Do you know that feeling when you regain consciousness, muzzily but with the conviction that something is wrong, and it slowly dawns on you that your cheek isn't pillowed on a bed of soft, fluffy tails, and you blink your eyes open to discover that it's because all of your tails are gone because you're a gods-cursed naked, slimy EARTHWORM? That was how I felt after Aurelia finished her story.

Well, fine, I exaggerate a little – earthworms don't have eyes. And I wasn't aware during any of my lives as earthworms. But you get the point. Which is that Aurelia's revelation was the most horrible shock I'd received since I was executed and stripped of my fox form and cast down into White Tier to languish as a worm.

I was dimly aware that Floridiana was peppering Aurelia with questions, but I couldn't resolve the sounds into words. The Goddess of Life had Flicker. She had Flicker. She was going to peel, layer by layer, the way she had me, only I'd had him to rescue me and the star sprites at the Bureau of Reincarnation to care for me afterwards. Flicker had no one. The Goddess of Life was going to slice him into shreds, and when she was done slicing him into shreds, he was going to dissolve into nothingness.

No. I refused to let that happen.

Flicker had no one? What a joke! Flicker had ME. And Aurelia and anyone the two of us could round up for our rescue mission.

When are Lodia, Bobo, and Stripey due back? I asked Floridiana, who was in the middle of saying something, probably unimportant, to Aurelia.

" – madness to think we could – what?"

I said, when do Lodia, Bobo, and Stripey return? You indicated earlier that they were due back shortly, right? In fact, she'd praised the timing of my return, unintentional though it had been.

"Any day now. I don't know their precise travel plans – Piri, what are you plotting this time?"

I ignored the implications. Den. I picked the one of us who could fly fastest, given that Aurelia wasn't in any shape to go anywhere just now. Tell them to come here as fast as possible. Better yet, carry them here.

"On it."

He was halfway out the window when Dusty neighed, "Hey! Why are you sending him? I am the Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders, Inquisitor of – !"

Yeah, whatever. Feel free to go with him

Dusty's hindquarters tensed as he prepared to spring out the window after Den.

"Not that way!" snapped Floridiana. "We just replaced the frame after last time, remember?"

Last time? I cocked my head.

"You don't want to know," Floridiana informed me, as Dusty spun on his back hooves and galloped out the door.

As his hoof beats died away down the hall and the room stopped vibrating, I turned my attention back to Aurelia. She was hunched up in an armchair, holding a teacup in both hands as though she'd forgotten to either drink from it or set it down. Someone – Dusty, I gathered from the saliva – had draped a blanket over her shoulders. The coarse wool chafed the filmy silk of her robes, but she didn't seem to notice.

Aurelia. How fast can you rally your allies in Heaven?

"My allies in Heaven?"

Well, yes. Surely you didn't become Assistant Director of a Bureau without allies?

No matter how qualified she was, no one was going to award her a post based on merit alone. Hence, she must have an entire network of connections, of people who owed her favors, people who couldn't say no when she called in their debts, people who'd risen with her and would fall with her now. That was just how courts worked, Heavenly or otherwise.

But she was shaking her head. "There's no one. At least, not anymore."

How can that possibly be true?

"I committed the worst crime possible, Piri! I stole a Peach of Immortality!"

Floridiana, one of the reasons for that "worst" crime, winced.

"I stole from my direct superior, who trusted me enough to put me in charge of her greatest treasure! Who is going to stand by a thief?"

And yet, you seem to expect us to.

"Piri!" scolded Floridiana. "She's obviously had a traumatic experience, she's distraught, you can't talk to her that way – "

It's precisely because she's traumatized and distraught that someone needs to snap her out of it. She's not going to be any use to anyone if she doesn't start thinking. Come on, Aurelia! I don't know your network in Heaven. Who owes you?

But she kept shaking her head and mumbling, "No one. No one owes me this much...."

With a sigh, Floridiana reached out, took the teacup away from Aurelia before she squeezed the porcelain to pieces, and drank the tea herself. From the face she made, it had gone cold and bitter. "How about a different question? Who are your friends? Who would help you just because you asked them to?"

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The funniest thing happened. I could have sworn that Aurelia flicked a glance my way before she shook her head again. "No one." It came out as a sob. "I have no friends in Heaven. My own lieutenant betrayed me...."

I scoured my mind for anyone I'd ever seen with her in Heaven. That time I attended the Meeting of the Dragon Host with the Black Sand Creek Water Court – when she came to thank the clerks for their hard work, hadn't she been accompanied by two crane maidens?

How about your other lieutenant? Will she help?

"My other lieutenant? You mean Lady Grus?" Aurelia thought for a moment. "It seems unlikely…."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she needed to appoint more reliable ladies-in-waiting. Only, given the lengths to which I'd gone to decimate her retinue on Earth and replace them with people who reported to me, she might not take it well.

"How about Flicker's friends?" Floridiana put in. "Does he have friends who might help?"

"He's a clerk!" said Aurelia and I at the same time and in the same incredulous tone.

How would he have any influential friends?

"And I am – was a traveling mage," Floridiana retorted. "Just look at who I take tea with now."

Aurelia and I looked at each other.

She does have a point….

"Yes...only Flicker's and my social circles didn't really…intersect, so I never met any of his friends.... Wait!" Aurelia cried so suddenly that Floridiana and I both jumped. "There might be someone!"

"Who?"

Who?

"Glitter, the Superintendent of Reincarnation! She sought me out, actually! Right after Flicker was arrested! She said something cryptic about how he – and you, Piri – promised to make the Bureau of Reincarnation functional."

Floridiana's eyebrows shot up the way Den's eyeknobs did when he couldn't believe his floppy draconic ears. "You did?"

I did?

I didn't remember making any such deal with Glitter. Which meant that Flicker must have, and pledged my assistance without my knowledge. I was going to have to have words with him. After we rescued him, of course. Potentially with Glitter's help thanks to this deal Flicker had committed us to without my knowledge. Hmmm….

"She also implied that the clerks want to change all of Heaven and would be willing to help us save Flicker if we in turn help them." Aurelia shook her head in wonderment.

The clerks. The Accountants. All the star sprites in Heaven. The ones who made it run, without whom it couldn't run.

That's it! That's how we're going to save Flicker!

Aurelia was all for flying straight up to Heaven to break down the gates of the Bureau of Human Lives as soon as the words left my mouth, but we had to wait for Den to return. In considerably less time than I'd expected – but considerably more than Aurelia found tolerable – the dragon swooshed up to the window, and Bobo and Stripey tumbled in.

"Rosssie! You're back!" The bamboo viper flung herself at me and wrapped me from head to tail in green-and-yellow coils. "Oh, you're back you're back you're back!"

Hi, Bobo, I wheezed, her name coming out in a whoosh as she literally constricted the breath out of my lungs.

She won't be back for long if you squeeze her to death, commented Stripey, and I tilted my head back to find a crane's eye twinkling down at me. Hi, Rosie.

Bobo loosened her coils so we could sit side by side, but kept them wrapped around me as if I might vanish if she let go. "I'm ssso happy to sssee you! And you're a fox again!"

She was the first person who'd been excited on my behalf that I had finally, finally regained my true form. I am!

The cushion on my other side sagged as Stripey settled down next to me, his feathers brushing my fur. So, how is it to be a fox again? What have you been up to?

I couldn't bring myself to confess that I'd wasted a whole year frolicking in the forest. I've been doing well. But I'm even better now that I'm finally back.

Hmmm.

His eyes glinted, and I thought he'd seen right through me, as he always did. He didn't call me out, although that might have been because hoof beats rattled the walls, and Dusty charged in with Lodia clinging to his neck.

"The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind, Vanquisher of Invaders, Inquisitor of Vassals, Vainglorious Subjugator of Insubordinate Insurgents, and Vaunted Savior of the Imperial Order is HERE!"

He reared like a warhorse in a painting. Lodia slid right off his rump and landed on the rug with a thump. Luckily, it was a very plush rug.

"Oh, sorry about that." Dusty craned his neck around to whuffle at her hair.

"That's all right," she said after a moment. The fall had knocked her lenses askew, and she adjusted them over her eyes before hauling herself to her feet with the help of a chair arm. Then she caught sight of Aurelia and sank into a prostration so fast that I thought she'd fainted.

"Rise, child," said Aurelia. "There is no need for such formality."

"Oh, yes, um, thank you, Heavenly Lady." Lodia got to her feet awkwardly, and I could tell she wanted to fidget with her fingers.

Why don't you sit down next to Floridiana? I pointed a paw at the empty spot next to the mage. I supposed Bobo or Stripey could have moved for Lodia, but I was content scrunched up between them like a fox kit between its littermates.

"Thank you, I will – Pip? Is that you?!"

I inclined my fox's head graciously. Yes, it is I.

"You're a fox?"

I cocked my head at Dusty. I take it you didn't tell her?

"Surprises are good for the soul."

In other words, you got over-excited and forgot to tell her? Stripey asked in that dry way of his.

"I'm sssure he didn't forget!" Bobo defended the baby horse spirit. "Dusty would never forget sssomething ssso important!"

The horse tossed his mane. "I would NOT. So remember your promise, fox. The moment approaches when you will address me as YOUR HIGHNESS!"

I had to roll my eyes. Your sense of scale is impeccable as always, Dusty.

Floridiana chopped her hand through the air between us. "Bicker later. We're all here. Piri, now will you tell us your plan?"

The moment had come. I sat up as straight as my spine and forelegs would allow and swished my tail so spelled lamplight danced across its sparkly white tip.

Friends, the moment has come! By torturing Flicker and persecuting the Star of Reflected Brightness, Heaven has shown that it is corrupt to the core. It is a palace whose beams are rotting, a den whose roof is caving in. So dysfunctional has it become that it cannot carry out so basic a function as sending a chimera to legitimize the Emperor it selected itself! The gods and goddesses squabble over offerings while all of Heaven sinks into spiritual and literal bankruptcy! I say that it is not Eldon who lacks the mandate to rule over the Serican Empire, but the Jade Emperor who has lost the mandate to reign over Heaven and Earth. The time has come for us to make Heaven what it should always have been! The time has come for TRUE CHANGE!

I raised my chin and surveyed my friends proudly, waiting for their cheers and shouts of determination. Instead –

"So your plan was to tell them we're coming for them?" Floridiana rolled her eyes Heavenward, reminding me that the gods were probably watching.

So much for my ringing tone and rousing phrases.

In retrospect, I supposed that was the reaction I should have expected.

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