.

Which meant that he would only remember our promise for the brief moments after he died and woke in the Bureau of Reincarnation, and before he reincarnated again. Even when he awakened as a spirit, he wouldn’t recover the memories from his past lives. He’d never return to Honeysuckle Croft, because he wouldn’t have any of the memories that made him Stripey….

Bobo and I would never see him again.

No.

If the Heavenly bureaucracy could make an exception for me, it could cursed well make one for Stripey. I just needed the correct leverage.

And I knew exactly how to put the Kitchen God so far in my debt that he was going to have to give me whatever I wanted.

From the mouths of babes, I sighed, shaking my head in mock wonder.

“What do you mean, ‘from the mouths of babes’?” snapped Anthea.

Haven’t you heard the proverb? It’s a reference to how little kids are so innocent and honest that you get the truth from them –

“I know what the proverb means, Piri!”

There, there. I’m sure you do.

I flew forward and petted her on the top of her head, just as if she were a raccoon dog pup. I was sure that she needed me too much to knock me away and crush all my bones in the process, and I was right.

She endured it. With gnashing teeth, true, but she endured it.

I meant that you were absolutely correct. Serica must be restored to its former glory, and I am the only one who can do it.

Whoosh! Snap! Crunch! Kick!

Another owl spirit rioter came flying over the wall that surrounded the Temple premises, but The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind was ready. He spun on his back hooves, crouched, and sprang into the air with one mighty heave of his hindquarters, with his neck outstretched and his jaws open wide.

Whoosh!

The owl hooted in panic and tried to fly higher, but it was too late.

Snap!

The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind’s teeth closed on the tip of the bird’s wing, and as he dropped back down, he whipped his head to fling the owl onto the courtyard paving stones.

Crunch!

The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind dropped to all four hooves next to the intruder, spun again, and lashed out with his back hooves.

Kick!

The broken body of the vanquished owl spirit went sailing through the air, tracing an arc over the wall and down towards the landbound mob that was trying to break down the front gate. Good thing the first thing Piri had ordered when she renovated the mansion was to fortify the gate and walls both physically and magically. At the time, the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind hadn’t understood why defensibility mattered when the Temple wasn’t even a castle, like the Baron of Claymouth’s castle, but now he was awed by her foresight.

The ancient mind inside the tiny, drab, weak sparrow body must have foreseen the possibility that one day, these Goldhillers would turn into an angry mob that would attack everyone and everything in sight, and had prepared against that possibility. The sturdy gate and walls meant that regular old humans couldn’t break in, and as for spirits –

Thump. Thump thump thump.

The gate shook under the impact. On his leaps into the air, The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind had caught glimpses of the rioters. The pangolin spirits among them were attempting to beat down the gate with their club-like tails. The seal stamps on the doors and frame glowed bright orange, holding up under the blows.

“Good luck!” he snorted. “I’d like to see anyone break through that!”

A dull thud.

He whirled. A serow spirit, a deer-like creature that Mage Flori had said was good at climbing cliffs, had cleared the wall. She landed on her hooves in the courtyard, shook herself off, and hesitated, as if bewildered by her own success.

The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind didn’t hesitate. He lowered his head and charged.

With a squeak, the serow fled in leaps and bounds, clearing the planters with their tidy rows of kitchen herbs. He didn’t think she was circling around to attack the Temple from the back. The coward was just running away in a mindless panic. So he blew a powerful breath after her to panic her and speed her along.

Encouraged by the serow’s success, however, a flock of sparrow spirits came charging over the wall into his airspace next. Crouching, The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind leapt into the air to bring them all down.

Serica must be restored to its former glory, and I am the only one who can do it, I had just declared when a brown shape like a fat, horned deer went crashing past the window next to me.

Anthea’s eyes opened so wide that I could see the whites in a ring all around her irises, and her teeth lengthened into points. “They’re getting in!” she screeched. “They broke in! We have to run!”

With a pop, she was in raccoon dog form, scampering for the door as fast as her stubby legs could carry her. Abandoning me.

Coward! Get back here!

I pumped my wings and flew after her, but my mortal sparrow body couldn’t keep up with a spirit, however ungainly and awkward that spirit might be.

What are you scared of – a single serow spirit? I taunted.

Her bushy, striped tail rounded a corner.

Okay! Fine! Run away! Abandon Goldhill! Let South Serica fall! Watch your friend Jullia die!

I flapped around the corner and nearly crashed into Anthea’s chest. She was back in human form.

“What did you say?” she hissed.

I said, abandon Goldhill and let the kingdom fall. Let your friend Jullia die. You’re good at running away, aren’t you?

“I did not abandon the City of Dawn Song! There was nothing left to abandon!”

I shrugged my wings – no mean feat when I was hovering midair. Perhaps. But you came here to beg me to save Goldhill and South Serica and Jullia’s throne, did you not? Have you changed your mind? Is it hopeless after all?

She opened her mouth to contradict me, but no sound came out. She shut her mouth again and ground her teeth. “What are you plotting?”

I’m thinking that we kill two birds with one stone. And by kill, I mean “not kill.” Definitely don’t kill anyone.

Anthea made an impatient “hurry up and tell me already” gesture with her hand.

I drew a deep breath, awed by the audacity and awesomeness of the quest I was about to embark on, even if I were the one who had conceived of the plan. Sometimes, I amazed even myself.

We are going to stop the riot, calm the capital, save Jullia’s throne, and bolster the authority of the Temple to the Kitchen God all at the same time.

She wasn’t nearly as impressed as she should have been. “Yes, but how? You’re still not saying how we’re doing any of that!”

Hoofbeats clopped past the windows. Having failed to find an exit at the back of the gardens, the panicky serow spirit was running back the other way.

Get Katu here. I’m going to need my High Priest.

“Get Len Katullus – here? Are you mad? How are we going to get him through that mob?”

How did you get yourself here?

“But that’s different! I’m a spirit! He’s a human!”

Yes. I nodded sagaciously, only partly to annoy her. Exactly.

Then I flew out the window after the serow.

Hey, spirit! It’s okay! You’re safe now! Want to come inside?