’The Stars fled their first home. They wish to flee once more.'
'Stars are pin-pricks. Or perhaps serpent-bites. Let me understand how these may be moved.'
'When skin moves, its wounds go with it. Something wants to don the night sky’s skin, as the Moth wore the Wheel, as the Grail wore the Thunderskin. And so, a door will open, as it did back then.
Petros thought something wished to don ‘the night sky’s skin’ and predicted that a door would open as a consequence.
’We cannot tell North from South! I am glad I even made it here at all.'
'We are always open to change, but we do not wish to map new star charts that will become outdated within a fortnight. What is going on, librarian?'
'A contention of Wills, or perhaps even a test of them. We do not take sides, as you know, so perhaps I’ll start work on some new charts. In pencil.‘
Bartolina saw the movement of the stars as a contention of Wills, and chose to hedge her bets by sketching up new charts to reflect the changing skies.
'Crete is holy to the Horned-Axe, where her old shadow lingers. And much persists in shadow.'
'Certain accounts say the Roost met at the Fane of Owls long ago. Their secrets take strange forms, but there are ways to read them - ways I think the Stars have used.'
'An owl’s feathers are silent, but the Roost’s speak freely. The old gossip of the Hours endures there in silence - maybe even secrets of the gods-from-stone.‘
Libreng Ibon drew a connection between the Stars’ movements and old secrets of the Roost left at the Fane of Owls.
’Many have already taken interest in the changing skies. I am more concerned about the seas.'
'The sea is the sky’s mirror. When reflections change, it is not often the mirror which changes them… but I am uncertain if is only the stars which are changing.'
'Something more than starlight is traveling the waves. It is te lapa, the sea-lightning, crossing the horizon, calling out to the Stars. If they listen, this may all end with a deluge.‘
Tuponotanga concluded the Stars were being called by light from across the horizon, and feared their movements could end with a deluge.
’Many of those suspended bodies are maintained through the vestiges of Flint and the desperate artifice of the departed. There is much Will among the stars.'
'When proper enactments are made on Earth or among the Heavens, there are ways in which the stars might be pulled here. Sometimes, their impact spreads powers around. Sometimes, their residents then disembark. Prepare yourself for further starfall, librarian.‘
At night the cat watches the stars through her window perch. Her ears and eyes dart with every imperceptible movement. She is enraptured.
In a flurry of feathers and screetches, an owl claws at the window. La Magdalena makes no response but to tilt her head. The owl is in a fury–I notice then it is an autillo, an ocean away from its home. After several minutes, the cat responds in a whimpering, chittering mewl that seems to reassure the autillo, who leaves as swiftly as it came. The cat turns to me as if offended I am eavesdropping on her professional correspondence.
’Xenodice Half-Faced works to realign the stars as we speak. We should expect her to succeed.'
'Xenodice’s favored are cruelly observant; their heads move in quarter-turns, clockwise then anticlockwise, from pole to pole, and they watch both sky and stone for intrusion. They use a lens of Mansus-glass to track their wards and they are even now performing the mightiest enactments they know to hold the stars in their places.‘
’On a very cold day in Buenos Aires–or maybe it was in the Glassgarden–I spoke to a visitor who told me the bonds of the Four Enclosures were weakening. I had forgotten this warning but now I’ve remembered it.'
'Why are the stars enclosed, one might ask? And now that they move, are they beasts let loose from cages? Prisoners whose time has been served? I suspect they are more like bees whose Queen has moved to a new hive. Now that I think of it, I believe this visitor was a librarian of the Grove. No–he was Carapace Cross. No–he was both.‘