Candra said to Diana Aemilia, "Cristo? We can go find him. I'll come with you." Candra felt her patience with the tight-lipped crying girl shredded to pieces when Nova appeared out of the crowd to get involved.

"Exequi Aemilia," Nova said with a whine that was meant to sound sweet and sympathetic, and she sat down on Diana's other side, putting an arm around her. "Cristo told me about your problem. Is there anything I can do?" Candra may as well have been invisible.

It was intimidating, and it showed off Nova had an exclusive bond with Diana that Candra didn't. Nova knew what was wrong when Candra didn't.

She tried not to clench her jaw too hard.

Diana was sniffling again, but more calm now. Relieved. Nova was relieving her suffering. "I'm waiting for Cristo," she said. She trembled. "Can you bring him over?" In the instant Nova lost turning in her seat to find 'Cristo,' Candra swiped the chance to get Diana alone again.

"I know where he is," she said, and she took both of Diana's hands to pull her up. Then she pulled her into the crowd, which closed around them like a curtain while Nova was looking the other way. "I'll take you to him."

Pulling Diana after her by just one hand now, she moved fast through the crowd, scattering bodies to leave Nova in her dust. She looked over her shoulder; Nova was breaking into a run, then halted by a mass of drunk people; she shoved to get through. Candra slammed between two people and shifted left to lose Nova around a pocket of tightly knit suits with drinks in their hands, bent close desperately to hear each other over the blaring jazz music.

On the other side she looked back again; Nova's face was above the heads of the crowd, eyes searching. Desperate because she lost them.

Back in the direction of the elevators, Candra pushed and pulled, then around the corner to the billiards room where she had no idea whether anyone named Cristo was present.

"I know where he is," she said. The girl was too agonized again to notice Candra was being inconsistent.

She didn't even need to fake an, "Oh, that Cristo?"

Justin Marius had asked, "Who even are you?" 

Leander grinned. Words weren't really his thing, but some were ready to pour out of his mouth when asked that question. He had a lot on his mind.

He said, "My name is Leander Prince, and I'm not really anybody. I used to be somebody, though. I was a police officer. A detective. I was proud of my career. I put some really bad people away — not the bottom run criminals but the people who paid them. It's not like I can say that I never compromised, but I put some of the worst where they belong — behind bars. That's what matters. Anyway, where I come from a guy like me can't just pull over the most important person in the empire at a party when it feels like the world is collapsing and demand that they fix the damn thing. 'Nobodies' like me go ignored. So I'm taking this opportunity while I have your attention.

"To me it looks as if you're wasting a lot of resources — time and energy and smart minds — trying to win an election and dividing the spoils over the president's dead body, when it would be so much easier to get elected as the hero who makes it so the sun rises like normal."

He could have used a cigarette to puff smoke while he talked conversationally, but he hadn't gotten his hands on any yet in this world.

"One little company pulls all the strings and if I just say the right words I can pull the strings of the president of the company that runs the empire that controls the planet. You don't even know who I am. That's how dangerous words are here. You're all worried magic is so dangerous, and you should be; that's why I'm telling you to do something about it. But words seem to have a hell of a lot of power too.

"Where I come from people say all kinds of crazy things and nonsense and damning true important things too, right in front of the press, and the politicians just turn away, smile and wave as they walk past the cameras. Here, half of everything anybody could want to say is a taboo. No one talks about immortality, about being immortal, you don't talk about how you're going to live forever, but it needs to be talked about because it's going to happen whether you talk about it or not. No one talks about what they lost, about dead mothers and dying wives, about a dwindling generation, about how there aren't any children. If you talk it's in whispers. 

"What would happen if Ilan Potestas just told everyone you're behind an attempted assassination? What would happen if he just said it out loud? It's like you people think the sky would fall. What if he just accused you publicly?

"He could hold a press conference. The accusation alone would cost you the election, and if he has no proof he can get witness testimony. But he won't say it out loud, will he? And you're bossing on that.

"But I could." Leander stopped and smiled at the senator, who looked relaxed, thoughtful. Marius didn't say anything, not even after that bombshell, he was a great listener, so Leander went on.

He had so much to say after almost twenty-four hours absorbing this place and all its insanity. "They know," he went on. "They know everything about all of your campaign efforts. They know that you kidnapped a girl, and you're behind the assassination attempts, and bribes and threats, and does it even occur to them to publicly accuse you?

"No. Maybe it's the whispers and everything unsaid that gives words so much power. Where I come from, a million conspiracy theorists can say the president committed murder, somebody could publish a best-seller about it and nobody blinks, it might even be true. Nobody blinks, because the words themselves without proof have no power. None. Everyone dismisses them.  Just a few million crazy kooks and their conspiracy theories.

"Shouldn't it be pretty damning for a man running for the most important office in the empire to be accused of bribing, and coercion, and attempted murder?"

Exequi Marius clasped his hands in front of him and nodded, listening without speaking.

"There are a lot of witnesses left alive who could come forward. Maybe one of your own could turn on you. They know everything. Or someone you already took something from. It would only take one person, and you would be damned.

"I won't follow you back into the party, Exequi. I won't force your hand, I won't tell everyone you're guilty of attempted murder, abduction. I'm not going to threaten you, because I'm confident you could use magic to get away with murdering me in the boss's flower garden, and I left my dueling wand in my other suit pants.

"I'll give you a choice instead. Don't take the election by force, by manipulation and bloodshed and contracts made at gunpoint. Take it by getting back to Constellation; tell everyone with a research license and a functioning brain in their skulls to come with you . . . and figure out why the sun rises and sets faster with each passing minute.

"I asked the same thing of Ilan Potestas and he refused — but I think he was right. It should come from you. It should come from your side. He can't move his resources to go keep the fibers of reality from coming unraveled, they're too busy keeping you from stealing the presidency — the most intelligent minds in the empire are just props and backdrop to distract everyone from the power struggle. You're the one who needs to back off. Move your people.

"Don't be elected as a murderer and a corrupt politician. Let them elect you as the man who saved the world and made the sun rise as usual."

Candra pulled Exequi Diana Aemilia by the hand. In the corner of the billiards room past the row of pool tables was a link to the Potestas Tower solarium. The two were bowed through by uniformed security with smiles that Candra returned.

When she emerged in the moonlit garden, the magical star-cast pseudo glass of the solarium dome was warm enough to melt the falling snow and leave the view of the stars and the city intact, the levitating penthouse of the building obscuring part of the night sky.

She felt it would be stressful for Diana to be led along until she realized on her own that she wasn't being taken to Cristo. Candra needed to tenderize her just right for what would come next.

At a hasty pace that pretended for now that she was rushing Diana straight to where Cristo was, and with one finger on her new weapon, which luckily wasn't sharp, she tore over the garden, not bothering to walk on the paths, talking and soothing all while she stormed right over the boss's adorable perfect flowerbeds, toward the arboretum on the far side by the corner of the roof.

Out of sight from security behind the trees for a second, Candra stopped, peered over her shoulder, and waited only a second with her hand on the sharp new weapon hidden in the pocket of the giant coat she was lucky was in fashion tonight, before a door-sized opening appeared in front of her, and she led her grieving companion by the hand into the random maze-like hallways in the belly of Potestas Tower.

The large Potestas building, which would soon belong to the Satiris, had long hallways to walk down, turns that led in circles, and long, slow detours through conference rooms and staff lounges in white light. She led Diana past the same lobby with a fountain in the waiting area — three times.

On the third pass, though, despite the tempest of emotions and the waterworks, the idiot finally pieced it together, if not the whole puzzle. "You're not taking me to Cristo," she said. She could be nothing but confused, but she sobbed out other emotions too: panic, and betrayal. 

Emotional little thing.

"No," Candra admitted, feeling Diana was properly marinated at this point and wanting to get back to the party.

"Why not? Why are you taking me in circles? Why?"

Candra fingered her weapon again. She thought she might know how to use it. "You think Cristo has time for you tonight, honey?" she improvised.

He probably didn't, whoever he was. 

Thank you for reading Stars Rise. The end of the world may be nearing. Please leave a star if you're having a good time.