"Hold on, what? They don't have to charge so much for magic?"

"Well, no . . ." said Dawn, trailing off, and the conversation passed silently between their eyes from there. A spell bound their tongues and prevented them from talking about Constellation's secret. If magic could not run out, because its source was sustainable and unlimited, then . . . could the company charge whatever it wanted?

Yue had never thought about it.

She never asked why. She couldn't ask why, because students couldn't have a conversation about it. No debates, no late night philosophical pondering, no devil's advocate sparring, no passionate duels that might turn violent over who was right, the way the students carried on about every other question worth talking about. Yue never wondered why, it just seemed like if everybody knew it was without limit, everyone would want all the magic in the world, and she could see how that could be dangerous.

Telling the public the public that magic could run out, they had every excuse to limit how many students became magicians, limit the spread of magic, slow progress that might have scary consequences, and — now what Dawn said echoed in her head, "They can charge anything they want."

The company pretended there was only so much to go around so those who wanted it most would have to work hard and pay for it.

Now Yue repeated the words Dawn said, quietly first, "They can charge anything they want," then wide eyed, leaning back away from the counter, exclaiming louder, "They can charge anything they want!"

Dawn the oddball joined in too, turning it into a chant.

"They can charge anything they want!"

"They can charge anything they want?"

"They can charge anything they want!"

That killed them and they both pulled a stitch in the bellies laughing, and only when they stopped did Yue say, "That . . . never occurred to me." Her hands went to her hips. "Do you have any idea how much is coming out of my pocket to conjure delicacies for the poor?"

#

"I'm not doing it anymore, not unless they reimburse me. The company has infinite resources to make the world a better place — they should be feeding coq au vin to the poor, not me."

Of course the day Yue had her interview, and her live broadcast orphan feeding benefit program, Constellation cut her off from magic.

Didn't matter what spell Yue tried to cast up there, her gnomon was out of juice, cut from the power, and it was a feeling she knew well because it happened to her all the time. A little sheet of sweat formed on her forehead as she held the useless rod high, aware that she maybe could be seen on link screens watched by millions.

Maybe no one was watching but . . . it was prime time and dinner time, and the cooking show slash benefit crowd to whom they had promoted the event for ages could be tuning in . . . Yue didn't want to think about how many. Testing, she tried a light spell, a darkness spell, a voice amplification spell, a silence spell to mute the murmurs starting up and the questions the reporter was bound to start asking for Channel 7. "Is anything wrong?"

The little urchins crept up to the chef's counter, lured by the wafting scent of bacon fat, and sniffed, drooled, and stared with moon eyes as if they hadn't just feasted on chipotle adobo sliders, masala chickpeas, piri piri potatoes, and mole enchiladas en miniatura. Yue imagined their bellies rumbling even though that couldn't possibly be the case. Could she cut one sweet baconyam into two thousand morsels? There was a story of a miracle worker, perhaps the first magician, who had carved a boar into piece after piece and didn't run out until he fed an entire army.

Every other month at Magician's College, Yue would go broke and fail to pay her magic bills and Constellation would cut her off. Pretty ridiculous. The first of the month, her gnomon would run dry, no magic. It would cease to fire, and she would have to walk on foot, sans link, to the registrar's office to pay overdue fees. Total nonsense. Tuition fees wore her thin and she would give up every luxury to afford more food multiplication spells for her experiments in culinary fusion. She would fuse different foods together, melding bacon with a yam, infusing mascarpone into duck ragu, bonding steamy biscuits and figs and prosciutto into one mega mouthwatering bao bun.

A year into school she got a business going selling fig bao out of her moto. Her fusions were possible because she was an artisan. She became an artisan because she loved to eat.

Instead of growing large, she had grown tall, six feet and a couple of inches to fill to the brim with calories tasting her own experiments.

The business set afire didn't keep her in solidae because she would run up her magic bill to the ends of her funds and her credit to expand and sell new culinary arts to the foodies in the city. Anything she didn't sell in a day she started to give to the grayscale folks who hung out downtown, and it brought her joy to multiply her most delicious treats and bring them to the shelter and popular hangout spots and watering holes, to people whose faces would actually express joy at her cooking — so she would run up her bill to feed them too.

The reaction of the grayscales to tasting her creations . . . there was nothing like it. The way they let the pleasure play out all across their shadowy gray features, and made mmmm sounds and oh damn that's good noises of appreciation. Not like the pristine foodies with their crisp shirts and their silks and their pearl buttons, the ones who never had to worry a day about running out of magic or losing their color subscriptions; their lush bronze or brown or peach skin proud and full color and dolled up in mulberry or sapphire or rose red on the eyes or lips, who chewed down her fig bao with a poker face as if to show that they actually liked the treat they had just purchased three dozen of for catering would be distasteful.

Always maxing out her credit and getting cut off. Too busy cooking and studying to notice the cancellation advanced notices. Until Dawn pointed out that the company could charge whatever it wanted — well, much of it had gone unsaid, because of the censoring spell.

Her point stood. Why hadn't Yue thought about it before? Well, if they were going to charge whatever they wanted they could foot the bill for Yue's expenditures feeding high end cuisine to the poor. She linked right to the registrar's office and demanded, "I want to be reimbursed for all late fees. And from now on I'll be taking a 40% discount on Constellation's stated charge. I'm a loyal customer, and if you don't want to lose my business, you're giving me a deal. Where does all this money go, anyway?" Her own mind filled in the answer to that: research and development, magical advancement, providing sustenance to every Soliari, public utilities like roads and parks and rapid transit, and libraries, and keeping the weather nice.

And to some executives at the top who got to live large and cater their parties with Yue's bao, meanwhile she's getting cut off from the school's router every time she goes over her credit to feed the hungry . . . or, well, to impress the common people with her risotto ai funghi.

The complaint got escalated all the way to the top of the company, and then it came back down. No one from Constellation so much as met with her. The same useless registrar magician Yue always dealt with told her, "There's no negotiating. If you don't like the price of magic, you can give up your license and your memories of classified Constellation magical schematics."

Yue didn't like it, but she wasn't going to give up being a magician.

"Excuse me, Yue? What's going wrong?" the reporter, Malika Eun, asked. In front of the camera link, Yue tried to keep calm. Rebellion in public, on air, would make things worse. "I must have fallen behind on my magic bills. Sorry kids, there will be no sweet bacon potatoes today, and no," she gulped, "dessert."

Thank you for reading Yue's Star Episode I. Yue is just one star in a Constellation, and she will appear in upcoming Constellations soon! If you enjoyed this short story, please leave a star. Thank you <3!