Anyone (well, fine, anyone who wasn’t me) could have predicted what happened next: Tears streaming down her face, Mistress Jek dashed out of the cottage, even faster than that time she learned I’d been Serica’s most infamous demon and assumed I was here to eat her children.

After her ran Floridiana, calling, “Vanny! Vanny! Calm down!” much the way she had that time Mistress Jek charged at Lord Silurus.

And on her heels slithered Bobo, who couldn’t bear to miss the touching reunion.

Left alone in the cottage, I shrugged. No reason not to go along too, I supposed.

I followed them past Bobo’s bamboo stand to Den’s pond, where the dragon king himself was standing on his caltrop rosettes – mediating a heated argument between the Jeks and a swarm of firefly spirits. I hid in a tree before the fireflies could spot me.

“We are not toys!” one of them squeaked. “Your Majesty, we demand that you punish these humans!”

“Wait! Please!” Master Jek extended his hands towards them. “I’m sorry! They didn’t know you were spirits! We’ll make it up to you! What do you want?”

“We want them not to chase or catch us!” shrilled a second firefly. It landed on the tip of his nose and flashed menacingly.

Mistress Jek swatted it off, then planted her hands on her hips. “Nonsense! They didn’t mean no harm.” In the heat of the moment, her grammar slipped, but no one else seemed to notice. “They were just having a little fun.”

“It was not fun for us!” a third firefly sputtered.

“Your Majesty, we demand that you protect us as our liege lord!” said the first, and the whole swarm spread out in an arc around Den and blinked on and off in unison.

Cowering behind his parents and Bobo, Nailus hung his head. Taila, on the other hand, was pouting.

Yes, I could very much imagine that whatever game she devised would not be fun for the fireflies. And Master Jek lacked the strength of will to stop his daughter, while Mistress Jek – well, she was really going to spoil the girl rotten now.

Floridiana’s pursed lips suggested that she had to deal with this sort of behavior in school all the time.

Poor Den rubbed his temples as if he were already hungover. “Now, now, Luciolus, everyone, please calm down.”

“We will not calm down! This happens every summer! We are sick and tired of it!” squeaked the spokes-firefly.

He flashed on and off in rapid succession, and the rest of the swarm picked up the pattern. Taila’s eyes lit up, and she edged between her parents’ legs for a better view.

It was quite a sight. Why hadn’t I thought of hiring a troupe of firefly spirits to perform at summer garden parties in Cassius’ court? They could have flown in choreographed patterns, blinking on and off, while we enjoyed the evening breeze and ate cold desserts and sipped cool drinks. It would have been glorious!

A random thought: Did star sprites serve the same purpose in Heaven?

Below me, Den was very much not fantasizing about garden parties, with or without light shows. “What precisely happened? Can you walk me through it? Just one of you, please.”

“We were doing our own thing, minding our own business, the way we always do, when these two human children charged at us and started trying to grab us! That one – ” and the spoke-firefly pointed his belly at Nailus and flashed once – “nearly tore Spark’s wing off!”

Nailus hung his head still further, confirming his guilt.

“But Spark’s all right otherwise?” Den double-checked. “He’ll recover?”

Luciolus flashed again. “Would you recover from having one of your horns torn off?” Tardily, he added, “Your Majesty.”

Nearly torn off, I muttered to myself. Not all the way torn off.

At the same time, Mistress Jek objected, “Nearly torn off. He didn’t tear it all the way off. It’s still there, ain’t it?”

Off on the side, Floridiana was flapping a hand at Den, signaling him to act more like Densissimus Imber, Dragon King of Caltrop Pond, and less like Den the friendly fellow partyer.

At the reminder, the dragon straightened his back, arched his neck so Luciolus and all the other fireflies got a good look at his pearl, and made his voice cold and distant. “As a matter of fact, such an injury would be insignificant to Us.”

I doubted that, but it did have the effect of cowing Luciolus. He blinked in a slower, gentler, more appeasing sort of pattern.

“But that is irrelevant to this discussion,” Den continued. “You came here with a charge against these children. They, however, are not Our vassals and hence not subject to Our decrees unless they swim in Our waters or trod upon Our lands.” (And by his “lands,” he meant the ring of mud around his pond.)

Luciolus protested, “We’ve gone to Baron Claymouth before, Your Majesty. His seneschal brushed us off.” (Yes, that did sound like Anasius.) “If you, our liege lord, won’t protect us, who will?”

“We can only protect you within Our own borders. If you stray into another lord’s fief, then you are subject to his laws.”

Well, yes, but technically, Den could have raised an army against Baron Claymouth to protest the treatment of his vassals. Or, if he were confident enough in his own power and the insignificance of the offenders, he could have executed them and been done with it. Not that I was advocating for that at all.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Den looked at the offenders’ parents next. “Master Jek. Mistress Jek. No matter whose vassal is injured, harming another is unacceptable. Control your children.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Both parents bowed low. A glare from Mistress Jek got Nailus and Taila to follow suit.

Den’s stern stare shifted to Floridiana next. “Headmistress, see to it that you educate your students in both academics and moral behavior.”

At the rebuke, the mage pinched her lips together, but having urged him to act like a king, she couldn’t undermine him now. She, too, gave a bow, albeit a curt one.

“Is that it?” buzzed one of the other fireflies. “Is that all you’re going to do, Your Majesty? You are bound to protect us, as we are bound to serve you!”

“Then stay above Our waters and upon Our lands.” Den sounded fed up. “We’ve been through all of this before. We can guarantee protection within Our fief, but not in another lord’s domain. That is Our final word on the matter.”

Grumbling, the fireflies dispersed – although not too far. Their lights didn’t stray three feet beyond the rocks that ringed Caltrop Pond.

Den blew out a long breath, and his spine relaxed back into its normal curves. “Whew. That could have gone a lot worse. But seriously, Taila, Nailus, stop hurting the firefly spirits. It isn’t nice.”

Taila lifted a face full of righteous indignation. “But we weren’t trying to hurt them, King Den! It was an accident!”

“Then stop chasing them and trying to catch them, so you stop hurting them by accident.”

“That firefly spirit, Spark, will he be all right?” Now that the case had been settled in her children’s favor, Mistress Jek could afford compassion. “Is there something we can do to help?”

Den shook his head. “He’ll heal on his own. Eventually.”

Nailus edged closer. “Can we, maybe, make a house for him? Or something? To sleep in?”

Den barely suppressed a groan. “He’ll be fine on his own. Just leave him alone.”

As I observed this impromptu trial, I thought to myself that we’d had much better ways of adjudicating disputes between fiefs back in the Empire. We’d had centralized law courts run by the Imperial government, but it sounded like those no longer existed, at least not in East Serica. Seriously, had central authority really disintegrated to this extent?

Well, it wasn’t like I could do anything, so I stopped worrying about it.

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In the half-light of dusk, the Jeks walked back towards Honeysuckle Croft. Mistress Jek was clutching Taila’s hand as if she’d never let it go, listening intently to the girl’s account of her and her brother’s adventures. Nailus himself acted more subdued and darted the occasional guilty glance at his father.

Floridiana, Bobo, and I lagged behind them, giving them some privacy.

Quietly, the mage said, “Getting back to what we were talking about earlier, you and Bobo plan to seek him out to learn where Stripey’s soul reincarnated?”

I didn’t know why she was phrasing it as a question when she obviously remembered our conversation, but I still answered. Yes.

“Where is he? Is he even on Earth?”

Oh, yes, the Kitchen God was definitely on Earth. I remembered how long it had taken for the Bureau of Reincarnation to compensate me for Cassius’ illegal interference, kicking me back down to White Tier when I’d finally, finally made it to Green. In the end, it had been the Goddess of Life who handled my complaint, since the Kitchen God only went up to Heaven for a week at the New Year.

As for where he was on Earth – well, that was what Anthea was for. She could tell us where her patron god was, or at least know how to contact him.

Yes, he is on Earth. As to his precise whereabouts, I know someone who will be able to put us in touch with him.

“Who is this person, and where are they? Somewhere in South Serica, I assume?”

Amusingly, in her determination to figure out what was going on, Floridiana forgotten her usual discomfort around me.

It’s a raccoon dog spirit in South Serica. I saw no reason not to tell her when Serica was full of raccoon dog spirits. Overrun with them, you might say.

Floridiana nodded, mostly to herself. “Ah. I see. South Serica….”

At the yearning in her voice, I hastily landed on her shoulder. You can’t run off to South Serica. You’re the headmistress here. If you run off, there’s no one to teach your classes.

She jerked out of her reverie. “I know that! You don’t have to tell me my business.”

On her face was a mix of chagrin at being reminded of her responsibilities, regret at accepting them, and, I was glad to see, resignation and resolve to follow through on them. She smile wistfully at the horizon, where sky met farmland.

Good. The children of Claymouth Barony would not be losing their chance for education due to their teacher running away on a grand adventure, and I would not be earning a hefty dose of negative karma thanks to accidentally luring their teacher away on said grand adventure.

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

Still, with Bobo accompanying me to South Serica, childcare was going to be an issue. Neither Taila nor Nailus could be trusted on their own, so the Jeks needed a substitute babysitter. Lord Magnissimus did offer his services, but Mistress Jek and I turned him down, albeit for different reasons. I suspected he’d eat the children if he got hungry or curious enough, while she thought he’d let them run even wilder than they already did.

“What if they stay at school after school and do homework in the classroom?” Floridiana proposed. “If they’re quiet, you can still get your own work done.”

Mistress Jek eyeballed her offspring, who were balancing on and walking along the fence rails like traveling acrobats.

“Never mind,” said Floridiana, following her gaze.

It was while we were at this impasse that the Jeks’ farmhand led a fellow ex-soldier to the gate of Honeysuckle Croft.

As soon as I saw her, I started hopping up and down in rage. I remembered her. Oh, I remembered her. She was the one who’d abandoned me in the river when it came down to a choice between her or me getting eaten by Lord Silurus. Her selfishness was what had forced Stripey to save me, leading directly to his death. I’d assumed that she’d died in battle, but obviously not because, as I’d seen time after time, Heaven had no sense of justice.

What’s she doing here? I hissed at Bobo, taking care not to let the new rock macaque overhear. It was bad enough that the farmhand knew about me.

Before she had a chance to reply, the farmhand introduced his companion to the Jeks. “This is my cousin Maca. She’s looking for work, and since you’re looking for a new babysitter, I figured….” He shrugged, having reached the end of his ability to express himself.

The murderess bowed. I clenched my beak and glared, debating whether it would be more advantageous to peck her eyes out now or later.

“Good evening, Master Jek, Mistress Jek. Thank you for seeing me.” The rock macaque sounded more subdued than I remembered. Maybe she was wracked by remorse, as well she should be.

Unaware of her history, Mistress Jek started interviewing her. “Do you have kids? Have you babysat before?”

“I don’t have kids of my own, but I’ve babysat the ones in our troop. They can be quite a handful.”

I flapped my wings at Bobo. Ask her if she ran away to save her own miserable life when they were in danger.

“When who was in danger?”

The rock macaque children. Did she abandon them to die when they were in danger?

Taken aback, she blinked her big, bulbous eyes. “But why would she – I can’t – I can’t jussst asssk that!”

I flapped harder. She’s the one who ran away during the battle and got Stripey killed. It’s all her fault.

Bobo blinked again. Then, for the first time ever, her expression hardened.

One moment, she was coiled up next to me. The next, she was right in Maca’s face. “Excussse me. I have a quessstion for you.”