“ – So many! Do you think Her Majesty ordered it? Because if so – ”

“She must have ordered it. That’s her uncle camped in the forest – ”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she ordered him to do it. It is Black Crag, after all – ”

Tense voices spilled out the lattice windows of Ancemus’ study, reaching the ears of not only me and the sparrows, but also a flock of butterfly spirits who were fluttering their wings on nearby lotus blossoms. Supposedly they had just been “passing by on an urgent task,” but if anyone were actually waiting for them, they had a long wait ahead. Those butterflies weren’t going anywhere.

The Earl of Black Crag? Is he known for being impulsive? I whispered to my new entourage. We’d claimed a nice camelia bush right under a window.

The sparrows bobbed their heads, and the butterflies twitched their antennae.

“Oh yes. Very impulsive.”

“He’s very young. Even for a human.”

“He’s not that young. Even for a human. He must be in his forties by now. His father died young in the War, so he inherited young.”

A bright blue butterfly fanned her wings open and shut slowly. “Oh, really? It feels like just yesterday.”

“Nah, thou’rt just getting old, Granny,” said the butterfly next to her – and then dodged a wing-smack.

Seriously, these spirits were every bit as bad as those human gran’pas and grannies who lounged about in front of the wine shop, the ones Katu liked to argue with. They had the attention spans of, well, butterflies.

But why would the Earl of Black Crag want to attack us?

At the question, all the servants exchanged glances, either unwilling to spell it out, or unsure of how to explain it. In the end, it was the boldest of the sparrows who answered.

“Well, I’ve only heard talk…but it sounds like he thinks the nobility is too independent. He wants to – to centralize power. Like how it was back in the Empire.”

At the mention of the Empire and centralization of power, my ears metaphorically perked up. I, too, had been appalled that Lychee Grove minted its own coins. What self-respecting monarch allowed their nobles to mint their own coins? Next thing you knew, you’d need currency conversions just crossing from one fief to another – and how was the royal treasury supposed to assess taxes anyway? It wasn’t like you could take the nobles’ word for how much their currency was worth!

I must have said some of that out loud, because the sparrow answered matter-of-factly, “Oh no, we don’t use coins for that. We pay taxes in rice.”

Rice?! You use a rice standard?

“What’s wrong with that? Everybody plants rice.”

But – but – I sputtered, unable to articulate why a rice standard was such a terrible idea. (Stripey could have expounded upon the topic in detail – but Stripey wasn’t here.) Don’t you plant different kinds of rice across the kingdom or something? Doesn’t the quality vary from crop to crop? How do you even convert between different kinds of rice? And isn’t it a pain to lug around when you’re shopping?

All of them looked blank.

“That’s why we have coins…,” one of the other sparrows ventured.

So you use your own coins in your own fief, and then when you go to a different fief, you take rice to spend?

More blank stares.

“We’ve never gone to another fief. I’ve heard thou canst take our coins and trade them for the other fief’s coins based on…their value in rice…?”

I was rendered speechless.

“About the taxes – thou canst pay in lychees too,” a butterfly volunteered. “I’ve seen the royal tax collectors take them.”

In lychees?! People in Lychee Grove paid their taxes in lychees? But the fruits were fragile! And didn’t keep well! Which was why Cassius had had to get them express-posted for me! Stars and demons, I, too, would invade a fief if it attempted to pay me in perishable goods.

I hopped up and down on the twig, bouncing it and forcing the other sparrows to spread their wings for balance. Mercifully, that was when Missa’s voice rose over and silenced the babble both inside and outside the study.

“So it is agreed then?” she asked the other officials. “We send word to the Lady?”

“There is no need. I am aware of the situation,” came a cool, breathy voice from the far side of the room. Like a summer breeze, it drifted through the lattice windows and into the gardens.

And then it said, “We shall attack first.”

Attack first? Attack first? Stars and demons, why is she declaring war on the queen’s uncle?!

I was fighting to free myself from under a pile of sparrows and butterflies, who smooshed me with their bodies and begged, “Please stop!” and “Please calm down!” and “They’ll catch us!”

Yes, even human ears could hear this ruckus, but some tree spirit’s ire was the least of my concerns. Bobo and Floridiana and Dusty were going to get caught in the crossfire. They were going to be hurt – maybe even killed.

Why’s an attack the first thing she orders?! Why is civil war the default option?

Again, I got a lot of blank stares. “Why wouldn’t it be…?”

Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, send an emissary to negotiate first? See if we can convince him to leave peacefully?

A human face appeared overhead, sliced into rectangles and flower petals by the window’s lattice pattern. “Silence! How dare you eavesdrop! Back to your duties at once!”

The butterflies fled in a swarm. The sparrows shifted to surround me and pull with their beaks and push with their wings, trying to herd me back to the waiting pavilion.

“Wait,” Missa’s voice said sharply. “Rohanus, is that Pip’s voice I hear?”

Her son sounded very, very weary when he replied, “Yes, Mother. I brought her so that Lord Ancemus could interrogate her himself. The information she provided has proven most useful.”

Aww, look at him defending me. I knew from the start that he was a nice guy.

Brisk footsteps, and then Missa’s eyes were glaring down at us. Terrified, the sparrows abandoned me and vanished too.

“Pip, when I told you that I wanted you out of my house, this is not what I meant.”

But I’m the one who saw the army, I objected, straightening my feathers. You weren’t here, so I was the one who knew the most about the situation.

“And now I am here, so you may go. Guards, escort her out and make sure she doesn’t return.” She started to turn away from the window.

Wait! I can help! An idea took shape in my mind even as I spoke. I flapped up and clung to the window lattice with my claws. What if we don’t attack immediately? What if we send someone to the capital to check whether the queen ordered her uncle to come here? Because if she didn’t, she can command him to leave!

Ancemus joined Missa at the window next. “Whom can we send, who will be able to pass through enemy lines? The Earl of Black Crag hath encircled the city – oh!” He’d just seen where I was going with that line of thought. I knew he was a smart butterfly!

Humans, even mages, were too big and clumsy to sneak through the Black Crag lines, and spirits could recognize other spirits on sight – but I was neither. I was just an ordinary sparrow. I could even fool the standard magical scan. Unless a mage were specifically searching for abnormalities, I looked like a boring, mortal bird. So I was the perfect choice – indeed, the only choice – here.

“’Tis a good idea – ” Ancemus began, but the Lady cut him off. I caught a glimpse of her behind her advisers and guards, reclining in a carved rosewood chair.

“’Twill take too long. Black Crag will not wait that long to attack.”

How do you know that? Did you spy on his strategy meeting or something? My second question was addressed mostly to Missa, who didn’t bother to answer it.

“Even if he were to wait,” she informed me, “you would be a poor choice.”

Ancemus twitched, rather like the butterflies’ antennae. “Why is that, Mage Koh?”

“I do not know which soul is imprisoned inside that bird, or what crimes it committed to merit such punishment, but I have seen her manipulate my granddaughter with mine own eyes. I do not trust her.”

In an instant, the mood in the room shifted, turning against me. Even Ancemus eyed me with open suspicion, putting a question mark after every detail about the Earl’s army that I’d revealed.

I’d told him only the truth, though. Missa could have vouched for me.

I – I faltered, unsure of which argument to start with.

“Actually, Mother, Lord Ancemus, my lady – ” Rohanus paused to bow to his liege – “in this case, I do trust her.”

“Leaves above, son. She hath fooled thee as well?”

“’Tis less that she fooled me, and more that I determined her true goal. I agree with you that she doesn’t care about the wellfare of this city or its people – ”

Hey! That’s not true! I do care!

“ – or perhaps she cares, but ‘tis at best a secondary priority. Her primary objective is to rescue her friends.”

“Her friends.” Missa’s voice went even flatter, if possible.

I flapped my wings indignantly. Was it really so incredible that I might have friends whom I might want to not die?

“Yes. The people she was traveling with. The mage, the horse spirit, and the bamboo viper spirit.”

I didn’t know why he named Bobo last, but now didn’t seem like the right time to correct him.

“Lodia and Len Katulus also believed that she was their friend, when she was feeding them lies all along. She pretended to be a Queen’s spy,” she informed the Lady.

The tree spirit’s expression didn’t change, but the others’ showed varying degrees of horror, curiosity – and calculation.

“Bold,” commented Ancemus, looking me over from beak to tail. However, if he were searching for a hint that I wasn’t a normal sparrow, he didn’t find any.

Rohanus, steady, reliable man that he was, stood his ground and continued to plead my case. “Mother, I know that she lied to and manipulated us, but I am convinced of her loyalty to those three friends. I believe that as long as we keep that in mind, we can make use of her.”

Hmm, not quite the argument I preferred, but I’d take what I could get. For now, anyway. Like he said, my top priority was to extract Bobo, Floridiana, and Dusty, and my secondary priority was to save the humans in the city. Everything else could get sorted out later.

After another pause, the Lady shook her head, the motion sending a breeze whispering through the room. “Be that as it may, we simply lack the time. Black Crag will not wait long enough for a mortal sparrow to fly to the Queen, arrange an audience with her, convince her of his treachery, and persuade her to order his retreat. Assuming she didn’t sanction his actions in the first place.”

But that last part came as an afterthought, as if the Lady deemed it more likely that the earl had taken it into his own head to declare war on another fief. Stars and demons, what a disaster of a kingdom.

Maybe I can’t return before the fighting starts, but I can still bring a royal command for him to stop. Surely that would be better than letting this turn into a drawn-out siege. You don’t even have walls around your city!

I thought I’d made a compelling argument, but Missa was having none of it. She didn’t even look at me as she said, “There is another big ‘if’. If her top priority is the safety of her friends, then the easiest course of action is for her to manipulate the royal government into ordering Black Crag to release them. And then our fates do not matter at all.”

That is true, I interjected before the others had time to think about that too much. But if you intend to attack first, then what I do – or do not do – in the capital makes no difference to you, does it?

“’Tis true,” Ancemus said thoughtfully. “She can only ameliorate the situation or leave it unchanged.”

“Yes,” seconded Rohanus.

Missa still looked dubious, but the rest of the advisers were nodding. All heads, even mine, swiveled towards the Lady for her final decision.

She rested a cheek on one pale, long-fingered hand for a moment. “Very well, then. We shall proceed with our attack as planned. The sparrow shall seek the Queen and do what she can to call off Black Crag. One of my officials will provide you with instructions on how to find the court.” Before I could get too excited, she added, “There is one final thing: Know that we shall make it a priority to rescue your friends. They shall be our honored guests.”

The smile she turned on me contained no hint of hospitality whatsoever.