Now more than ever, she wanted to speak with Inyanga.

One morning she got to campus so early, she found the front row of their lecture hall in al-Maysan empty; she had paid for a link at half to prima lux out of her allowance savings.

She wanted to ask, Is Storm Gloriam getting you into trouble? Is she egging you on?

Because if Storm had learned Inyanga wasn't under the taboo spell, she could be pressuring her to . . . Mingxia didn't know what. What did Storm want? What was there to gain from talking about the taboo?

The first row filled from the center outward with no sign of Inyanga. As students filed down the row behind her, as all the luck of the stars would have it, Amafu sat directly behind her — and in moments, along came Inyanga too.

"Boo!" said Inyanga to her bestie, and glancing back, Mingxia noticed something impossible to miss — because so much of Inyanga's hair had grown back out, after the shorn short look she had maintained since the first day of magicians college.

Some students said Storm's gravity defying orb of black coils was like a halo — with irony, as if she would be adorned with a circlet from Sol as if marked for goodness. The descriptor, Mingxia felt, fit this warrior for good much better.

Trying not to eavesdrop too, too much, she kept her head down, but she really did want to speak with Inyanga. Invite her to grab coffee, get her away from the others, and ask her about this mess she was getting into.

One time she looked back and Inyanga caught her eye. Instead of saying, "Good morning, Secondae Inyanga, could we grab a coffee together after class?" Mingxia had turned away like a snap, blushing. Like a spy getting caught (a bad one). Like she had been caught eavesdropping.

Which she had been.

Next thing she knew, she eavesdropped Inyanga saying, "Do you think you could help us with the taboo spell message problem . . . thing?" Storm joined the conversation and here they were sitting around talking about How To Write Down The Taboo! in what they must have thought were hushed voices, but weren't. Every word slipped directly into Mingxia's brain, including, "After detention tonight, Storm and I can go from the list of words we can use to explain the secret," and Inyanga's reply, "I love you!" to Amafu.

When Storm teased, "Aw, you two, I'm so happy we three are one big family now," now more than ever Mingxia saw red. And she beat herself up. How had she let this happen? How had Storm become best friends with them? How could those girls like her? Maybe they weren't such nice girls after all.

When she found the three that night conspiring over a chessboard in the courtyard, even with her back to them she could overhear plenty.

At times the noisy debates of groups of friends at other tables grew to an almost roar, but plenty of shushes piped them down regularly.

In those quiets it became clear what the girls were doing. They had written out the taboo spell and now Inyanga was talking about it. Out loud. "If magic cannot run out, then Constellation is hiding the fact that supply is unlimited."

Mingxia's heart thumped against the textbooks clutched to her chest. That girl was going to get herself kicked out.

She kept repeating the words, "artificial scarcity," and everyone knew they were not supposed to talk about that, or write it, or question it, decode it, translate it, or otherwise invoke it. Yet here was the top of their class repeating "artificial scarcity, artificial scarcity, artificial scarcity," and Mingxia clutched the books harder, trying to convince herself to do something.

Then Amafu said, her voice lower than her usual class clown blast but not so quiet that most every word couldn't be heard, "Stop saying that . . . library magicians are ten seconds away from realizing . . ." The light chatter picked up. Something about a tracking spell on words.

Those girls were going to get in so much trouble.

Amafu's voice dropped still lower in volume and the next thing she said was, "How long has that girl—"

Tingling at her back, up her spine, up her neck, filled Mingxia with the immediate and absolute certainty that 'that girl' meant her ... Freezing, for once Mingxia did not run. Innocently as she could, she broke the rigid stance her body had taken upon realizing she was caught, and she glanced around the courtyard, shifted her books, and set off as if seeing someone she knew at a far off chessboard.

Darting off for a brisk walk in the hedge maze, her thoughts raced, interspersed with images of scenes of confrontation — walking straight back there and actually shushing quietly enough that no one else would hear, "WHY ARE YOU TALKING about the taboo? You will get expelled, maybe even excommunicated."

Within a dozen steps she an idea. And within ten more she had thought of one that was less confrontational, and the way Amafu said "in ten seconds" the library magicians would know everything made her feel like she needed to take action right now. To keep those girls out of trouble. She needed to talk to someone. She needed to warn them to be careful. She needed to stop them from talking. She needed an explanation. Stopping short, her feet planting in the ground next to the roots of a floralwood, she pulled out her gnomon before she had even decided which plan of action to take, and began to work out the formula for a communication portal.

A link formed before she had decide whom to call.

The gnomon in her hand shook. Questions she wanted to demand bounced around on repeat in her mind.

The small link that didn't lead to anywhere yet currently mirrored her reflection. Chest heaving from running and getting worked up. Red eyes puffy, wide. Mussed threads of hair, a tense set to her jaw, she wanted to scream, and she looked mean. Was she really going to call them up and shout accusations? Before she even started to consider what the coordinates would be to call the girls at their chess table, the information appeared in her mind — she just knew the information, without having formulated it. The spacial coordinates were there in a mind, like a fact she recalled, one she knew was true as certainly as she knew her last name or her shoe size.

And amazingly, crazily, fatefully, another fact, another piece of knowledge, clicked in her mind right at that moment.

As if the stars chose to tell it to her.

From her neuromagic textbook. The one she had spent all nighters curled up with when she had insomnia, but she couldn't crack the underlying mechanics to cast the spell that might help her, because the textbook wasn't designed to give that information to a mere Secondae.

Yet suddenly when she needed it more than ever, she knew not only the basics of how to work an anti-anxiety spell, it was as if someone had told her the exact formula to cast it on herself in this moment. How to do it in exactly such a way that it would interact perfectly with her exact chemistry, her mind's neurotransmitters and her body's hormones, her metabolism and genetic makeup, to help ease her panic in this exact moment.

It probably was prohibited; Alondra said they were not to cast any new spell without express permission. But what could they do to her that was worse than the isolation she had felt ever since she came to this school? Like a fact she read out of a book, she knew she could ease her panic in this moment. So she didn't care about the rules.

While the small link levitated like a mirror in midair, she beamed with visible outrage, and cast the anti-anxiety spell, feeling a bit like a doctor performing surgery on herself.

What felt like a stream of pure solar radiance rippled from her gnomon hand to pour up her arm and stream into her chest, filling her up like soothing waters bathed in sunshine — like dipping into a river in summer, but from the inside. As her breathing slowed, and her mind cleared, every finger and toe relaxed. Those toes wriggled in her socks as if enjoying a rest on a riverbed, and she stopped thinking altogether — except to wonder, Is this how everyone else feels all the time?

She took a deep breath. Unhurried hands smoothed her hair. A placid expression, as if she were sleeping with eyes open, showed in the reflection. It hardened after a few seconds. Those eyes narrowed. It was as if the stars had chosen to give her the coordinates to call Inyanga right now and calmly ask what on terra she thought she was doing. Cool enough now to speak her mind, she could make a rational case. Warn them.

And what, admit she had been spying on them? What if they got mad? That wasn't anxiety speaking, her cool mind simply rationalized that such a path of action would not play out well for her. From what she had observed of the way people acted, without a care of what anyone else thought of them, it seemed like the most likely outcome was that they would double down, insist that they had their own reasons and they could do what they wanted, and that it was none of her business.

It was none of her business.

The grip on her gnomon loosening, she let the spell go. The link fell apart along with its picture of her steely eyes. Nope, she was not going to call them. Not her business, not her problem. Those girls decided to hang out with a trouble maker with an unearned halo, and let her guide them into danger — they could do what they wanted.

Wandering deeper into the hedge maze again, she continued to examine the problem. Of course . . . she really didn't want anyone getting kicked out.

There was still something she could do. To protect them from themselves. Another link appeared before her eyes, which blinked back at her. This time, the coordinates didn't just come to her, as if someone, perhaps the stars themselves, had whispered the information in her mind. She didn't know the coordinates automatically.

A directory listed official call locations, however, and the al-Maysan library help desk coordinates could be called up with Mingxia's gnomon. A minute later, a library magician in a burgundy uniform mirrored her, and said, "Yes, Secondae Mingxia?"

With a clear, full-bodied voice, Mingxia said, "I would like to report that I heard Secondae students discussing the taboo out loud. The blanket taboo spell failed." Thinking quickly, she cast an airweave page and on a hunch that she would be able to, she wrote the words, "artificial scarcity," holding them up for the library magician to see. "The spell didn't work. I can talk about it, and so can the whole Secondae class."

"You will report to al-Maysan Library's help desk within five minutes to give a full statement."

Shivers ran up Mingxia's spine, and then back down. A full statement? Wasn't it enough to report the problem? "A portal will appear before you in that time." That didn't seem fair, why should she be interrogated?

The link disintegrated in the air and Mingxia stumbled away, back toward the courtyard. As the last rays of a descending sun were sinking beyond the horizon, she was no longer afraid.

So she went back, all the way to the chess board, just in time to hear Storm say, "Maybe at some point we need to trust that some expert up there has their reasons." Stopping in mid-step, she listened. Storm was talking Inyanga out of . . . something. "Listen, friend. You have a lot of research ahead of you if you want to make certain that telling the whole world is the right thing to do."

Inyanga wanted to tell the whole world the taboo? Why? And Storm was stopping her?

Why?

When Amafu nearly jumped out of her seat and shouted an idea she had, momentarily Mingxia found herself thinking, Friends, you were about to be caught anyway — yet at the same time she felt an uncertainty.

The library magicians would place the blanket spell over the whole class, stop these three from talking about the taboo, and no one would get kicked out of school.

Yet Storm's words rang in her mind, if you want to make certain of the right thing to do. You need to know more.

Was there more to the story she didn't know?

As the girls were about to notice her and she was about to confront them, or question them, or warn them, dying of curiosity at this point, a dozen links erupted throughout the courtyard, with an announcement for all Secondae.

They were called for "an assembly in al-Maysan in ten minutes." The clamor of several repetitions out of several origin points echoed around the space, finally fading, and the three looked up and noticed Mingxia, right as a link began to grow up as if out of the ground, forming a barrier between them. As three sets of observant, pondering eyes were covered from view by a link big enough to walk through, Mingxia walked into it and disappeared.

When she was gone, and the link too, Amafu stood right up and said, "Excuse me? What. Did. I. Say?" A finger pointed accusingly to where Mingxia had been standing. Listening. spying.

"It's only Mingxia. You wouldn't worry," she muttered. Shaking her head.