Outside Constellation, an audience gathered under the shadow of one of the orbiting towers. Possibly Alcyone.

It was hot in Soliara, and cooler to stand in the shade of the tower overhead than directly in the sun's sweaty embrace.

Gaia Solin, the president of the company, addressed the Soliari in front of a sundial with a sixty-two foot gnomon. Cristo, like everyone else, blamed that sundial for what was happening. It represented everyone's unease as the shadow of the gnomon fell onto an hour line over an hour ahead of the arms of their watches, and at the same time was likely the cause of it, because the gnomon of the Star Dial converted energy from the stars into magic.

It read hora secunda.

Hundreds of protesters had come right to Constellation for answers, as if the president could stop the sun from rising when it wanted to. But then, if the average person didn't understand the solar system, that was no one's fault but the president's either. Constellation directed, founded and funded the school boards.

Cristo pushed from the back of the crowd. He eavesdropped confusion and worry. And excitement. Some people were so bored of life that they were waiting for something to come along and burn the whole world down.

And for the chance to blame it on President Solin.

"Whatever she did, she doesn't want us to know."

"Did you hear the guardia ask what I was here for? I said, 'corporate transparency,' and she must not have liked my answer, because she linked for a background check."

"It's probably because of the links. A consequence."

"It's not," Cristo put in without stopping or turning back. "The first links were developed years ago with no such consequences."

The speaker yelled after him, "Maybe the stars hadn't decided how to punish us yet!"

Cristo let it go. He couldn't argue with them all. Unfortunately, there were a lot of them. "What has the company done now?" they asked. "Next thing you know, it'll be the end of the world."

Someone ahead of Cristo said, "The president needs to stop whatever she's experimenting with."

Someone shouted back, "What's she up to that we don't know about? What's she playing with?"

"Explosives," someone said.

"Time travel," suggested someone else.

"Our immortality," someone yelled near the back of the crowd, and it was as if a bomb had gone off. Closest to the blast, people shifted away, half the onlookers turned to look for the source, and the other half tried to act as if nothing had happened.

In a few decades the Soliari would begin to discuss amending immortality in whispers, but at present, only the rebellious talked about it.

Now the president answered the audience's questions. Despite the warmth of the day, she wore a long purple kimono with long sleeves over pinstripe pencil-leg slacks; the president of the company that invented magic probably kept her cooling spell running all summer. Cristo had never seen the woman before, and he spent a moment watching how she interacted with the crowd. The brunette kept her hair in one tidy thick braid and she spoke down to the people whose worries she had come outside to soothe.

"Time is dictated by the sun." Gaia Solin's voice was deeply rich and pedantic. "If the sun's at its pinnacle, the time is meridies — hora sexta. To measure out the hours by counting time and ignoring the time the sun says it is would be—"

Her voice was drowned out by angry opponents. "But never in the history of time has the sun changed the rate of its travel," said the loudest.

"And what if it never changes back?" came another.

The president said, "The electoral board meeting will begin at crepesculum, half an hour after sunset, just like every year." Cristo got a sense she was one of those logic and facts people, not so much a people person.

"How will you measure half an hour after the sun has set?"

"My watch will measure half an hour," said Solin, stepping right in the trap.

She was caught with her wrist still up when the heckler said, "My watch says it's before hora prima! Why not go by our watches altogether?"

"Because," said Solin, "this is the way it's always been."

"Times change!" someone yelled. The audience laughed together.

By Cristo's estimation, the meeting could be in six hours or less if they went by the sundial. It wasn't supposed to be for twelve hours.

"It's the sun that changed its schedule," someone yelled, "not our clocks." Voices yelled, "yeah!" and some repeated the words, "The sun changed, not our clocks!" Cristo joined them, shouting the chant. A woman in a suit yelled, "Our clocks are right!"

Someone else bellowed, "Sunset is too soon!"

"Give the opposition time!" someone took up, and there were shouts of agreement.

Cristo yelled, "And what about next year?"

"Next year?" someone behind him called. "At this rate the next annual board meeting will be next week!"

"Clock time, not sun time!" said Cristo. "Clock time, not sun time!"

"Clock time, not sun time," voices chorused.

"Give the opposition time," someone yelled, and voices chorused that too.

"The electoral proceedings," said Gaia Solin, "convene every year at crepesculum, thirty minutes past sunset. If we go by clock time, who knows what time of day or night the twelfth hour will be by then?"

"It'll be thirty minutes after twelve!"

"Half past duodecima!"

"Thirty minutes to prima noctis!"

Voices echoed like successive cracks of thunder — not everyone, but enough cracked, "half past duodecima!" and "crepesculum," "after sunset," "half twelve" and "thirty minutes to prima noctis!"

"It'll be twelve hours after sunrise."

"It'll be the middle of the night, but only twelve hours since dawn."

"It'll be when it's supposed to be."

More and more voices cracked for more time. Someone muttered to Cristo, "Even if it's the depths of night, we won't be sleeping, that's for sure." He had to agree with that one. No one will be sleeping, because the electoral board meeting will be neck at neck, if Cristo could manage even that much. And with the sun rising early, he worried Marius may attract even more voters. Justin Marius may think he needed more time, but Cristo had an actual tally of the way votes fell out, and he knew Marius would win unless as many of his plots could be disrupted as possible, and for that Cristo needed as much time as he could get.

Pushing a strand too short for her braid behind an ear, the only disorder she could control, Gaia said, "Electoral proceedings will begin at half past duodecima — according to the clock. Half past duodecima clock time." She did acquiesce with stately aplomb. As the crowd started to cheer, Cristo slid to the side to escape. Even with more time, there wouldn't be enough time.

Behind him the conversation's tide changed back again already.

"What did President Solin do?"

"What are we being punished for?" voices yelled.

"Down with Solin!"

Past the edge of the crowd, Cristo dashed toward the street level doors of the skyscraper.

Four strides away he felt a jolt a split stride after he noticed an almost invisible arch he was passing under; the arch shocked him so infinitesimally quickly that the sensation would have been imperceptible except that it wracked his whole body like being electrocuted for a split second.

Cristo supposed that was how security checked for unlicensed, illegal connections. He didn't have any. Technically.

The magical glass doors fell like water from a fall, parting for Cristo to enter, and then the fall of glass sealed after the heel of his shoe.

Inside, the ceilings defied expectation; the skyscraper was hollow, allowing light from a sun roof to filter from eighty stories above.

Balconies ran up the north and south sides, while on the east and west, offices looked out of pure glass windows. As if he were meant to be there, Cristo walked straight through without letting his gaze linger on the fountain, which tumbled water in unpredictable directions guided by invisible forces over his head and into planters along the walls, which accepted it in sprinkles.

A leafy proliferation grew up the walls, over balcony railings and up glass windows, perhaps not flourishing in the limited natural sunlight but probably fed a strong source of magically misdirected solar energy.

Cristo headed for the front desk, and was greeted by a friendly host. "My name is Julian Somnare," he told the young man. "I have an appointment with Exequi Liao Cytheria."

Anyone remember Cytheria from the rooftop? She was the ancient sommelier, sampling half a dozen glasses of wine at a time. I hope you'll get to know her a little better in the next chapter!

Thank you for reading Stars Rise. If you're enjoying the story, please leave a star.