Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

IV.ii Inyanga's Star Finale

Constellations Characters

Futur — Future in Maltese, Catalan, French, and Serbo-Croatian

Wèilái — Future 未來 Chinese

Glossary

Bibliotecaria: Librarian in Spanish

Act IV Scene ii — Inyanga's Star Finale

Under an obnoxiously cold bright light in a small office adjacent to the library sphere, librarian magicians conducted the investigation of Mingxia.

One librarian sat across from Mingxia in a maroon uniform. She had introduced herself as Bibliotecaria Futur, and the other as Bibliotecaria Wèilái.

Bibliotecaria Wèilái, a parens pregnant with a growing starborn bump, took the lead with the questioning. Standing over the table, aeh asked the Secondae to present the page on which she had written the words "artificial scarcity."

Bibliotecaria Futur tapped her fingers on the page. She said, "Read those words aloud, Secondae Mingxia."

A guttural sound came out over Mingxia's limp tongue, but that was all. It might have been better not to try.

Pacing away from the small conference table, Bibliotecaria Wèilái took a sharper tone, aer voice hard and honed. "You cannot speak about the taboo. The blanket spell didn't fail. You found a loophole."

Shaking her head, Mingxia calmly answered, "Did I find a loophole, or did you leave one open for rulebreakers to exploit?"

A hand smacked down on the top of a stack of books. "You reported the leak for a reason. Who has been discussing the economy of magic out loud despite the prohibition of that subject?"

A taunt sneaked out in her tone. "I thought there was a flaw in the spell. Because I could write down message we weren't supposed to be able to talk or write about." Faux innocence. It was difficult to keep her irritation to herself; not a shred of anxiety remained in her calm body, and now the fear that had always acted as a boundary between her thoughts and her mouth was gone. The injustice of being questioned for helping them boiled into outrage that wanted to come right out, and she had to keep thinking to herself, "Stay calm, don't talk back, don't tell them anything, and don't piss them off."

"You're lying. Did you write down the taboo to communicate it to someone?"

"I wrote it down . . . to show you . . . there's a flaw." No matter how deeply she breathed, her jaw clenched at the unfairness.

"You lied so we would cast the blanket spell again. To prevent someone who was talking about the economics of magic from doing so."

Eyes narrowed. "I don't know anything about that."

Biblioteca Wèilái's eyes narrowed. "You said Secondae were talking about it. Who were they?"

"I don't know," she put in a peaceful, apologetic tone, through her clenched teeth. "It seemed like everyone was talking about it. The whole class. I was walking in the courtyard and I kept overhearing it."

"Even though it's against the rules," aeh said.

"Students break rules," she said.

"Yet you can't say the words," aeh said.

"Other students could," she said.

"Give us a name. Just one. One person you overheard talking about it."

"I don't know who it was. I don't know many people's names here."

Alondra came in, wielding an airweave page in one hand, the hilt of her gnomon clasped in the other. She came up to the table and stopped there between the interrogator and student and said, "That's enough grilling of the student who took it upon herself to report that the spell failed to work properly. Mingxia will already be serving detention for the unauthorized use of a psychiatric remedy spell. Come with me." Turning as if they were both leaving this instant.