Leander had ushered Nova back out into the hub of rebel activity and then stood in front of the door with his back to it to block her entrance.

He ignored her questions with a blank face and shut his mouth tight. It was excruciating. He was the perfect candidate to tell her everything.

Nova believed Cristo and Stephen were busy talking about important things, and everyone she saw looked preoccupied with coming up with a last ditch plan to save their lives, even Laio Cytheria and Sera Cassus and the other two who came out of Stephen's office had joined the mind meld and Nova didn't want to distract them even though the questions were killing her. 

But Leander wasn't doing anything, he was just standing there!

"You follow orders. Don't you take orders from me?" she tried. It was the first thing that got a reaction out of him: his brows furrowed a millimeter toward each other. "Answer me."

"I don't know if I take orders from you," he said. It appeared to truly perplex him.

"You obey Stephen, and you obeyed Ilan Potestas — the boss practically adopted me. Stephen is like," she plowed into a gross exaggeration, "a little brother to me. A hundred years may have passed, but surely you obey my commands just as you obey Stephen's."

He was shaking his head. "I never met Exqequi Ilan Potestas. I obey Nova Gloriam, but you're not her."

"Gloriam. Nova Gloriam, you say. Interesting. No, I am not her, but I'm going to be in a hundred years. But I thought it was Potestas. Now it's Gloriam? None of this makes any sense. What would make Cristo call me Nova Potestas? Amnesia? Delusions? He's been completely unhinged from reality since the first time I saw him and he keeps saying I'm not real and I'm not Nova Potestas, or Gloriam, which I'm not, but somehow I will be, right? Did the boss adopt me before he died? No, he was supposed to have died last night, wasn't he? Did I marry Stephen? But then why Gloriam?"

She thought momentarily of Calo Gloriam. Would she marry Calo?

"Is Cristo completely insane?"

Leander wasn't answering her any more and continued to shake his head. Nova asked him, "If he's crazy, why is he the person Stephen nominated to send to the past to fix things?"

Leander stopped shaking his head and his expression brightened. "I think I can tell you that."

Nova clapped her hands and almost bounced with enthusiasm. "Please!" she said.

"There are two reasons. Cristo is the only one who could go. First, only he can create a temporal link. Stephen forefronted that technology; however, Marius cast him out and disconnected him from the star dial. Cristo is the only member of the rebellion with a gnomon connected to the current Constellation star dial."

"What's a gnomon?" asked Nova.

"It connects Cristo to the Constellation dial. Try to keep up."

"That little rod thing? But it takes a router to connect to the star dial, like that sundial table in Potestas Tower."

"That was how you connected to the old dial. You had to be connected to a router that transmitted to Constellation's original star dial. Justin Marius built a second star dial that only requires a gnomon to connect to it — the range is infinite, even across time, as long as you're touching the gnomon. President Marius only connects people he likes to the more advanced dial — and there are still different tiers for the capabilities to which each person has access.

"Marius likes Cristo. He's the talented son of his good friend Angelus Gloriam — but he doesn't like him enough to allow him to time travel; in fact, it's illegal to everyone who isn't working on its development. Temporal links need some improvement; there are a few kinks to work out. But since Stephen used to work on that team, he was able to instruct Cristo to gain access to time links. If somewhat illegally, by bypassing the tiers.

"But opening a time link is only the first problem. The time link can only be entered by someone who isn't currently present in the point in time to which the link leads — you can't be return to a point in time to which you're already present — where you've already been. Cristo hadn't been born yet. Stephen couldn't go because he's already there. He's not the right man for the job anyway, not that Cristo Gloriam is without flaws."

"The son of Angelus ... Gloriam . . ." She frowned though as she continued to work it out. If she married Calo, Cristo was her nephew. But more importantly ... "Cristo said if I was Nova ... Potestas, I wouldn't be able to enter the time link — because my future self was here already? But I did come through. What does that mean? It seems to suggest that Cristo's right — I left this time and linked to the past after him, and that's why I was able to come to the future, because I wasn't here.

"But I have a whole life, I have memories. I'm not crazy, he's the one who's crazy. I'm a Dasilva. If the time link works as you say, then I don't exist in the present year . . ." She trailed off, then said faintly, "Am I dead?"

The commotion of worker bee-like rebels changed the rhythm and intensity of their buzz behind her. They went quiet, and then someone shouted, and Nova turned around. Four people had come in, and Nova recognized Novus Fortunato and Candra Satiri. "Everyone out of the way," Candra said ashe she rushed. Fortunato was carrying a limp female body. "We're taking her to Stephen. He might be able to do something—" The procession reached Leander and Nova, and Candra stopped talking when she saw her, and Nova's mouth dropped open and all of her breath caught in her chest when she got a look at the body they were carrying.

"It's me," Nova whispered. Then she saw all the blood, congealed and no longer flowing, just a stain on the charcoal jacket the corpse was wearing.

A corpse, a body, that was identical to Nova in every way.

Leander was on the move behind her and shoved her back against Stephen's door and faced off with Candra. "You can't bring her in here," he said.

"Get out of the way, you idiot. You never have a clue what you're doing, always barging into other people's business thinking you know what your boss wants, but you don't, you're incapable of thinking for yourself and you're only of use when obeying commands from people who are smarter than you. I'm smarter than you, and I'm telling you to get out of the way. We don't know how long we have, she may be lost forever."

Leander stood his ground. "There's nothing Stephen can do for her. Can't you see she's dead?"

"She has a habit of not staying dea—" Candra was saying, but Leander flew at her with a blade drawn, placing it at her throat. "Wow, really?" she breathed. "A knife, how very barbaric." And then she looked back at Nova. The Nova that was alive.

Nova had watched their argument with her eyes pulled back every other second to the sight of her own slumped life-lacking body and slack dead face. Now that Leander had a knife at Candra's throat, Novus Fortunato put the corpse down on the floor, and Candra huffed.

Nova found her voice. "He's right." She stepped forward next to Leander. Everyone in the room stared at her with mixed expressions, none of them knowing what to think or say or how to look at her. "You can't bring her in there. Me in there. You have to take the body and get out of here now."

"He's not going to kill me," Candra said, glaring at Leander.

"Of course not," said Nova, "but you're going to listen to reason. How do you think I got here, how do you think there are two of me? Cristo brought me from the past. He's in Stephen's office, re-strategizing, collecting his thoughts, and preparing to go back in time again to save all of you. Hopefully he can dial his crazy down because he's kind of unhinged. The last thing he needs right now is to see her dead. Me dead."

"If Cristo is here, maybe he can bring you back to life."

"He can't," said Leander. "I promise he can't."

"What do you know? He could bring her back from the dead, she's been restored to life before. He could save her," said Candra.

"Cristo's going to save all of us," said Nova. So far she had gotten by being honest with Candra, but now she wasn't sure she believed what she was saying. "To do that he needs a clear head. Get . . . her out of here."

"Maybe if he sees her, it'll show him the stakes," said Candra. "What he has to lose should he fail."

"He knows, trust me. Out!" Her shout allowed no argument, and Candra Satiri backed right down. Very satisfyingly.

There were smaller offices off this one and Nova's corpse was carried to one perpendicular to Stephen's.

Candra followed and watched them lay the body down on a sofa. She sat down next to it and with astonishing motherliness she straightened its jacket and smoothed its blouse, then took its hand.

She looked up at the living Nova and said, "You have always been an insufferable brat."

Thank you for reading Stars Rise. Your thoughts mean the world and the stars for me, so please leave comments if you have any! All stars grately appreciated to fuel this story's rise. Wishing you all well <3