Say it again, I repeated, as patiently as I knew how (which is to say, more patiently than Mistress Jek or even Floridiana would have).

With a gulp, Lodia obeyed. “Um, forgive me, spirit? I meant no offense?”

No no no. Don’t say it like they’re questions. Pretend you’re the queen, and you have to apologize to your least favorite courtier.

“Pretend…I’m the – Queen?”

I didn’t know why she looked so horrified. It wasn’t like I’d told her to pretend to be a goddess who was the Director of a Bureau who was forced to apologize to her lowest-ranking star sprite clerk. (In that case, Lodia wouldn’t have had to utter a word. But the demeanor might have been too much for her to handle. For now, anyway.)

Yes. Surely you’ve seen your queen before?

After all, Lychee Grove did seem to be a fairly important fief. It had entire farms to produce precious fruit that was presented as royal tribute, it designed and minted its own coins, and it regularly hosted royal hangers-on (ugh). The queen of South Serica had to visit from time to time, if only to assure herself of the Lady of Lychee Grove’s continued loyalty. And to drain the fief’s treasury via lavish entertainment. It was how Cassius had done it, although since he’d been emperor and hence far too glorious to sleep under someone else’s roof, he’d dispatched his uncles or brothers as “representatives of the Son of Heaven.”

I’d convinced him to send Marcius once. It was hard to say who was unhappier by the end of that visit – Marcius, at being dragged away from his research to endure all those balls and bribes, or Cassius, at how unscathed that particular duke’s treasury wound up being. It was one of the few times when all of the emperor’s advisers united against me to agree that Marcius should not be sent on any more official visits.

I wondered what he was up to right now. Probably climbing a tree in search of fruit. Ha. The image of him as a monkey in a lychee tree cheered me, and lent me actual patience with poor, timid Lodia.

Surely you’ve seen your queen before. Mimic her mannerisms.

“Um…forgive me, spirit. I have only seen her from afar….”

Yes, but that’s enough to give you a sense of her bearing, isn’t it?

She dropped her gaze to her lap, seemingly ashamed. “Spirit…my, um, my eyes…I have some difficulties with them…with seeing far…. And we – my family – we were not permitted any closer….”

Well, with all that embroidery in poor lighting, obviously she’d have eye problems. To be honest, I was surprised her family hadn’t put a stop to it. Maybe Rohanus was too nice to order his daughter to stop her favorite hobby, but Missa should have no such issues. Maybe she was too busy with work to realize that her granddaughter was getting near-sighted. As for not being allowed close to the queen, that surprised me. Perhaps the Lady of the Lychee Tree and her Mage-Architect weren’t as important as I’d imagined. Well, no matter. I was here now to fix things.

We’re going to start by correcting your carriage. Walk like this.

I puffed out my chest, held my neck straight, and strutted a few steps.

With a sparrow’s body, it must not have had the desired effect, because Lodia’s lips parted in an involuntary “Eeee!”

I rolled my eyes. More walking, less squealing.

Reluctantly, she pushed back the bench, stood, and took a few faltering steps, neck rotating to monitor my reaction the whole time.

Don’t slouch. Spine straight. Shoulders back. And don’t keep looking at me for approval.

She tiptoed a few more steps, as careful as if the floorboards had turned into red-hot bronze.

Oh boy. She was going to be even harder to teach than Taila, because I was going to have to un-train years’ worth of bad habits first. And change her whole personality.

“Spirit…? May I ask a question?”

You just asked two.

She bit her lip.

Yes. You may ask me a question. Or even two, if you so please.

She hesitated a moment longer. “Spirit…why have you come? To our home? Has Her Majesty sent you to – to test our…loyalty?”

Depending on how you counted, that was either two or three questions, but whatever. She thought that the queen planted spirit spies in the homes of the powerful, and that I might be one of them? I wasn’t sure where the Mage-Architect ranked in the kingdom, but obviously Lodia believed in Missa.

I approved of that confidence. Even if she placed it in her grandmother instead of herself, familial pride was a good start. Also, she was braver than she looked, to ask me straight out.

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Now the question I needed to answer for myself was: How useful would it be to pretend I was a queen’s spy?

(“Queen’s spy” was a bit of a comedown after “Emissary from Heaven,” wasn’t it?)

To buy myself time to think, I asked in a stern voice, What do you know of the queen’s spies?

Lodia shook her head frantically, her long, ropy braids swinging. “Very little, noble spirit! My mother never said more than was permitted! I know only that Her Majesty hath survived many an assassination attempt thanks to your noble endeavors!”

And how do you know this?

“I heard it…from…someone….” Her voice got tinier and tinier and practically vanished by the end of the sentence.

Your mother, I suppose?

“No…. Someone else….”

I already knew who the “someone else” was, but I wanted her to say it out loud. And who is this “someone else” of whom you speak?

Mumble.

Speak up.

Slightly louder mumble.

I still can’t hear you. I instructed you to pretend that you’re the queen, did I not? Do you really think the queen mumbles when she’s trying to evade an answer?

Lodia twisted her hands together before her, examined her tips of her embroidered slippers – and then surprised me by meeting my eyes. “Forgive me, spirit, but I cannot answer your question.”

All of my feathers fluffed up. There! That’s it! That’s how I wanted you to act in the first place!

“How you wanted me…to act?”

Yes! When I told you to pretend to be the queen, that was the tone and demeanor I was looking for!

“Oh…. Oh….”

And don’t worry, I already know it was Len Katulus who told you.

She squeaked. “No! Why do you think – I didn’t say – it wasn’t! Katu is no traitor! He is hotheaded and he speaks before he thinks, but he is absolutely devoted to the Crown!”

I was pretty sure the whole of Lychee Grove would disagree with that final assessment, but whatever. It wasn’t like I was an actual royal spy here to sniff out dissent. In fact, I agreed with the poet: The queen’s war to reclaim the Wilds was idiotic and doomed.

Whatever. You should have listened to him when he told you to send a sample of your work to Anthea. She’ll like it.

She gulped and watched herself wiggle her toes.

Lodia. Look at me when I’m speaking to you. (Why did I feel as if I sounded more and more like Mistress Jek?) It will be a good opportunity for you. Don’t you want your name to be known to more than just your family and friends?

She mumbled something that was probably a “Not really….”

How was I supposed to motivate someone with a complete lack of ambition? It wasn’t anything I’d had to do before.

Flying over to her latest project, I used my beak to tug it closer to her. It was a mirror cover, a black cotton pouch that featured a pair of many-petaled white blossoms under a full moon. She was halfway through embroidering an intricate circular border around them.

This is excellent work. I know Anthea’s tastes. She will appreciate it.

Or rather, Anthea would appreciate the craftsmanship but demand a gaudier design. Subtle monochromatism was not her style.

But that didn’t matter. The mirror cover was supposed to be a birthday gift for Missa anyway. So Lodia could send it as a sample, Anthea would admire it and send it back along with a commission for a flashier piece, and then Lodia could give the mirror cover to her grandmother as planned, plus get a much-needed dose of self-confidence and a connection at court, which she could then parlay into an actual position for herself. Or which I could parlay into a position for her. After all, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life sitting at this table in this room, sewing.

Having mapped out a bright future for her, I heaved a contented sigh. Now, finish it up and we’ll have your grandmother present it to Anthea. I’m sure she’ll know how.

She bit her lip. “Yes, noble spirit.”

----------------------------------------

But of course nothing could be so easy.

If anything, Lodia began working even more slowly than she already had been. To me, the pouch looked like it should have been done by the end of that day, maybe the next at latest, but somehow it dragged into an interminable slog.

Perhaps it didn’t help that I’d assigned myself as the protector of her failing eyesight and pecked her every now and then to remind her take a break. Somehow, no matter how gently I did it, she always jumped and shrieked. Also –

Wait! Are you undoing your work?!

Yes! She was! She was literally snipping through the threads at the base of one flower!

Stop! What are you doing? That flower was done! Why are you destroying it?!

“’Twas not good enough, noble spirit,” she whispered. “I twisted the thread when I stitched it, so it lacked the sheen – ”

No! No no no! It was fine! It was beautiful! Anthea would never have noticed! I never noticed!

I flew at her hand and beat it with my wings.

Lodia shook her head, a stubborn set to her jaw that I hadn’t seen before. “’Twas not good enough. ‘Twas not of a quality that I could set before the Lady Anthea’s eyes.”

But it was! I howled. It was fine! It was more than fine! You were so close to done! And now – now – I looked at the cut ends of a whole row of threads. Can you fix it? You’re not redoing that whole flower, are you?!

At her current rate, it would take months! Years! A lifetime – mine! I didn’t want to spend the rest of this life perched on this table in this room, watching her sew! Stars and demons, this girl was just as stubborn as Taila, in her own quiet, unyielding way.

Oh, what had I gotten myself into? Should I give up? Leave? Find a different human to help and/or feed? Try to fly back to Honeysuckle Croft? I’d promised Flicker to give this life a shot, but surely he didn’t expect me to keep that promise – or any other – did he? He knew who I was.

At the pinnacle of my despair, help arrived in the form of one over-excited poet. Katu bounded into the room, calling, “Loddie, Loddie! I had an idea for a poem about your sparrow – urp?”

I supposed that the sight of a sparrow wrapping its wings over its head and wailing did justify an “urp.”

While he stood frozen on the threshold, I zipped across the room and crash-landed on his shoulder. Len Katulus, stop her! She’s cutting up everything she did! She’s never going to finish!

“Finish – ?” Katu’s head swiveled between me and Lodia. “Wait! You’re a spirit?!”

Less talking, more restraining. I stabbed a wing at Lodia, who was cutting up the other flower too. Stop her! Take the scissors away from her! Now! Before it’s too late!

Bewildered, Katu approached Lodia slowly. “Loddie? Fair Lodia, what dost thou? How fare’st thou this day?”

All of a sudden, she slammed the scissors on the table, crumpled the mirror cover into a ball, and hurled it onto the floor.

“I can’t do this, Katu! I can’t! I don’t want to go to court! Why is everyone trying to force me to go to court?”