fountain yard. Her long hair whipped back into Lorenzo's eyes, blinding him from any view of where she meant to go.
They swept through a gate, and Lorenzo almost broke a rib as Miliana came to an unexpected halt; she wrenched the stretcher hard about, kicked angrily at a lever set into the wall, and brought a spiked portcullis crashing down to seal the door behind her.
'They'll go back into the palace and find another way around. Come on-we'll hide Tekoriikii in my rooms!'
'But what about the ceremony?' Lorenzo reeled and staggered in Miliana's wake. 'The painting! It's about to be unveiled!'
'Oh, dear gods!'
In the palace fountain, something struggled, thrashed, and dove. Miliana pulled the stretcher to a halt; Lorenzo's friend Luccio jerked up out of the water with a look of panicked innocence on his face. Dripping wet, breathless, and covered with some sort of welts, he stared in shock at Lorenzo, Princess Miliana, and the lolling firebird.
'I wasn't doing anything! There's no one in here!'
'Good!' Lorenzo, breathless, burnt, and businesslike pushed back his dusty hair. 'Now, quickly, grab the bottom painting, get into the palace hall, and swap it for the one they're about to put up on display!'
'What?' A flushed Luccio struggled up out of the fountain, streaming water from his tunic top. 'In the name of Beshaba, why?'
'Because it's the wrong damned painting! Now just do it, while we go and hide this bird!' Lorenzo, caught in the flow of panic, suddenly wrenched to a halt and stared more closely at his friend's neck. 'Is that some sort of bite mark-there on your neck?'
'It's a rash!' Luccio hurriedly removed the bottom painting from under Tekoriikii. 'It's nothing.'
'A rash? Look… there's a whole lot more of them all over your…'
'I'll swap the paintings!' Hiding his love-bitten neck, Luccio hustled Lorenzo onward toward the palace halls. 'Now-now just run along with your bird, and I'll deal with everything.'
The sounds of doors bursting open came from every side. Miliana spied an open portal leading into the palace sculleries and charged off with her pointy hat tilted like a battering ram.
Luccio watched it all in bemusement and heaved a puzzled sigh. Quite suddenly, a slim, seductive shape emerged from the waters behind him and trapped him in its arms. With a brief squawk, Luccio disappeared beneath the foam as the nixie raised great passionate tidal waves with her webbed limbs.
Plunging through the sculleries with their towering stacks of copper pots and pans, Miliana collapsed in a heap to catch her breath. From her unique position under the canvas, she could see the painting staring her straight in the eye.
A slim sea-goddess riding a silvery dragon.
'It's the wrong painting!'
'What?' Lorenzo pushed Tekoriikii's plumes aside to meet Miliana eye-to-eye. 'The wrong what?'
'This is the sea goddess! You've given Luccio the wrong one!'
'Damn!'
Lorenzo whipped the painting out from under Tekoriikii's belly, dropping the creature onto Miliana with a thump. He ran outside, clutching at the painting, looked about himself, and saw no sign of Luccio.
The second painting leaned against the fountain, abandoned and forgotten. Lorenzo ducked frantically back inside.
'He's gone off and left the painting out there!'
'What?' Miliana struggled out from under a great mass of limp red bird. 'Well, we'll just have to do it ourselves then!' Skinny arms thrust ineffectually at Tekoriikii's bulk. 'Help get this dumb thing off me!'
A cheese trolley stood beside the kitchen door. Miliana emerged from under the firebird, spat feathers from her mouth, and peered through a curtain into the palace's crowded great hall.
Up at the far end of the room, a covered canvas stood proudly on display. Courtiers, ambassadors, and Blade Captain Toporello had gathered about Prince Mannicci as he prepared to draw the cord and bare his daughter's charms to a waiting world. Miliana gave a shriek of alarm and crowded back into Lorenzo's arms.
'They're going to pull the cord!'
Lorenzo took one look at the unwieldy firebird, the cheese trolley, and the cook's hats hanging from hooks on the wall. He hoisted Tekoriikii up and slammed him atop the gurney, then jammed an apple into the creature's open beak. Tekoriikii froze in shock as he was surrounded with wax fruit stolen from a mantelpiece display.
'Tekoriikii-just stay there!' Lorenzo jammed a chef's hat across Miliana's ruined headgear, then crammed another hat across his own brows and stuffed the painting into the trolley's lower rack. 'Stay there and hang on!'
The curtain was ripped aside; pushing the gurney wildly across the room, bashing aside crowds and ramming courtiers into the punch bowls, Miliana and Lorenzo clove a path across the hall. With Tekoriikii frozen in fright, the apple still gripped firmly in his mouth, they rumbled madly out into the room.
'Catering!' Lorenzo sent Toporello's buxom daughter crashing into a dwarven tunnel baron. 'Catering! Coming through-excuse me, pardon me-excuse me!' Lorenzo charged straight toward the painting at the far end of the hall. 'Roast ostrich for the prince! Gangway!'
The whole ensemble whipped past an astonished crowd and cracked into the painting display. Firebird, trolley, wax fruit and all went sailing like shrapnel through the sky.
Lorenzo whipped the picture of the sea goddess-this time checking that it truly was the sea goddess-out of hiding and deftly swapped it for the painting of Miliana. He jammed the newly stolen painting into the relieved princess's arms, threw Tekoriikii across his shoulders, and felt the creature croak and eject the apple in a shallow trajectory, far across the room.
'Sorry… this bird's off. I'll just get another!'
Leaping a hurdle of fallen men, Lorenzo led the way for Miliana through a swinging door. As outrage broke out behind them, the two thieves and their bird dropped the locking bar behind them and slumped in exhaustion against the wall.
'There, see? Now wasn't that easy?' Lorenzo raggedly caught his breath, wiping sweat back from his eyes. He briskly uncovered the painting in Miliana's hands and gazed at his creation with love.
'There-isn't it beautiful?'
'It's wonderful. Thank you so much for the compliment!' Behind Miliana, the swinging door was slowly being battered open. Miliana wrenched open a curtain to discover a room crowded with dwarves. 'Free beer-that way!'
The effect was astonishing; with their war cry of 'I'll have another round!' the dwarves tried to cram their way through the swinging door, pushing frantically against the efforts of the angry mob inside the great hall. Miliana tugged Lorenzo away from the wall, forced the giddy Tekoriikii to his feet, and led a swift retreat into the deepest palace corridors.
Several cunning twists and turns soon lost all signs of pursuit. Slowing her pace, discarding her disguise, and restoring her pointy hat, Miliana took Lorenzo by the hand, and Tekoriikii by the wing, and led them wearily toward her tower home.
'Now, perhaps, we can get a little peace.' The girl mopped at her brow with a ragged little sigh. 'And a few explanations. Tekoriikii, perhaps you might be so good as to tell me what you were doing with that jewel?'
'Glub glub!' The bird swallowed hard, put a wing up to his throat, and looked bemusedly around. 'Squonky donky glub glub!'
'Yes, well, be that as it may…' Miliana creased her pretty freckled nose into a frown. 'Do either of you have any idea what might have happened to you. Fiance or no fiance, they can behead people like you!' The girl fumbled open the latch of her apartment door. 'At least the worst that can ever happen to me is to-'
The door had swung open to reveal Miliana's rooms; standing facing her in a phalanx of poisonous frowns were Lady Ulia, her maidservants, a dozen angry elves, and a squad of palace guards.
The broken bathroom ceiling had been discovered; soldiers were carrying down basket after basket of gems. It was a veritable dragon's hoard; a massive mound of glittering baubles worth a king's ransom.
Tekoriikii withdrew his head timidly behind Miliana's rump. The girl simply froze, goggling at the piles of loot
