"Why doesn't Magicians College just let everyone in?"

That was not the question anyone expected Inyanga to ask first upon receiving her offer of acceptance, but her umama Kyuma and Grandmama Amandla weren't listening anyway.

The two immortals sprang from the breakfast table to clap their hands and dance as if they were the ones going to magic school, as if they were nineteen again.

The notice had arrived first thing through a link portal that popped into existence over Inyanga's cereal bowl. Fast hands reached out and snapped up the newly cast airpage before it could drop into the milk. Not that anyone had been surprised that their girl had gotten in. Her primary marks had her at the top of her class. It was just that ... once upon a time, Inyanga's umama, Kyuma Ama Numbia, had tried to get in and failed. And once ... long, long ago ... her Grandmama Amandla had tried to get into Magician's College and said there was never enough money to go.

So Inyanga always found herself wondering ... how many generations of Numbias, working how many centuries, did it take to send one girl to Magician's College?

She stood from her chair and clapped one time with a loud, "Hey!" Then at a more reasonable volume, "I'm asking you a question!"

In the new silence she sat down and, face and voice placid, she repeated, "Why don't they let everyone in?" Innocently, she clasped her hands and planted them down on the table in front of her, waiting for a reply.

Stepping slowly back to aer seat, Kyuma sat slowly, now moving as if through honey, as if aer back were aching, as if suddenly wearing a body that was actually as old as aeh was. One would think eternal youth would prevent back stiffness. "What do you mean, ndodakazi yami? Take everyone?" said Kyuma. Aeh looked no older than aer daughter, who looked not a single day older than sixteen, though she was a few. A parens, Kyuma took on the childbearing gender of the few immortals who still wanted to bring offspring into this world — even at the current price of monthly immortality fees.

The figures of the girl and the grandmama went straight up and down, slim and muscular and not much in the way of curves, while Kyuma had wide hips and a bum that cushioned aer seat nicely, and a bust that would feed aer next baby, whenever aeh could afford one, hopefully some time in the next century.

A hint of more respect returned to Inyanga's tone when she said, "Yes, mama." Yet the inquisitive girl never stopped. "I am wondering, however, if magicians get better jobs, why not send everyone?" She peered through young dark eyes with wide curled lashes. Honest ones, truly questioning.

"Send everyone, ndodakazi yami?" Kyuma said to aer only child, eyebrows raised. "It's too expensive. Now, stop questioning and send your reply."

With an insisting voice, Inyanga kept questioning while she sent her reply. "But wouldn't charging less per person and admitting everyone add up to greater profit? If everyone who wanted to go just paid what they could?"

The link portal still awaited the answer to her admittance offer, a gaping hole hanging over the middle of the table like a bathroom mirror. For the moment it didn't lead anywhere, the way one might expect a portal to. When it first appeared it had reflected back her jaw drop reaction to its sudden existence — sleepy, baggy eyes shocked open. One hand had gone to give her scalp a thoughtful scratch, through the coils she sheered short for a relatively low maintenance magic-free coiffure. Puzzlement in her raised brows. Then she had smiled a little, noticing her bedhead black coils looked so shiny and healthy today.

The sudden appearance of the link portal got Grandmama Amandla pretty bad, too; she had hopped back and out of her chair on the skinny legs of a young girl, and the chair rocked back a couple of times on its legs with a threat of falling, but it didn't. Not that Kyuma had done much better; aer gasp and the hands placed on aer chest made Inyanga worry Umama had had a pulmonary embolism. Luckily both centenarians had the strong and enduring hearts and limbs of teenage girls, for tens of thousands of solidae a month.

After a second, out of the link the admissions letter had dropped, printed on airpage, and Inyanga had read it, out loud, to her parens and grandmama. Now she scrawled her answer on a spare sheet of airpage while Grandmama Amandla stood behind her chair and patted her back and shoulders.

In the passing time, Kyuma had come up with aer reply. "The operating costs would go up if the school admitted everyone."

"Why, mama?" Inyanga tossed her acknowledgement of the offer, as directed, into the link. The letter disappeared and the link dissipated.

"Because they must pay more professors, more teaching assistants, and for the power bills for all of the stellar energy each student will use to practice magic."

"The school cannot possibly be taking a loss, can it? Tuition is not inexpensive." Tapping agitated fingers on the blue dahliawood tabletop, the girl thought of more arguments before her parens could think of an answer to the first. "And the more magicians they train, the more research can advance, theoretically reducing the cost of magical expenditure over time."

"But who will pay for it?"

"Won't the researchers' work pay for itself? As magic becomes more energy efficient?"

"Magic is expensive, ndodakazi yami."

"But Constellation invented it. Then they sell it to the school. And they run the school. Why don't they charge less?"

"Charge less?" Eyes narrowing to slits of mild outrage, Kyuma's frustration poured out in the rising pitch of aer voice. "They're a company. They sell magic. Why charge less?"

"To sell to more people, and more people's lives can be better."

"They set the price point according to supply and demand. And if they sell to more magicians, ndodakazi yami, won't they run out of magic?"

"Run out?"

For the first time Inyanga had a question that wasn't itself an answer. A real question. "How can magic run out?"

"They always say so, the newstalkers." Kyuma waved a hand dismissively. "If everyone taps into the magic supply, and taps it out, it will all be used up." Her tone added, everyone knows that. Didn't this girl watch the news?

Elbow on the table, Inyanga put her head in her hand to listen while her parens went on speaking.

Aer eyes glittering with excitement at aer own theatricality, Kyuma painted a dangerous scene. "Orbiting buildings will fall from the sky, immortals will age and die, food production will stagger, slow, and come to a crawl, the highest floralwoods will wither, the insect and animal life that rely on the giant trees will become extinct, and society will crumble. And with its fall, forces we have held at bay will reap destruction on this planet. The weather systems we hold in our control will rebel, break loose, and let storms rampage the planet, followed by flooding, then drought, then quakes, then storms again."

Seeming to enjoy aerself, aeh added, "Not to mention, the economy that depends on so many magical industries will fail."

"I think you have been watching too much of the news," said Inyanga. She held up both her hands to insist her parens, who was starting to talk back, allow her to say more. "I am certain what you said cannot be so. I'm thinking about all we learn in school, and the source from which Constellation derives its magical energy is sustainable. Magic comes from the stars, mama, and we learn how the stars work in primary."

Though Kyuma fumed, aeh didn't interrupt when Inyanga paused for breath, head tilted to the side, eyes unfocused, thinking through how best to explain it to her umama.

Taking an intentional breath in and praying for patience, she said, "The stellar energy we take need not have more than a negligible impact on the thermal energy generation of a star. It comes from the heat of a star's corona. As long as Constellation generates all of its energy from the coronas of a high number of stars, depleting just a little power and heat from each one, not enough is taken from any single star to cause it to shrink. We wouldn't even take enough from any one star to prevent it from continuing to expand and grow."

Through the lecture, Grandmama Amandla had been listening from behind the chair, smooth young hands rubbing her granddaughter's shoulders. Now she leaned down and folded over her granddaughter, giving her an embrace from behind. The four hundred-year-old said in a teenage voice, "That's why our Inyanga will be the first in our family to go to magician's college. She knows everything."

"If she already knows everything," said Kyuma, "why does she need to go to magic school? Does she know more than the magicians on the news? The engineers in the interviews say if magic is used up, and our stores run dry, even for an instant, the consequences—"

"Stores run out? That's not how magic works, is it, mama?"

"And how does magic work, ndodakazi?"

From within the cocoon of Amandla's arms, Inyanga said, "I don't know. Not for certain. But when I go to Magicians College, I'm going to find out. And if magic can't run out, I'm going to prove it."

Thank you for reading Act I of Inyanga's Star in Constellations.

Constellations is a series of interconnected stories. Though the world is fantasy, it's inspired by real lives, real students, real workers, real obsessions, addictions, and loves, and dreams. That can be said of most every work of fiction, yet I mention it as a reminder that stories bring us together in all of our struggles, passions, upsets and victories. In all of our journeys.

I hope you will join me to see where Inyanga's takes her. If you like my work, please star or share it, to give me a hand with mine.