for as long as stars do shine

"sick bitch, play a trick, bitch, on a fake d----"

Response 1: Do you want to go to the garden?

Response 2: How are you feeling?

You wait until you've reached the top of the stairs before steeling yourself and asking, 'How are you feeling?'

Lex stiffens and asks, voice carefully flat, 'What do you mean?'

'You just seemed... um... pretty upset back there.'

You walk the length of a few blocks in silence.

'If you don't want to talk about it -'

'Got a bad feeling about where the next witch meet's going to be.'

'When do we find out?'

'I don't know. Soon.'

You almost ask them to elaborate but one look at their hunched shoulders makes you rethink that decision. Instead, thinking of how they warmed up when helping with your experiment, you say, 'I'm going over to the community garden now. Do you want to come?'

They consider the offer, then say, 'Sure.'

--

The only volunteer you recognise is Allan, and he smiles when he sees you and Lex. 'Brought a friend!' he says.

'Lex, this is Allan. Allan, Lex.' You wait for them say their hellos then say, 'So, I was talking about the heat stones with my mentor, and I think they would make the warmth too concentrated? If we set up a bigger sigil around each garden bed they'll be less intense and distribute heat more evenly. But I don't know about plants.'

'It turns out sigils don't work if weather witches don't complete them,' Lex says with a trace of amusement. 'So you'll need something that can be deconstructed and put back by a weather witch.'

'I like the idea of a big one around the bed we can remove,' Allan says thoughtfully. 'But... it would create a tripping hazard.'

You breathe out a sigh of frustration. That hadn't come up when you were playing with seaweed.

'Can you work it into the path?' Allan asks.

The three of you look down, where little stones have been used to pave walkways around the garden beds. They're wide, reaching almost to the sides of the beds. You remember Deema and her friend's art installation - little paths of stone formed into part circles. This would just be bigger. 'I can.'

Lex squats down and digs their fingers into the path to pull out a stone. 'Obviously don't want to make pulling them out a habit, but...' They toss the stone up and catch it. 'Just one from the outer circle needs to be removed, right?'

'Yeah. As for the rest of it...' You remember Deema's warning about carving sigils in, but does this count if it's removable? (But honestly - you'd rather not ask her how to do the exact thing she's told you to not do.) 'I have to work out if I need to scratch something in, or if I can just put them close together.' You hope the latter works - switching out a stone can still be managed by Deema.

You try to remember how close the stones were at the art installation, but the details escape you. So more experimenting it is.

ALIEN ROMULUS

Response: Bother Lex for an experiment.

You spend the next morning condensing the last reports into your notebook, and scrawl a note to start on condescending them further for Hafiza.

You pocket Dessa's letter, heft the box of reports under your arm, and head off to the town hall.

The clerk you meet, Linh, pulls up an itemised list of what was lent out and looks between it and the box. Her eyes dart up at you. 'Take a seat if you like. Might take a while.' She starts to sift through the papers, carefully checking against the list to confirm you've returned everything.

'I'll drop by the post office,' you say, and excuse yourself to post Dessa's letter.

Linh is still sifting through the papers when you return. 'You worked through these pretty fast,' she says.

'They were short.'

She shrugs, and once she's satisfied everything's returned, lets you go.

--

Though Lex is a witch, they're not a weather witch and wouldn't have any influence over weather sigils. You peer down at the beach from the viewing platform and see them sitting by the boulders to your right. You check for your notebook and pencil then start down the stairs.

You whistle when you reach the bottom, and they turn and wave.

'How's the water?' you ask.

'Same as ever... meaning it's always changing. Just getting a feel for it today.' They swish their bare feet under the lapping waves.

They're clearly lying, but you don't push it. Buddying is a good way to get out of a funk.

'Care to do me a favour?'

They raise their eyebrows.

'Trying to figure out something with sigils.'

'Ah. Rookie mistake. We don't use those.'

'No, that's perfect. I want to figure out if completing one needs to be done by a weather or not.' You draw two partial sigils in your notebook - one missing part of the outer circle, the other missing part of the centre motif - and have Lex complete them.

Nothing activates. You check over the work, ensuring there are no gaps and they're drawn correctly.

Lex watches you in amusement. 'Why are you doing this?'

'Community garden. Trying to figure out if we can build ones for them to deconstruct and reconstruct as needed.'

'Then you're doing this wrong. I should be completing a sigil you've already done and partially deconstructed.'

They're of course right, and because you don't have anything to erase your pencil, you find a sandy area and trace a heat sigil in with your finger. You hold your hands to confirm it works, and when you feel heat rising off it, erase part of the outer circle. It stops generating heat, as expected. Lex leans forward and completes the arc.

It doesn't work.

'Couldn't have guessed that,' Lex says sarcastically. 'But I think we're still doing it wrong.'

'Oh?'

'Are you, like… going to chalk it in every morning or something? Because that seems like a bad way to go about this.'

'No, the plan's to construct something that can be built, dismantled, and stored.'

'Oh, there we go. You need to actually make something, then.' They look up and down the beach then point to seaweed along the wrack line.

You run through the experiment again - arranging the seaweed into a heat sigil, then removing some of the outer circle again, and having Lex put it back under your instruction. It doesn't work, and it also doesn't work when you try again by deconstructing the central motif.

'Mystery solved?' the ask once you've finished inspecting the seaweed. They gather it up and put it back.

'Solved. Going back to the boulders?'

'Nah. Let's go up.'