Guardia Chief Roman Valda arrived at the party as late as he could.

It had been a busy afternoon, lots of paper pushing, lots of paperwork. Busy work.

The chief investigated the murder of Exequi Fortunato. He talked to the suspect, Nadia Valerian, for three hours, even though he knew in the first minute she was innocent.

Then he apologized sincerely for wasting her time and released her.

One investigative team was leashed up in their offices all day filling out forms in triplicate regarding the attempted murder of Exequi Potestas, even though the Invernali branch of Constellation had the right to prosecute the offenders. There was paperwork too for the second assassination attempt, which resulted in three deaths, for which the boss would successfully claim self-defence.

Another team wrote up boss Fortunato's assassination, and another was deployed to Constellation's downtown office to inquire into a blackmail tip.

It would and had come to nothing except getting rid of a dozen guardia from the station.

The rest of the guardia were under orders to remain in the bullpit until they determined the cause of the sun rising and setting early, while Chief Valda shot down all of their ideas and rejected their warrant requests. They were all terrible theories anyway, and if his officers happened to solve the case with one of their longshots, they would be available to pursue other investigations.

Such as the boss of Invernali's illegal connection of an unlicensed magician to his star router.

About half an hour ago he ran out of meaningless tasks for every team all at the same time and couldn't fake actual work any longer. He returned to Potestas Tower to arrest Ilan Potestas. Personally, if slowly.

"I'll take two officers with me to make the arrest," Valda had ordered. He left out the word "only." Only two guardia. "Mars and Julius." He, Mars and Julius exited the elevator and stopped where they were to examine the partygoers in front of them as if it would take a minute to tell if one of them was the boss.

It wasn't as if they were wearing masks.

"Should we split up?" said Officer Regus Mars, a tall, loyal guy, possibly the only person on the force who would obey the chief out of actual loyalty. Julius was shorter, balder, quite old and a little dopey, and the chief brought him along because he was unintelligent and unambitious enough to follow orders, and not dumb enough to do anything stupid.

"No," said Chief Valda. If they split up they would find the boss quickly. "I'm going to need both of you to assist with the arrest. Security won't break any laws to help the old man, but the illegal magician, Julian Somnare, may resist arrest. He is to be taken into custody and faces execution without trial. He may fight back." That excuse had the added benefit of being true.

The chief saw a security guard nearby. A tiny round communication link in front of her mouth teleported her words somewhere else, likely to boss Potestas. The chief wasn't an expert lip reader, but he expected her to say something like, "Sir, the guardia are here," and her lips seemed to form those words. Unless Valda was only seeing what he wanted to see.

He led his two uniformed officers into the crowd, which swayed to either side to let them pass even though no one looked at the guardia.

Somehow the chief knew where the boss would be, although he couldn't see across the bar lounge to the other side. Over hundreds of heads, he could see the glass wall, and in his mind's eye he could see the boss in front of the window; he pictured the boss looking out it with his back to the chaos of music and dancing. That would be good, if the boss was all the way on the other end of the floor, past all these people — the chief could waste a few minutes getting to him. Potestas had plenty of time to get away.

Ilan's accomplice, unfortunately, did not, and on his way somewhere in a hurry, Julian Somnare stepped out of a wall of guests, saw Valda and three uniforms, and stopped where he was as if the chief of the guardia had yelled, "Stop, you're under arrest!" — which he had definitely not.

All Valda could do to avoid arresting Somnare right there was to pretend he hadn't seen the man and hope Mars and Julius didn't.

He turned left away from Somnare and kept moving faster for a second. Mars and Julius followed like trained dogs, and when Valda glanced to the right without turning his head, Somnare was gone.

The boss would easily accomplish a similar disappearing act if he knew what was good for him.

At five minutes after media nox last night, Roman Valda had led a larger squad into the office of unlicensed magician Doctor Louis Satchmo Revere. Nine officers accompanied him through the broken down door to aid in the apprehension and immediate execution of the cardinal-magic-law-breaker.

The death penalty was awarded for only one crime in the Solari Empire, a crime for which definitive proof was attainable at the same instant at which the lawbreaker was identified, and therefore no trial was necessary.

Nine guns had been trained on the slightly overweight middle aged man wearing a business suit, who had his hands in the air.

He was unarmed. They always were in the end. Once the guardia identified a lawbreaker who used an illegal magic connection, nothing could stop them. And the lawbreaker always acknowledged his or her culpability. Just like the rest of them, Dr. Revere knew he was guilty and had no plans of taking any officers down with him.

And like all of them, he had a final request to make. They always did. "If I can have a word first," said Doctor Revere. Polite. The chief nodded to let him speak. Not a single gun was lowered. Louis didn't lower his hands. "I needed magic for something important." They always said that. It was usually somewhat true, if not always objectively true. "The future of the empire is at stake." Chief Valda had heard that one before, and so far it had never been true, not once. "I will tell you who connected me illegally to a magic router, but I want to make a deal. In exchange for the name of the guilty party, I ask that you delay arrest for as long as you can manage. Preferably until after the executive board meeting tomorrow."

"Why would I do that?" said the chief. He didn't mean to antagonize this man who was about to die because of a fairly controversial law, but he was tired. After this execution he needed to oversee added security at a masquerade at Invernali's Constellation building.

Louis had sighed impatiently. "A number of reasons. First, that's why they call it a deal. Second, the information I attained by using magic illegally proves that Constellation will undergo a takeover tomorrow at the company board meeting as a result of blackmail and murder." He kept his hands where they were, high, and gestured with his head to his desk. "You will find on my desk the documents I stole from Constellation. They outline plans to murder the boss of Invernali at his masquerade tonight, and to blackmail an executive named Tony Solari."

Grateful for the tip, Chief Valda went to the desk and took up the papers laid out there just for him. He read them. Louis said, "The assassination plan is vague, and uses code words, but I have uncovered the meaning and provided a sort of translation." Chief Valda read Louis's interpretation of the documents. Before he could speak his objection, Louis conceded exactly the points he was thinking. "There's no mention of the purpose of the boss's assassination. No names, either of the assassins or the person who ordered the assassination. There's no chain of custody, and therefore no proof that these documents were recovered from a top executive at Constellation. But when you attend the boss's masquerade tonight, you'll see for yourself when someone tries to kill him. There's no proof that the purpose of the assassination is to allow for a Constellation takeover."

"I just have to believe you," said Valda.

"You just have to do your job and investigate these tips," said Doctor Louis Revere.

That was fair.

"The documents were taken from the desk of Portia Nero. Get a warrant, find out if she or someone she works with blackmailed Tony Solari. Perhaps ask Tony Solari. It's up to you what you do with the information. Now, about our deal."

Chief Valda nodded.

"Will you delay in the arrest of the guilty party until after the Constellation board meeting?"

"No," said Valda, "but I will complete a thorough investigation of your allegations before I arrest Ilan Potestas, who obviously connected you to the Constellation router in Invernali. No deal. But you may die in peace, knowing that you aided in my investigation."

There was a look of peace on Doctor Louis Revere's face when Roman Valda executed him, not only as if he had completed some form of life's work, or done the right thing before he died, but as if he had some knowledge that death wasn't that big a deal anyway.

Chief Valda had seen it all, but he had never seen that before.

Thank you for reading Stars Rise. Please spare a magic star if you're enjoying the story, and take care.