For lack of anyone better (or at all, really) to bounce ideas off, I went to Katu.

I know, I know, but hey, his poems were actually pretty good, especially the one about me playing in Lodia’s lap; we held some opinions in common (i.e. that Lodia needed get out of the house and get on with her life); and he was as proactive as I about helping her. So I might as well harness his energy for my plan.

As soon as I came up with one.

Which he was going to help me do.

I was entirely unsurprised to find the poet outside a wineshop, debating politics with the old folks. Although perhaps “debating” was not the right word here.

With his too-long hair and too-baggy sleeves billowing in the breeze, Katu was arguing, “But Her Majesty’s advisers are leading her astray! She never changed them after her father died, did she? If flinging soldiers at the Wilds didn’t work then, why would it work now?”

A good two-thirds of the white-haired, hunchbacked humans were drowsing in the sunshine or poking elephant chess pieces around on their gameboards. The last third was wide awake – and angry. I really needed to add “survival skills” to Katu’s repertoire.

An old granny with stringy hair raised her cane and poked him in the chest. “Young man, don’t spout nonsense about things thou understand’st not. Thou’rt far too young to remember the Battle of Dragon Fruit Peak.”

(Dragon fruit?)

Katu puffed up in indignation. “Granny Wen, we studied it in school, and it was – ”

A wizened old gran’pa leaned forward, bracing his palms on his bony knees. “And did thy teacher not tell thee about King Jullius’ glorious victory? Ha, I knew it! O, ‘education’ these days! Back when I was in school, we memorized our textbooks word for word. We were beaten for every wrong answer we gave too! It was ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ None of this ‘spare the rod’ only rubbish.”

One of his friends opened his eyes a slit and cackled. “Hee hee hee, thou’d know about the rod, wouldn’t thou?”

And, forgetting all about the Glorious Battle of Dragon Fruit Peak, they started swapping tales about long-ago school days when they were always getting beaten, both in school and at home. Katu set his jaw and attempted to slide in half-sentences but had very little success, especially when the rest of the grannies and gran’pas woke up and started reminiscing about their courting days.

“Hee hee hee, and thou snuck into Old Man Acinus’ orchard to steal lychees, didn’t thou? Oh, thy face when he caught you! Hee hee hee!”

“It worked,” an old man defended himself. “She went with me to see the princess-of-the-night flowers.”

“Right, right, that’s what you two did all night – waited for the flowers to open….”

“And she didn’t marry thee in the end, did she? Dumped thee real good. Hee hee hee.”

“I was the one who dumped her, remember? Thou’rt getting addle-brained.”

Meanwhile, they’d completely forgotten about poor Katu, who stood with his arms dangling at his sides, shifting from foot to foot. It was as good a time as any to go rescue him, I supposed.

Landing on his shoulder, I whispered into his ear (not that I was worried about the old people overhearing me), Come, Len Katulus. We must discuss our plans.

“Urp!” He jumped so hard that I had to dig my claws into his tunic to hang on.

“Boy! Thou hast a sparrow on thy shoulder!” shouted one of the grannies.

Yes, thank you, I was pretty sure Katu had noticed.

A gran’pa squinted up at me. “Was it there earlier?”

“Of course it was.”

Another gran’pa snorted. “No, it wasn’t.”

“Thou’rt going blind.”

“No, thou art the one going blind. I heard it from thy wife: the other day, thou mistook a water jug for a – ”

As entertaining as it was, this type of street entertainment would still be here later today. And tomorrow. And the day after that, and on and on until Heaven cracked open and flooded the Earth once more. People never changed.

Come on. Let’s go, I urged Katu, who threw up his hands – nearly knocking me off a second time – and stomped away from the wineshop. Where can we talk in private?

All around us, Lychee Grovers were milling about the open-air market, workers were repairing or building more of those wall-sharing houses, delivery carts were rumbling towards the Earth Court, and vendors were ambling along with their goods swinging from bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders.

“Where can we talk in private?” Katu muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “There’s no privacy to be had anywhere in Lychee Grove.” He didn’t sound happy about that either, for all that he reveled in an audience.

Angling away from the city center, he cut through a passageway, no wider than an adult human’s shoulders, that ran between two buildings to the river. The riverbank was dotted with adults washing laundry or fishing, and children playing in the mud (ha, I remembered Cassia Quarta’s exploits). Neighbors waved and called greetings to him as we passed, and he waved and called greetings back.

At last, he stopped under a willow tree, still within view of a whole gaggle of people, but at least out of earshot. Hopefully. I did see a pangolin spirit playing hide and seek with some human children, and I already knew that pangolin spirits had good hearing. But this seemed to be the best I was going to get.

Leaning back against the trunk, Katu twisted his neck all the way around to watch me out of the corner of his eye. “How may I serve, O Queen’s spy?”

Well, that was unnecessarily sarcastic. I’d been planning to move to save him a neck cramp, but now I stayed right where I was. Should you really use that tone on a royal spy?

He shrugged, unconcerned about shaking me off. I dug in my claws, pricking his skin (but not breaking it – I wasn’t going to get negative karma for causing physical harm to a human). “Probably not. But with Lady Anthea as my patroness….” He shrugged again.

Anthea was his patroness? When had that raccoon dog picked up an appreciation for literature? Or were his poems worse than I’d realized?

If you think that she’d come to your rescue, you wouldn’t last a day – no, an hour! – at court. That – that – I cast about but couldn’t think of a greater insult than: That raccoon dog will abandon you at the first hint of trouble. All she cares about is having fun. She’s not going to bother saving her plaything.

“But I’m not at court.” Incredibly, Katu had the temerity to keep arguing with someone he believed spied for the queen. I’d seen blind, deaf, newborn kittens with better survival instincts!

You do realize that if I report any of this conversation, you’ll be tortured and executed for treason?

At that, he finally squirmed. What I could see of the side of his face looked uneasy. “I’m no traitor to the Queen, spirit. Lady Anthea knows that.”

Whether she knows it or not is immaterial. And just how much influence does she have over the Queen anyway?

It was mostly a rhetorical question, since I couldn’t imagine that raccoon dog having the attention span to build up any kind of useful faction at court. She’d always been ornamental, like that pet chimera Cassius trotted out for official events to remind everyone that the Jade Emperor Himself had sent it to His Favored Son. The rest of the time, the creature had dug up flowerbeds and jumped into lakes and tracked mud all over my pagoda. It had been a great playmate for Cassia Quarta.

Taila would have loved it too. I wondered what had happened to it, after Heaven recalled it as a Sign that the Jade Emperor had withdrawn His Divine Favor. It was probably rampaging through the Heavenly gardens and causing the star sprites much distress.

“Shouldn’t you know better than I?”

Startled out of my reverie, I cocked my head at Katu. The half of his brow that I could see had knit itself in confusion.

Shouldn’t I know what better than he? Oh, right. I’d asked him how much influence Anthea had over the queen. Which I couldn’t imagine amounted to much.

I’m interested in your analysis of the situation. (That wasn’t a lie.) You appear to follow court dynamics and decisions closely. (As closely as someone who was not at court himself and hence relied on tardy, skewed gossip could, anyway.)

“Oh.” If Katu had been a bird, he’d have preened himself. “Well, you’ve come to the right person. It is true that Lady Anthea does not wield as much power as she could, had she the desire to do so. But as a six-hundred-year-old spirit, she has seen governments come and go, and kingdoms – even an empire! – rise and fall, and so she believes that what truly lasts from a culture is its intellectual accomplishments.”

Had Anthea said all of that herself? I hadn’t thought her vocabulary encompassed so many words.

“Thus, she prefers not to sully her hands with court intrigue. Rather, she devotes her attention and considerable resources to supporting artists and thinkers. She is the greatest patron of our age.”

I’d bet she was, using other people’s money.

But I’d also sponsored great works of art and unparalleled feats of science and engineering in my time. Why wasn’t I remembered as the greatest patron of all time?

I knew the answer to that.

Ugh. Just because I’d collapsed an empire. One measly empire, and no one ever let you forget it. Weren’t humans supposed to have short memories?

“And with the Kitchen God as her patron, Lady Anthea is liberated from worrying about the machinations of rivals who are jealous of her beauty and talent and discerning taste in everything she sets her mind to….”

Katu kept praising Anthea in ever more ridiculous terms, but my attention was stuck on the beginning of his sentence. The Kitchen God – the Director of the Bureau of Reincarnation – was Anthea’s patron? How had I never known that?!

I wracked my brain for any hints but came up empty. Anthea had been newly awakened when I met her six hundred years ago, and the first time I showed her around the capital, she’d been overwhelmed by the opulence of the City of Dawn Song. Even after I brought her to court, she had never mentioned a connection to Heaven. Never once had she pushed for a special ceremony to honor the Kitchen God, or any other god for that matter. She’d been content to bask in the adoration of Aurelia’s faction….

You’re positive she isn’t lying about a connection to the Kitchen God? She lies, you know.

“Of course I’m positive! Who’d lie about anything related to Heaven? The Jade Emperor Himself would strike her down!”

Yeah, about that….

But Anthea – Anthea had direct access to the Director of Reincarnation? What I needed most was access to the Director of Reincarnation! I flew to a branch at Katu’s eye level and hopped from side to side, too excited to stand still.

All the pieces of my life here in Lychee Grove were falling into place. I had Lodia and her embroidery and her not-so-secret desire to clear her mother’s name. I had Katu and his love for Lodia and his poetry that had won Anthea’s patronage. And now I had Anthea and her direct access to the Kitchen God. Yes! This was going to work out! I knew what to do now!

Thank goodness Flicker had encouraged me to spend more time in Lychee Grove. I was going to give him a very nice gift once I was a nine-tailed fox again.

The thought of gifts reminded me of something else. Out of curiosity, what is your favorite among the poems you have dedicated to Lady Anthea?

Katu hadn’t specifically said that he’d written anything about her, but he must have.

Indeed, his eyes lit up. “I dedicate only my best work to Her Ladyship, of course, but I am particularly proud of ‘To Anthea, who may command him anything’.”

Of course he was.