“Shh, shh, we’ve been through worse,” Floridiana murmured to Dusty.

She ran her hand over his neck, feeling his skin twitch and then settle under her palm, the way she had so many times in the past, before he awakened and she turned into a schoolteacher. A schoolteacher, of all things.

As if seconding her disbelief, the horse blew out a long snort.

“We’ll be fine, we’ll be fine,” she chanted, the way she used to when it was just the two of them (and sometimes a North Serican cat spy) on the road. Together, they’d faced down bandits, hostile guards, guards who moonlighted as bandits, demons, and everything in between. “We’ll be just fine, Dusty.”

Unlike those past times, though, her horse could talk back now. “How do you know we’ll be fine? Have we ever been conscripted by a freaking army?”

Did the taskforce and that not-even-half-baked, last-minute plan to fight Lord Silurus count? “Yes, in fact. And we made it out just fine. We haven’t even been conscripted this time, just…temporarily detained. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

How long had it been since the ambush? It felt like forever, but then again, time moved in strange ways when you were surrounded by soldiers who could shoot you or stab you or bash in your skull whenever they pleased. That pangolin raiding party leader had even taken her seal. Just ripped it off her belt and walked away, tossing it up and down in his hand as he left.

He claimed he’d return it “after it’s over,” but without her seal, she felt naked. Without her seal, she couldn’t do anything. Without her seal, she was just another weak, ordinary, middle-aged human woman. “We’ve been through worse,” she kept telling Dusty, but she knew they hadn’t.

For one thing, they’d never been betrayed by a demon before. Why and for what, she had no idea, but there was no doubt in her mind that The Demon had led them straight into the ambush.

Pawing at the ground, Dusty asked, “Where’s Bobo? Where’s Rosie?”

“Shh!” Floridiana darted a glance around them, but the soldiers were busy checking their weapons or listening to reports from scouts. Hardly moving her lips, she whispered, “I’m sure they’re getting help. We’ll get out of this soon enough, you’ll see.”

“I don’t like it, I don’t like it.” His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he tried to rear again.

She grabbed his reins and dragged him down. “Maybe you don’t remember, ‘cause it was before you awakened, but we’ve faced bandits and demons on the road before. Just because there are more of them this time doesn’t change a thing.”

“Oy! Keep it down!” snapped a soldier.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized. Moving closer to Dusty, she stroked his nose. “We’ve seen worse, we’ve been through worse, and I’ve gotten us out of it every time. When have I failed you? We’ll get out of it this time too, I promise.”

In the very worst case scenario, she’d offer her services to the army as a mage. Whatever they were up to here, a little magical assistance never hurt.

“Rosssie, Rosssie, we have to sssave them!” Bobo gasped, so loudly that I was sure the pangolins would hear her.

Shh! They have good hearing!

“But we have to do sssomething,” she hissed in a lower voice.

I know! You don’t have to tell me that!

At the foot of our tree, Floridiana seemed to be taking her captivity with surprising calm. She unhitched Dusty from the wagon, stroked his neck, and spoke to him in a low, soothing tone. I caught bits and pieces of it: “Shh, shh, it’ll be fine,” and “We’ve done this before, remember?” and “We’ll get through it all right.” I’d known that the life of a travelling mage must be full of bandits and demons, but I hadn’t realized until this moment just how dangerous it was. Good thing I’d twisted her arm into settling down in the Claymouth Barony.

If only I’d forbidden her from coming south with Bobo and me! What had possessed me to agree? Now if she got hurt, it was on my head – or rather, karma total – wasn’t it? Sigh. This was what happened when I tried to be nice to people and grant them their heart’s desire.

(Never mind the part where having a horse, wagon, and mage had been convenient for me too.)

“Oh, oh! Rosssie! You know people in Lychee Grove, don’t you? That perssson who knows the, uh, perssson who knows where Ssstripey is.”

Uhhh….

Yeah, no, I was not seeking out Anthea to throw myself on her mercy and beg her to rescue my friends. Not so much because I thought she’d reject me or backstab me (she could try all she wanted, but success was a different story) but, just – no.

Anyway, she was probably with the queen right now. She probably wasn’t even in Lychee Grove for me to seek out.

Bobo’s mind had already raced on to other rescue options. “Oh! The girl! The new girl you’re helping. You sssaid ssshe’s very nice, didn’t you? Ssshe can help us.”

Lodia? Shrinking, timid, touch-me-not-plant-like Lodia? Help us? I cocked my head to the side, trying to picture it.

Huh, actually, it wasn’t such a bad idea. As Bobo said, Lodia was a nice girl and would want to help, at least when she wasn’t busy sabotaging herself with her own lack of self-confidence.

Yeah. Yeah. This would be a good experience for her. She could accomplish something, build self-esteem, and maybe stop hiding in the house embroidering all the time.

I just had to make sure that her grandmother didn’t throw me out. Again.

That’s a good idea! Come on, let’s orient ourselves so we can figure out how to get to the city.

“Okay!”

Leaving Floridiana and Dusty behind for now, Bobo and I made our way from tree to tree, trying to get away from the camp. Except we kept passing more and more soldiers in their reddish-purple-trimmed uniforms.

This wasn’t a simple camp of soldiers, I finally realized. This was an –

“It looks kinda like that rock macaque army, doesssn’t it?” Wrapping her tail around a branch, Bobo dangled down like a vine for a better view. “Their uniforms are different, and they’re not rock macaques, but….”

She was right.

It was an invasion. Someone was invading Lychee Grove.

I have to warn them. The words fell out of my mouth without passing through my brain.

I stopped flying, appalled at myself. Pick sides in a battle without understanding what the different sides were? What they wanted? Which one had the upper hand, would be more likely to give me what I wanted? This wasn’t like me at all!

I could waste time arguing with myself, but deep down, I already knew what I was going to do.

Go back to Floridiana and Dusty and keep them safe, I instructed Bobo. I’ll warn the city.

Sparrows weren’t nocturnal birds. With my friends by my side, I hadn’t noticed how dark and shadowy the forest was. Now, with every rustle I heard, every motion I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, I expected an owl or snake to lunge out of nowhere and devour me. My heart was thrumming like hummingbird wings. I flew in zigzags, partly because I hoped it would confuse predators, but mostly because I kept jerking and twitching and it threw me off my path.

I was a coward. A coward who wanted to survive. I could admit that much in the privacy of my own head.

There! The Kohs’ house! I recognized the shape of the windows, the particular arrangement of stilts that supported the kitchen level. I zipped up to Lodia’s bedroom on the third floor, and there she was, sleeping with her back to the window, her long black hair fanned out across her pillow.

Lodia! Wake up!

This time, I didn’t bother trying to sound mysterious. I just wanted her awake and alert. But Lodia, as I’d seen before, was a heavy sleeper.

“Mmmmph.”

The instant she started to turn over, I took flight. And not a second too soon. Her shoulder whammed into the spot where I’d been.

Lodia! Wake up! I need you to wake up right now!

“Mrrrrrrrgh.” A line of drool trailed out a corner of her mouth.

Lo-di-AAA! Wake up! Wake up! An army’s coming!

She just groaned, rolled back the other way, and yanked the pillow over her head.

Ugh, at this rate, I was going to wake her grandmother first, and then I was going to either get tossed out the window – or have my neck wrung. In desperation, I took a strand of hair in my beak and yanked.

Wake UP!

“Ow!”

Lodia sat up so suddenly that I tumbled off her back. I righted myself and pumped my wings to fly around and look her in the face.

Her hair was as mussed as Den’s mane after a night of partying. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and blinked again.

“Pip? Is that you? What are you doing here? You can’t be here, Grandmother will – ”

Your grandmother’s not going to be able to do anything if you don’t listen to me! There’s an army! In the forest!

“An…army?”

Yes! An army! And not the Lady of the Lychee Tree’s army either.

Finally, she snapped awake and lifted a finger for me to land on. “Whose army? Who attacketh?”

Even through my anxiety, a corner of my mind winced at the antiquated speech. I shoved aside the irrelevant thought. I don’t know. They didn’t say. But I saw a mix of humans and pangolin spirits.

She chewed on her lower lip, considering. “That doth not narrow it down much…. What colors were they wearing? Did you see their banners?”

I’d glimpsed banners through the leaves, but they’d been furled and I hadn’t taken the time to study them. I’d opted to fly here as fast as possible. Maybe that had been the wrong call.

Most of their uniforms had reddish-purple trim. Oh, but some of them were wearing green. They had badges with lychees on them. I think they’re pretending to be Lychee Grove guards.

Her jaw tightened. “That’s bad. Come, we must tell Grandmother.”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and raced, barefoot, for the door. She stopped when she realized I wasn’t following.

“Pip? Aren’t you coming?”

She’ll listen to you better without me. She’ll just get mad again if she sees me.

“She won’t.” Lodia’s tone was uncharacteristically certain. “Grandmother won’t waste time getting mad when there’s a crisis. Come, Pip. Let us wake her.”

Well, I’d need to be there to answer any questions the mage had anyway. So down the hall we rushed, with Lodia calling, “Grandmother! Father! Wake up! There’s an army attacking!”

She rapped on one of the bedroom doors. Across the hall, the baby started to wail.

“Father! Father! Wake up!”

She ran to the door at the end of the hall and knocked on it hard.

“Grandmother! Grandmother! Wake up!”

The door flew open. Missa had already flung an embroidered robe over her nightgown.

“What is it?” Her voice was sharp and her eyes clear, not muddled by sleep at all.

Lodia babbled, “There’s an army in the forest, some of them are pretending to be our guards, but the rest of them are wearing magenta, Pip came to warn us – ”

Missa cut her off with a raised hand. Her gaze moved past her granddaughter’s shoulder to me. “Pip. Tell me what you saw.”

Even though she’d just been yanked out of a sound sleep and gotten a crisis shoved in her face, she didn’t hesitate. Also, as Lodia had predicted, she didn’t waste time yelling at me. It was kind of like how the girl stopped dithering when you really needed her to pull herself together.

I approved.

By this time, Rohanus had also come into the hall, and while I summarized what I’d seen, we moved downstairs into the common room. Missa unrolled a map across the table so I could point out where the army was.

“Magenta trim,” Rohanus mused. “I can think of two possibilities.”

Missa didn’t waste time shaking her head or even looking up from the map. “There’s only one. It’s the Earl of Black Crag. The Queen’s uncle.”