Of course not, I retorted, pretending to be offended. You should know me better by now.

A roomful of skeptical faces greeted that reproach. Only Bobo bobbed her head in agreement. "Yep yep! We know you very well! Ssso, what's the plan?"

I presume it involves us and the Temple? asked Stripey. Since you waited for us to return?

That had been part of the reason, but mostly I'd just wanted to see them again, get their – especially his – feedback on my plan. Which I was making up as I went, as usual.

Yes, you and the Temple are integral to my plan. We are going to throw a Festival to All Heaven in all of Serica!

"In all of Serica? At the same time?" gasped Lodia, who was doubtless wondering how she was going to pull off the logistics.

"How is that supposed to overthrow the Jade Emperor?" neighed Dusty. "Aren't we supposed to be overthrowing the Jade Emperor, not making him stronger?"

Watch and learn, child, watch and learn. The condescending swish of my tail made him bristle, but Floridiana made a cutting movement with her hand that stopped him before he bit off my tail tip. This will not be a festival dedicated to a specific god or goddess, and offerings will not need to be made in the Temples. People can dedicate their offerings to whichever gods and goddesses they revere most, in whatever location they feel makes the most fitting altar.

From the widening of Lodia's eyes, she grasped the implications. I was undermining all of her hard work in establishing the Temple to All Heaven as the main conduit between the people on Earth and the gods in Heaven. I was sorry for it, but this was temporary. And it had to be done.

"Do you mean – ?" Floridiana's head jerked back, as if the brilliance of my plan had slapped her across the cheek.

I nodded regally. I do indeed.

A gleeful whoop burst out of Stripey's throat. I like it, announced the former duck demon bandit.

"Sssounds fun!" cried Bobo, while Den shook his head until his mane flew.

"Only you, Piri. Only you."

The only one who hadn't figured out my true scheme appeared to be Dusty, who stamped and pawed at the rug until tufts of it came loose. "I don't get it. I don't get it. Your plan makes no sense, fox."

Floridiana opened her mouth to explain it to him in small, simple words that even a baby spirit could understand, but Aurelia beat her to it. Raising her head and straightening her back so abruptly that the blanket slid off to pool behind her, she uttered a single word. "Chaos." Her brown eyes were fixed not on him, but on me. "You're going to sow chaos."

Sliding a sidelong glance her way, I bared my teeth in a wide fox's grin. It is what I do best.

Conveniently, we – or, more accurately, the other members of the Imperial Council – had established a courier system to send out invitations to Eldon's coronation gala, and no one had dismantled it in the year I'd been gone. If anything, it had grown, with regular mail runs to the more populated parts of the Empire. I commandeered it in the name of the Temple, and Lodia and her priests frantically sent out notices declaring a Festival to All Heaven, to commence as soon as a given locale received the missive and to last for as long as each place saw fit to honor the gods and goddesses who watched over those who lived there.

I danced around Floridiana's study, imagining the chaos in Heaven. A free-for-all of offerings? The gods and goddesses would be tripping over – and straight-out tripping – one another to snatch as many as they could. The minor ones might even come down to Earth to trade promises and blessings for offerings!

"Great Lady." Sphaera's quiet voice interrupted my cavorting. "You sent for me?"

I flashed her a toothy grin before bounding off Floridiana's desk onto the top of a bookcase. I did. Transform to look exactly like me and come dance with me.

She blinked multiple times while I leaped off the bookcase and onto the low table where we took tea. "I...beg your pardon, Great Lady? Did you mean transform into the way you looked as a nine-tailed fox, or the way you look now...?"

That was a valid question. The way I look now. Hurry.

She concentrated. Green smoke puffed around her, and when it dissipated, on the rug sat a young fox with a single fluffy tail and markings that looked identical to mine.

I pranced up to her. Dance with me!

"Yes, Great Lady!"

I led her on a merry romp over and under and around the furniture, until I was certain she could copy my mannerisms as exactly as my coloring. Then I stood up on my hind legs, grabbed her front paws with mine, and spun us around and around in a circle until the tapestries were a blur of colors. At last, we collapsed into a giggly heap, limbs and tails so entangled that it was impossible for any spying gods to tell where one fox ended and the other began and, most importantly, which one of us was which.

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Keep giggling, I whispered into Sphaera's ear, and her peals of laughter rang out across the room. You're going to be me while I go up to Heaven.

"Without me – ?" She started to protest but caught herself and turned the sentence into a merry "tee hee hee."

Just for now. I'll come back for you. I promise. But I need you to pretend to be me for now. Only you can do it.

It was even the truth, not mere manipulative flattery. Out of all my friends and allies, Sphaera had spent the most time studying me and mimicking me. If anyone could play me convincingly, it was she.

"Thank you, Great Lady! I won't let you down!"

I know you won't. Now – go forth and be me!

On the final word, I leaped up, ran around the room one last time, pretending to be Sphaera overwhelmed with glee at being entrusted with a mission by her idol, and sailed out the door.

Team Rescue Flicker was already waiting by the ornamental lake behind the New Palace. From under the hood of the cloak she was wearing to hide her glow, Aurelia peered around the gardens.

"The peach tree that the children used to climb was there," she was murmuring to herself. "That's where the courtiers used to play elephant chess. And that's where...."

Her voice died away as her gaze came to rest on the empty air where my pagoda once soared. I hadn't attempted to recreate it (yet), but neither had I let the landscape designers build anything on the spot where it should have been.

Channeling Sphaera – which was fox kit's play given that she was always channeling me – I sashayed up to my friends. Is everything set?

Floridiana squinted at me. "Sphaera? No, wait."

"Everything is set," Den answered for her. Right before my eyes, he tripled in size, until even Dusty could stand solidly on his back. "Everybody on."

Floridiana climbed up first, reaching down to catch me when I leaped at the wrong angle and was about to bounce off Den's side. I tucked myself in front of her so she could grab me if I slid off. Just in case. Fox paws were silky and adorable, but the lack of an opposable thumb made it hard to hang on to Den's mane. All the more reason to live long enough to reclaim my nine-tailed human form!

As for Dusty, he made the jump without issue and snorted his derision at me, but I noted that his hooves kept skidding every which way on Den's slick scales.

Don't fall off. You'll slow us down.

"The Valiant Prince of the Victorious Whirlwind does not fall off anything, fox!"

Aurelia was the only one who balked at riding a dragon up to Heaven. "I can fly myself," she declared, floating up to stand on air level with us.

Then you might as well fling off that cloak and proclaim to all Heaven that you're coming. I thought my objection was perfectly reasonable, but Den sighed and shook his head, the movement nearly spilling us off.

Aurelia stiffened. "The way you proclaimed to all Heaven that you're coming for it?"

Still, she did see the logic in my words because she settled onto Den's back behind Floridiana, pretending to be a mere mortal who couldn't fly into the sky whenever she pleased.

"Must you antagonize her?" Floridiana whispered at the top of my head as Den took off. His long tail swept from side to side, like an eel in Black Sand Creek, propelling him through the air.

When I'd caught my breath and my stomach had settled back to where it should be, I whispered back, I'm not antagonizing her. I'm just telling her the truth. Everyone needs someone who will tell them the truth, lest they lose touch with reality.

It had been one of the (many) weaknesses of Cassius' court – of any court, really. Those at the top were swaddled in so many layers of hierarchy that it was fox kit's play to feed them the lies they wanted to hear.

"How very generous of you." Aurelia's tone was so dry that it could have wrung all the moisture from my skin.

I craned my head back to check her expression, but at that moment, a blinding light plummeted through the sky ten feet to the left. It was followed by another, then another, until we seemed to be flying through a hailstorm of shooting stars.

"What's THAT?" neighed Dusty.

Minor star gods. Peering down at Earth, I could see puffs of light and dirt rising where they landed. My lips peeled back in a grin. It's working.

Alas, my mortal fox's eyes couldn't resolve the details, but several golden lights appeared to be charging for the same spot.

A wet squelch. Floridiana stamped herself between the eyes. "They're all going for the same offering table. Now they're picking up the dishes of fruit. Are they each going to bring one back to Heaven?"

"Keep watching," Aurelia murmured, and I raised my eyes to her face in time to see her lips press into a thin line.

Oh, naive young mages, I sighed.

For a moment, Aurelia's and my eyes met, and I could have sworn the corners of her lips quirked up. A furious screech wrenched our attention back down to Earth.

I still couldn't see anything besides a big golden blur, but Dusty gasped, "Whoa! Is she really going to – " An enraged shriek from below. He sucked in a sharp breath. "I can't believe she just did that!"

"And all for a plate of apples!" agreed Floridiana.

What? What happened?

Floridiana's eyes were still riveted to the scene below. "Oh! Is she going to fly back up – oh, no, she's going for the basket of steamed buns next."

"Yeah! Get it! Get IT, get IT, get IT!" chanted Dusty.

I writhed with frustration. What a show I was missing! A show of my orchestration, no less. What happened? What are they doing?

"Yeah! She got them!" Floridiana pumped a fist in the air.

A split second later, Dusty bellowed, "No! Don't let him get away with that! Stomp him!"

I snapped my jaws shut on Floridiana's sleeve, making sure not to catch her flesh. Tell me what's going on! Or stamp me too!

But she was too engrossed in the scuffle below. "Yeah! Deck him with that table!"

I was just about to shift my teeth to her wrist when Aurelia's low voice reached me. "Half a dozen minor star gods and goddesses are fighting over a table of offerings in a village square. They seem starved."

Starved, were they? Guess the Goddess of Life didn't distribute the offerings from the Temples equitably, did she?

Cool eyes met mine. "You were counting on her not to, so you could sow strife in Heaven."

That...hadn't actually been part of my plan when I made the Goddess of Life that offer. I'd been focused on incentivizing her to stop trying to murder my friends, and a rich source of offerings overseen by them had been the best bribe I could devise. But hey, who was to say that my subconscious hadn't been hard at work searching for ways to undermine Heaven?

It could have happened. It might have happened. It probably had happened.

I slanted a glance at her. You know me. Since when have I ever done anything for one reason alone? My plots are as thick as the fur on my tails – tail.

I thought that sounded convincingly foxy and mysterious, but when I looked at Aurelia again, she was shaking her head. If she'd been Floridiana and not a dignified star goddess, she might even have rolled her eyes.

Curses! This was what happened when you let people get close enough to see the true you! They saw right through your pretenses. I leaned forward to address Den.

Come on. Less sightseeing, more flying. Let's go save Flicker.

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