'I'm only thinking of the masses.'
'Yes.' Miliana reached for a textbook and primly opened the cover. 'Obviously you haven't tried smelling the masses lately.'
She tried to dismiss him with her pose, but it seemed Lorenzo Utrelli Da thingamajig was made of sterner, dumber stuff; the man regarded her with a look of unfeigned amazement and tried to catch her eye.
'Um… Miss? Milady?'
'It's Miliana.'
'Oh-Miliana!' Lorenzo let the name brand itself in great steaming letters on the inside of his skull, entirely failing to connect it with royal blood and wedding bells. 'I just wanted to tell you how much I've appreciated talking with you. Intellectually, mind-to-mind, I mean. It's-it's utterly amazing!'
'What?' Miliana speared her companion with one stab of her eye. 'Because I'm a mage, or because I'm a girl?'
'Well it's not as if you're actually a girl!' Lorenzo dug his own grave with cheerful, brainless enthusiasm. 'I mean-you're a scholar.'
Miliana shot the man a baleful glance. Lorenzo took it as a sign of approval and heaved a great sigh of satisfaction.
'Well this has been fascinating. Utterly fascinating! Do you live somewhere nearby?'
'I live in the palace. In the west tower. The one with all the plaster falling off the walls.' Miliana adjusted her spectacles so that she might gaze down her nose at Lorenzo. 'Lady Ulia is my mother-do you understand?' Lorenzo had rarely understood anything less; even so, he nodded his head and attempted to look learned, cosmopolitan, and wise.
'Well, then, I can see you again! I mean-would you mind if, from time to time, I use you as an aid for my studies?'
'Yes, yes, whatever you like!' Miliana opened the door to usher out her unwanted guest. 'Now, please do run along and leave me to my reading. There's only another hour of heraldry left in my speaking box.'
The girl slammed the door, then suddenly frowned, tugged it open once again, and relieved the startled Lorenzo of his lockpicks. Sealing herself safely back inside once more, Miliana leaned against the shelves and gave a great, frustrated sigh.
A Lomatran loose inside the palace? For a moment, the concept rang vague alarm bells, and Miliana searched for a reason.
Ah! Last night, Ulia had mentioned a Lomatran suitor. But suitors came in carriages with bouquets and minstrels singing serenades, not in scruffy hats, picking locks on library doors.
Miliana's magic noise box had now reached up to chapter eighty-eight: The Improper Use of Propers. Trying to regain her previous peace of mind, Miliana Mannicci perched herself on the table and began to read her sooty scrolls.
'Luccio!'
Lorenzo catapulted into the apartments he shared with his boyhood friend. He looked like a pixie which had spent too long buzzing around a candle flame; scorched, dumb, and dazed. The boy collided with a wall, looked wildly about the room with its easels, paintings, and half-built perpetual-motion machines, and then fought his way through a connecting door. He discovered Luccio sitting on the balcony, hard at work marking the backs of a deck of playing cards.
'Luccio-the most amazing thing's just happened!'
'Amazing?' Luccio, still suffering from the effects of a rather dodgy neutralize poison spell that didn't quite seem to quite recognize wine as a poison, peered at his friend through startling purple eyes. 'Whatever do you mean, my cherub?'
'I've just met the most amazing person. Well-girl.' Lorenzo blinked. 'Woman. I mean-she's sort of a woman, but a person too!'
'Do tell?'
'Well, I mean, she's a girl but she's…' The scholar groped his hands blindly through the air searching for adequate words. 'She's not like a girl at all! I mean-she only talked about real things-magic and mechanics and sociopolitical infrastructures-you know what I mean.'
'Real things.' Luccio shuffled cards briskly between his palms, keeping an amused eye on his sooty friend. 'Do say on! You admire her for her mind. Was this paragon of politics also, perhaps, just a touch pretty?'
'No!' Lorenzo seemed utterly offended at the inference-then immediately leapt to the defense of his newfound colleague. 'Well, yes, she was. But not… not so you'd notice. Sort of… sort of profoundly pretty. Not just beautiful.'
'But she has the appropriate dimensions, accessories-all that sort of thing?'
'Um… I think so.' Lorenzo screwed up his brow in an attempt to recall more than Miliana's striking, intelligent eyes. 'I forgot to look.'
'Ah, dear.' Luccio tossed aside his cards and sorrowfully folded his fingers across his breast. 'That, my little chuck, is not the best of signs. It is indicative-if you will forgive me-of love.'
Lorenzo Utrelli Da Lomatra drew himself up as primly as a nesting hen.
'I beg your pardon, but it is nothing of the sort! This is an intellectual challenge; a meeting of opposed philosophies and complementary minds.' Lorenzo sniffed, affecting a superior air. 'She has offered to assist me in my research.'
'Oh, yes, of course.' Luccio made a motherly expression of pouting solicitude. 'I had forgotten that the pure torch of reason leaves no space for other lights within your soul.'
Tall and gangly as a starving troll, Luccio reclined atop the dangerous balcony rails.
'The arrow shot, sweet triumph strikes she home
'Into the breast of heroes, who no more shall roam.
'To the winds fly wits-ambition o'er leaps the stars!
'Our court we pay to Lliira-not to Shar.'
Luccio held aloft a single finger to the sky. 'Who is she, what's her name, and what color were her eyes?'
'Um-well… well, no color! Not that I could see.'
'Alas-you have the affliction. Never matter-let us pursue it like a wild young hart and revel in the chase!' Luccio sprang along railings, balanced carelessly beside a drop at least three stories high. Swooping up the deck of cards, he casually flipped two upon the table: 'the lovers' and 'the fool.' Accepting the omens, he fished beneath the couch for a half-full bottle of wine. 'But did you not forget, heart, that your father has his mind set upon you wedding a princess?'
'I'll tell him she refused me. A marriage would interfere with my intellectual life-particularly marriage to some stuck-up princess.' Lorenzo dusted off his fingers, ridding himself of his father's plans. 'I shall pursue spiritual and scholarly growth.'
'Aaah… spiritual growth!' Luccio walked a silver coin across the back of his hand. 'With your friend with the sparkling eyes?'
'Look, Luccio-we only talked about systems of political economy.'
'Aaaah! Then here's to political economy!' Luccio flung himself into a corner and delighted himself with romantic plans. 'So, what shall we do? We must construct ourselves a grand campaign. How shall we bring this flower to your lips-this treasure to your heart?'
'I thought maybe I might send her a letter… something nice…?'
'A letter?' Luccio rose slowly, as though facing down a horror in the night. 'A letter? Are you mad, my boy? Are you addled? Are you drunken? Are you sick?' Luccio shot up and clamped a struggling Lorenzo under his arm. 'Never! I shall show you how the deed is done. I shall lead you to the fields of Elysium, and toss away the plaque which reads, 'tread not upon the grass'!'
'You're a very strange man, Luccio.'
'Silence! There are but a few dozen gods of love, and Luccio is their prophet!' Luccio produced another card,
