Hiding behind a thunderhead that Den had created by draining several lesser clouds, we peeked out at Heaven. As Floridiana had pointed out, thanks to my little speech, it knew we were coming and had set guards at each of the gates. More patrolled the tops of the walls, the stamp of their boots reverberating through the clouds.

Floridiana squinted at them and re-stamped herself between her eyes. "How are we supposed to get past them? Piri, can you create a distraction?"

Me? Why are you volunteering me?

"Because you're – oh, right. Not really a fox spirit. I forgot."

I gritted my teeth at her blunt reminder that I lacked the immortality, power, and eight additional tails that would have made me who I once was. Give me another nine hundred ninety-nine years.

"We don't have time for this," Aurelia broke in, surprising me with the plaintive note in her voice. "The Goddess of Life could be torturing Flicker right now."

Right. No wasting time bickering with Floridiana. We could always do it later. We would certainly do it later.

Do you know how to sneak in?

That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. After all, Aurelia was the one who'd lived in Heaven for the past five centuries. If any one of our rescue party would know all the back doors and hidden tunnels, it should be she. But she jerked her head once in a quick negation.

Seriously? How can you not know? What were you doing for five hundred years?!

Floridiana's hand dropped onto my shoulder. "Piri."

"Not all of us are as sly and sneaky as you," Aurelia bit out, which was so much ruder than I'd ever heard out of her that it actually struck me dumb.

Not for long, of course. I poked Den in the neck. What about you? Do you know how to get in?

As a dragon king and yearly attendee at the Meetings of the Dragon Host, he'd spent the second-most time in Heaven after Aurelia. Surely he'd gotten bored and wandered off to explore at some point, since it wasn't as if he'd have been appointed to any of the committees that made actual decisions.

But he, too, shook his head. "I've only seen the main boulevard and the Sky Breeze Pavilion. Mostly the East Wing of it."

Really?! What did you spend all your time doing?!

"Not getting into trouble, obviously," said Floridiana, quick to defend her lover. "I think we can conclude that if secret entrances into Heaven exist, we don't know about them. Other ideas?"

For the first time, Dusty spoke up. The baby horse spirit had been so quiet that I'd nearly forgotten he was here. "In Romance of the Four Kingdoms, there's a genius strategist who launches a fake attack on a city's walls while the rest of his troops undermine them. Can we undermine Heaven?"

"Isn't that what we're doing already?" Floridiana and I muttered in unison.

Den raised his voice to drown us out. "I'll have a look."

He plunged back into the thunderhead and flew down, dragging it along with us like a cloak. The thick layer of clouds blinded me as effectively as it concealed us from Heaven's sentries, and I could only trust that Den knew where he was going and wouldn't crash us. Plummeting to my death while undermining Heaven. What an ironic way to go!

"The foundations keep going down," Den called, sounding frustrated. "There's no end to them!"

"There must be," Aurelia insisted. "There's a net under Heaven that catches all the sky lanterns bearing people's wishes. I've seen the imps go out to retrieve them."

Faster and faster Den dove, until I had to lock my jaws onto his mane to hang on. You're flying too fast! Clouds don't move this fast –

He leveled out. My belly smacked into the hard, pointy ridges of his spine, knocking the breath out of me.

"Ow!" Floridiana complained for me.

"Sorry," said Den. "But we're halfway to Earth and I don't see an end to the foundations."

Dusty snorted. "Impossible! No foundations go down forever! In Romance of the Four Kingdoms – "

"See for yourself." Den shed the thunderhead, and we stared into a mass of roiling grey clouds. They went down and down and down, and up and up and up, so far that both ends were swallowed by the night sky.

"How can this be?" Aurelia cried. In anyone else, I'd have called it a wail. "Flicker's taken me to see the sky lanterns! You walk out of the gate and down the cloud steps so you're a little lower than the walls, and then you watch the lanterns rise past you until they stick to the net! It's never like this!"

Aurelia – I began, planning to follow up her name with some soothing nothing, but Dusty threw back his head and neighed a challenge at the clouds.

"If we can't go under Heaven's foundations, then we break into them from the side! They're just clouds. Dragon! Fly us into them!" And he stabbed a hoof at the roiling mass.

Lightning flashed deep inside the clouds. Thunder boomed so loudly that it deafened me and flattened Floridiana. Even Aurelia had to clutch at Den's spine ridge to steady herself. I could see her and Dusty's mouths moving, but I couldn't hear a word. Well, I didn't need to hear a word to guess what they were saying: Caught up in his delusions of martial glory, Dusty was arguing for his brute-force attack on Heaven, while Aurelia was attempting to convince him that he'd get us all killed.

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You'll get us all killed! I shouted at Dusty. Even though I couldn't hear myself, he must have, because his head pivoted my way and his lips peeled back from his large, blocky teeth. It won't work! I'll bet Heaven has magic specifically to defend against anyone who tries to go under its walls!

Dusty tossed his mane, but Aurelia put a gentle hand on his withers and said something that calmed him. I guessed that she was reassuring him that it was all right, it was a good idea, that she hadn't known about the defenses either. And indeed, as my hearing gradually returned, I caught the tail end of her words: "...was a good idea. We'll just have to think of something else."

"If we can't get in from below, can we fly above Heaven and drop into it?" Floridiana asked.

"They'll see us coming," Den objected before I could.

"What if we pretend to be a cloud drifting across the Moon?"

All of us looked to Aurelia. The former Assistant Director of the Sky considered it. "It's worth a try. But the clouds that drift across the Moon are wispy, not puffy like our thunderhead. Den, would it be possible to adjust the shape...?"

The dragon sucked in a deep breath and then released it in a slow whoosh. His breath transformed into an elongated cloud that was barely tall and wide enough to envelope us and that trailed out behind us like a goddess' scarf. This time, he flew up at a shallow angle, bringing us halfway across the sky before he began a slow, horizontal drift that would carry us over the walls of Heaven. None of the patrols gave us a second glance.

"It is WORKING!" Dusty neighed. "They're not even looking at us!"

Shh! Don't jinx it!

"Hush, both of you," hissed Floridiana.

We hushed. I caught Aurelia's impressed look and scowled inwardly, tempted to say something just to prove that I didn't obey anyone, not even a prickly mage who could shove me off Den's back whenever she wanted. (Or simply let go. Her arm around my chest was mostly what was holding me on.) But it did make sense to keep quiet, and I didn't have anything in particular to say anyway, so I kept my mouth shut.

On we floated, aiming for a band of clouds that hovered across the Moon like silk gauze. Almost there. And once we were there, we could blend into the clouds until we were directly over Heaven, and then we could drop down when no one was looking –

Our leading edge brushed the trailing fringes of the gauzy clouds. Pale pink, the shade of diluted blood, stained them. Waves of pink, coral, orange, crimson – all the colors of the sunset – raced across the surface of the Moon. Scarlet light shone down on the walls, seeming to bathe them in blood. Shouts rose from the patrols, and a line of arrow tips glinted as archers aimed at us.

"The Weaver Maidens!" gasped Aurelia. "They must have woven that cloud as a defense!"

How did you not know that?! Aren't they literally in your Bureau?!

"Bicker later!" shouted Floridiana. "Den! Get us out of here!"

"Loose!" came the command, and hundreds of arrows shot at us.

Turn around! Turn around! I screamed at Den.

"I can't! The cloud's stuck!"

He wrenched at our cloud, but it didn't budge. Red lines streaked into it from where it touched the Weaver Maidens' cloud, binding ours tight and spiraling out –

They're cocooning us! Like a silkworm! We have to get out now!

"If we leave the cloud, they'll see us!" Den warned, stabbing his talons into our cloud and trying to tear it free. "They'll know who we are!"

Aurelia released a sigh of resignation. "I'm sure they already know. It makes no difference now."

"Drop out of the cloud and fly!" Floridiana ordered.

"Hurry hurry HURRY!" bellowed Dusty.

Den dropped. My rump left his back and floated up before Floridiana's arm yanked me down, and I slammed into his spine ridges yet again. Owwwwww….

"We're clear!" she yelled.

"Not yet!" Dusty shouted back. "Incoming!"

Arrows pierced the night sky, arching down at us. Why, oh why, hadn't Heaven applied its signature dysfunction to its guard force too?!

Cloud wisps gathered around us and blew away as Den tried to form a shield while twisting and rolling to dodge the arrows.

"They're FOLLOWING us!" Dusty snapped his jaws shut on an arrow right before it struck Floridiana's back. Wood cracked, and he spat it to the side.

Den yelped. Arrows clattered against his scales, slowed only slightly by his clouds.

Aurelia! Shield us!

I half-climbed Floridiana's torso so I see over her shoulder. Aurelia sat frozen, hair loose and whipping about her face as if she were already dead, already a ghost, already mourning the life she had lost.

Pull it together! You're not some spoiled empress waiting for other people to save you! You have to do it yourself this time!

I had a taunt all ready to go about leaning on Marcius and then giving up when he died, but I didn't need to loose it. Aurelia's blank eyes focused on me, and her rictus smoothed into her empress' mask.

"I have never sat around waiting for other people to save me a day of my life, Flos Piri."

Drawing herself up straight, she flung her arms wide. White-hot light leaped from her in a silent explosion. Flaming arrow shafts and molten arrowheads rained down around us.

Wooo! Take that! I yelled at the archers.

They were already notching a second volley of arrows.

Shoot all you want! We'll just burn them out of the sky!

From behind the archers, a god rose up slowly, balanced on a pair of fiery wheels. A gale swept around him, whipping the crimson sash over his shoulders and fanning the flames that tipped his spear. I recognized him. I remembered him. He was –

"The Third Prince!" gasped Floridiana. "They sent the Third Prince for us?"

I gaped at the god who had hunted me down, no matter how hard I had run, no matter how many traps I'd set, and dragged me to Heaven to stand trial five hundred years ago. It's over, my mind whimpered. It's over it's over it's over. He's going to catch me, he's going to drag me before the gods, they're going to execute me all over again….

No! He wasn't. They weren't. This time was going to be different!

He is one god! I exhorted myself. Last time I was alone. This time I have friends!

"Ex-Empress Aurelia of Serica!" boomed the Third Prince, ignoring me entirely. "How dare you ally with demons to lead a rebellion against Heaven!"

It wasn't a question. And he didn't address her as a goddess either. I scanned her up and down, terrified that the gods could strip away her divinity without dripping willow water on her as they had Marcius when he was the Star of Scholarly Song. But no, her features remained as regular as before, her skin was still an inhuman porcelain white, and at his insult, a golden glow rose under her skin along with her temper. Good. We couldn't afford for her to turn into a mortal woman or a disembodied soul now.

"Honored Third Prince," she called back, keeping her voice level even as the tendons popped out on her fists. "I, the Star of Reflected Brightness, have no intention of leading a rebellion against Heaven. Nor have I ever allied with demons."

No one could have missed the stress on the word "ever."

The Third Prince's spear swung up and Den tensed – but the fiery tip only pointed an accusation at me. "Then what do you call that?"

"She is no longer – " Aurelia began, but I lifted my chin and met the god's burning gaze.

I call myself Flos Piri. But I also go by Rosie, Rosssie, Mr. Turtle, Pip, Mr. Sparrow, Griselda, Gida, and Mooncloud.

I briefly considered claiming that I'd leave in peace if he handed over Flicker, but what was the point? I'd already come too far for such pretenses – and besides, there were more important allies to win over. I took a deep breath. Something hard and cold pressed into my throat. With a squelch, Floridiana pulled away her seal, and my words boomed out across Heaven: And friend! I go by the name of "friend" to all those who wish to see true change in Heaven!

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