The boss stepped out of the penthouse onto the rooftop patio of Potestas Tower. 

Leander, his new bodyguard, followed. Leander Prince had been provided a blade, not a gun, for legal reasons. The man had no magic license. Ilan squinted in the darkness after being inside the bright ante chamber. 

Then the roof came into view, restored by his skilled and fast-working staff from the wreckage of both last night's party and this afternoon's gunfire. And last night's gunfire. The marble ground and the surfaces of patio tables and chairs gleamed.

The boss crossed the roof toward the balcony and half a dozen security guards poured out of the penthouse after him, making a quick perimeter of the patio, and Leander stuck close to his boss like a shadow underfoot.

Except more in the way.

The balustrade behind the stage where the force from the gun had met cast stone instead of the boss's flesh had been repaired. It didn't leave much of a scene to investigate for evidence, but that wasn't why the boss was here; Constellation had investigator magicians for that. The boss was purely speculating, and in search not of evidence but of the most conducive space for brainstorming. The scene of the crime would fit that purpose.

He had hardly started when there was a disturbance from the pair of security guards at the door to the roof. One was no doubt coming to ask the boss whether Nova Aurelian should be admitted to the patio, a long stride behind Nova herself.

"Boss," she called as she got close, and the guard stayed on her heel, unrelenting. "I was told you were up here. I had a moment to check in, is there anything I can do?"

The man in uniform broke in, "Boss, the Aurelian Nova Dasilva is here to see you."

"Thank you," Ilan told him. "You make their job difficult," he said to Nova.

Harassed but polished, Nova had bounce to her hair and a curl to her lashes, changed back from the sun dress into a crisp ebony suit. "Why is he here?" she asked at Leander.

"Leander will be my personal bodyguard."

Nova glanced up at the sky and said, "It's turning out to be kind of a strange day." Face vacant, she absentmindedly rubbed between the open collar of her shirt at her décolletage, and Ilan noticed the skin below her neck was violently red. "I went for a walk in the capital and some vagrant stole pearls from around my neck. Can you believe that? Has the world gone crazy?"

"That irritation looks like a burn." Nova rubbed at it harder and frowned.

To change the subject she asked, "What are we doing out here?"

"I've just come up here to think. About Cristo's theory. It would be impossible for anyone to wrest the company from Solin. Today."

Nova said for him, "Impossible though it might be, can you think of any motive that could be worse for the world?" They both fell silent.

Leander, however, couldn't keep his silence. "Excuse me, Boss, but why? How can it be so important who runs the company?"

"Constellation has become something more than that, I'm afraid. Magic has disrupted every industry: agriculture, architecture, civil engineering, transportation, manufacturing, shipping — the markets for every resource you can think of — and each year brings new surprises. Only executives really know at any time what's next on the horizon. The president decides on behalf of the empire the pace at which magic progresses. Sunyin Aura's 'movement' ignores the fact that Constellation toys with an energy source we don't understand, and we don't control to the extent we think we do. Not that it stops us from playing with magic for any whim our imaginations come up with — you can see I'm no exception. Exequi Valerian may be almost as bad."

"What about the other contender, Justin Marius?" asked Leander.

"Justin Marius opposes everything, almost as if he's against the star connection altogether. No one ever agrees with him. He's an annoyance, but harmless. If he does take over the company and stall magical advancement, fine. But he can take over Constellation over my dead body."

"Really?" Nova said. "How can you put Solin on a pedestal when her career skips from mistake to mistake?" She looked up at the sky meaningfully. "The sun is a star. This could be Constellation's fault. Solin's fault."

Leander's mouth tripped over more than one follow-up question. The boss didn't leave a second for him to choose words before he replied to Nova. "Whatever solar phenomenon this is, I'm confident Gaia Solin will be the one to uncover the problem and solve it. A President Marius may not be the end of the world, but I trust Solin not to repeat her mistakes."

"What mistakes?" asked Leander. Fast.

"Please don't interrupt," Ilan said. "Marius is not the right person for the job. Maybe second best, but I believe in Gaia Solin. Nothing will change my mind."

"Nothing could change your mind. No matter the evidence. No matter what changes, your mind is made up? That's the antithesis of critical thinking."

The boss began to backpedal on his words, but he couldn't answer anyway because of another commotion from the penthouse: the invasion of some twenty guardia in blue uniforms rushing out onto the roof.

Captain Roman Valda stood in the entrance while his guardia swept the patio to form a second perimeter around the boss's security. Valda was erect as the statue he was expecting of himself in downtown Soliara, and he refused to enter until the officers searched every corner behind every bench, patio table, hedge and flowerbed and yelled out, "all clear!" — an exercise to undermine Potestas Tower's security. The faces of the boss's people turned downcast.

Valda crossed the rooftop, calling, "We have a situation," as he came.

"I can see that," Ilan said. "A situation that, presumably, gives you authority to bring two dozen armed soldiers into my place of residence, in case I keep a small army hiding in my rhododendrons."

Valda didn't stop until he was in Potestas's face, competing with Leander to exude the most aggression standing still, but the boss relaxed and smiled. The captain happened to be a few inches shorter than him.

"I have authorization to investigate more than your flowerbeds, Potestas. You may have heard the guardia visited Invernali last night to execute an illegal, unlicensed magic practitioner. On further investigation, it appears unlikely that your rescuer last night had a legal connection either, and it also seems unlikely to me that the second breach of the law in one day in the city of Invernali would be unconnected to the first."

"What evidence do you have of a connection?" The hostility in Ilan's voice wasn't fake, but in the back of his mind, his faith in Cristo flickered while he said it, and he wondered how far he was about to go to protect the stranger from the law.

"Very little, but you do know the man I executed last night. His name was Louis Reveur."

The boss didn't check whether Leander's face registered a reaction — he knew it would, probably anger — or whether Nova's expression changed at all — he knew it wouldn't in the slightest. "I knew him," said the boss. He wouldn't get away with denying that much. "That doesn't mean his crime is connected to me."

"As far as we can tell, he didn't know a lot of people, despite renting an office downtown where he operated a private psychiatric business. His client list was short; patients must have paid a high hourly to keep it afloat. At this stage you're the only person we're sure has ever heard of him who had the means to grant him an unlicensed connection to magic."

"You had better keep looking, then. That's not evidence of anything except a lack of effectiveness in your department, Captain."

"Right, but there's also the assassination attempt last night. I was there, and I can't stop thinking about the effectiveness of your rescuer. Maybe your security guards have something on my department. I was under the impression that Constellation Invernali recruited from among prospects who didn't make it into the official guardia, but if that's the case we're turning away candidates with incredible potential. I'd like to hear your account of how this member of your security force effected your rescue last night."

The boss hadn't expected to have to make this choice so soon after he gave Louis's gun to Cristo. 

He could deny that Cristo was a member of his security team and give him up for illegal magic, or he could lie for him. The lie wouldn't hold up for long, but maybe it would be good enough to keep the man who had saved his life out of trouble until he could do whatever it was he was running around Soliara doing that he claimed was so time sensitive.

"Didn't you see for yourself, Captain?" he stalled, but the captain was disciplined and waited for the boss to continue. "Julian Somnare is the man who saved my life. He is new to my employ, but last night he proved himself an invaluable part of the team — I would be dead if it weren't for him."

He lowered his voice and looked around at the perimeter of his security forces with a faint fatherly smile and added, "And all of my other recruits proved to be pretty useless. As you saw for yourself, Lien Cassus fired two shots and only missed because Somnare was in the process of taking him out. Somnare neutralized the other two assailants, Sera Cassus and Vincent. Sera was the one holding a gun to your head, Captain, before Somnare injured her and you were able to disarm her."

Valda nodded. "There are a couple of funny things, though. First, several witnesses reported that Julian Somnare moved instantaneously from a spot in the crowd to the stage where you stand now. Second, the shots from his gun were never heard, not by me and not by a number of your party guests. Very curious, wouldn't you agree?"

"I don't see what that has to do with illegal magic. I didn't question how he saved my life — I didn't interrogate the man as soon as he was done preventing my murder. The fact is," the boss didn't allow himself to pause and take a breath or hesitate even though he was thinking every moment of another course, a way out of saying the next words that would incriminate himself because they were a lie and they would make him an accomplice to Cristo's unlawfulness, but he went on to say, "Julian Somnare used the gun I provided to him for his services as a member of Potestas Tower's security team to neutralize the threat to my life. You can put that on the record, and I vouch for him." Again he didn't look, but this time he pictured a flicker in Nova's eyes to reveal her disbelief that he would incite the consequences of lying to the guardia for Cristo.

"You vouch for him, that he has a magic license and that he is specifically licensed to carry solar arms?"

"Isn't that what I said?" the boss asked.

Valda seemed satisfied. Which wasn't necessarily a good sign. "I'll verify your statement. I don't recommend that you go anywhere, Potestas. If this doesn't check out, we're going to have to have another talk." He walked away, and if he made a signal to his men to follow, it was subtle, but they fell in and marched from the perimeter they had established, closing on their leader as they came.

The boss sat down on the edge of the stage where he had almost been killed. Nova and Leander crouched close to him so they could speak in quiet voices.

"Boss," said Nova, worry in her eyes and her voice, and just about everywhere else, "he can have proof that you're lying within hours . . . maybe minutes. Forget all of my previous objections to trusting Cristo, there's just no way out of the statement you gave. What do you think you're doing?"

"I have the strangest certainty," the boss said. "I haven't been able to shake it. Cristo asked me to keep myself alive for the next day or so. It was a thoughtless thing to say, but I haven't been able to shake off the certainty that — I wouldn't live any longer than that. It was just the way he said it. Stay alive for the next day or so.

"Nova, I may be wrong, but I have a feeling Valda won't have time to arrest me. I don't want to be right, but somehow I have come to believe that Cristo knows everything that is going to happen, somehow, and that what he says is right. I'll be dead before the end of the day."

A/N: This chapter was missing when I first published Stars Rise! Thanks to all who give it a chance and read it, I would love your thoughts, feedback, and any stars you have to spare!