Act II scene i — Two years later. 

"There's something deeply and fundamentally wrong with this school." Amafu's hand hid her yawn as the persuasive force of Inyanga's energetic stride pulled her ahead across the dawnlit campus lawn.

A dropped solidae coin in the azure grass winkled in the morning twilight, and Amafu dropped to snatch it.

"Come on," said Inyanga. She stopped and turned, the lengths of a magically animated kimono swirling around her ankles. It was one last expense, a present from Umama and Grandmama. Polka dotted orbs shrank and grew like stars from dwarf to giant to supernova and back. "I want to sit in the front row."

Amafu pushed off, panting to keep up. "Something deeply, deeply wrong—"

Inyanga accelerated to regain her racing pace. "I know, everyone in the back always talks over the professor."

"Not that. Nerd. It's profoundly wrong to start class at the crack of prima lux. They don't even provide us transportation so we can actually make it before sunrise. Are they insane? Primary started at hora prima, which was civilized. And the company provided umama links from our house to Ato whenever I wanted."

"So because aeh already works for the company, you should get free teleportation? The rich really do—"

"Obviously they don't want their employees to be late. Answer me this, how come now that I'm actually studying to be a magician, I have to walk to class?" She skipped after Inyanga. "Or run, since my best friend is a mental case keener."

Ahead, Lillywood trees spread a canopy of mile-long branches with cerulean and indigo flowers whose petals opened and closed like arms stretching up and out. Above the highest buds hovered the spherical Al-Maysan Hall, below which a portal awaited thousands of students who couldn't yet cast a link spell. Most of them, unlike Inyanga, wouldn't show up until the last minute before first light.

"Rules are rules," Inyanga threw back, "Perhaps the point is to encourage us to master link spells faster. Professor Alondra says direct linking is more energy efficient than making a portal. The sooner we can link, the less it costs Constellation for our commute."

"You pay too much attention in class."

"Better than shelling out for public links every day. My parens doesn't work for Constellation."

The girls reached the stone steps leading up to the single portal providing access to the levitating spherical building.

It always felt strange to walk underneath it. The building floating above them should have cast a shadow, but it didn't, and it wasn't bright and didn't appear to shine enough to provide a source of light, yet it did. It did light up the courtyard beneath, populated by mile-high floraltrees with mile-long branches, lillywoods and oversized azaleas, blue dahliawoods and, no taller than the girls, prospering lilac shrubs that resisted magical growth enhancement spells for reasons no one knew.

The arbols led in a labyrinth-like series of turns to the portal, feeling like a hedgemaze, but the turns spiraled in only one direction, never providing a choice of which way to go. And so, after a few lefts, the occasional back-tracking right, and many more lefts, the students would come to their link to class. Voices came from ahead — someone was always earlier, beating even Inyanga to the front row middle seats — and from behind.

Most everyone else was always later.

Amafu and Inyanga took the last turn around a fire orange azalaewood, and an unexpected wall of bodies forced them to a halt. "Why aren't you going?" said Inyanga.

Sometimes one kid got fears of the link closing and taking off a limb, but that almost never happened.

"There's no link," said Storm, a girl who always sat in front with her cherub halo blackest carbon curls magic-styled so high they blocked the view of Professor Alondra if one happened to be seated directly behind her in the second row — a mistake Inyanga wouldn't make again. With no extra cash for hairstyling, Inyanga kept her scalp shaved close — better to save money and time for her educational pursuits.

Amafu grabbed the sleeve of Inyanga's kimono. "Isn't there a test today? How do we get to class?" She sounded shook.

Inyanga took off her bag and knelt to rifle in it, and when Amafu dropped beside her, she only whispered, "That's the test."

"Direct linking?" Amafu kept her eyes up to watch for eavesdroppers.

Inyanga pulled out a textbook. "Think so."

"How can they test us on that? They haven't taught us how—"

"They've taught us enough," said Inyanga. "I was up all night thinking about it. I know how it's done. They've given us enough to figure it out."

"You didn't sleep? Oh, wait, who am I talking to? Inyanga, sweet thing, I haven't figured out how it's done."

Both stood, Inyanga with an open notebook and the textbook in her arms. Wishing she had several more hands, she balanced the books and pointed to the diagram in her own handwriting.

"Look, all you have to do is create a conduit between yourself and the stars through the stellar router." Amafu mumbled, "That all?" and Inyanga jabbed her with an elbow. Lightly. "Everyone gets so caught up on the locations of departure and arrival, identifying coordinates, finding a safe Constellation-designated arrival spot with limited displacement of matter — but that's the easy part. They forget what teleportation means: replication of the self in a new location. The key to direct linking isn't where you're going — it's you."

Amafu's knuckles were white on the textbook. "Please keep talking. Please don't just direct link up out of here before you teach me how to do it too. If you straight up vanish right now, our friendship. . ."

Looking up from the book at her friend's panicked face, green eyes popping not just from her charcoal waterlining and emerald eye shadow, but with the sheer terror of failing an examination, Inyanga had to smile. But then she had to check whether Storm had figured it out yet, whether the other front row seaters were about to discover the secret to direct linking and vanish up out of here, thus earning top points in the class.

All around her, their fellow students were curling up with textbooks to get a few more minutes of study in before the test. Their intentions were written clear; reading Storm's body language was a little more complicated. Glancing around with an aggressive upward chin tilt, she seemed aware that something was going on here.

And then her eyes found Inyanga's. And dropped down to the books in her hand. And probably read the look on Inyanga's face, because Inyanga had never been good at hiding her hand, whether at cards or anything else.

Breaking the staring contest, Inyanga whispered out of the side of her mouth, "I haven't worked it out yet. Let's talk through it." She turned her back on Storm, bringing Amafu along with her toward the roots of the orange azaleawood. "But fast. I need to be top of one class. If I don't get a scholarship, I don't know how we'll pay for next semester."

Taking the book from her, Amafu said, "We'll help each other. So, the key is 'becoming one' with the stars or whatever. You work on that part — and tell me how it's done. I'll get your arrival coordinates."

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