As we descended the stairwell, I couldn’t resist needling Marcius. I drifted sideways, bumped him, and sang, Guess you never learn, huh?

He recoiled. Do I know you? he demanded, his soul’s chime as blunt and unmusical as his human voice.

Weeeeell, you miiiiight say that….

I was planning to drag it out for as long as I could, but Flicker hissed, “Shhh!” at the same time that the clerk ahead of us turned around to glare – at him. Presumably for not controlling us better. Flustered and guilty, Flicker muttered at us, “If you have to talk, do it after we get back to my office.”

Pulsing his resentment, Marcius pointedly moved to the clerk’s other side. I considered following him just to annoy him but got distracted when, one level down, a square grill that I’d thought was a ventilation grate swung open. Warm, yellow light spilled into the stairwell, and a pair of hands began handing a ceramic cup to each passing clerk.

What’s that? I whispered into Flicker’s ear. In case he couldn’t figure out what I was looking at, which was a distinct possibility given that I was a smooth, featureless ball, I bounced once in the window’s direction.

Marcius floated ahead of Flicker so he could radiate disapproval at me, but the clerk darted a nervous glance at the back of his colleague’s head and mumbled, “’S lunchtime.”

Lunchtime? Are you trying to tell me that this stairwell is your dining hall? And that all you have for lunch is tea?

“’S not tea,” he answered, barely moving his lips. “Pill of Starlight dissolved in dew. Food for us.”

That, of course, only raised more questions about how you could capture starlight in the first place, much less solidify it and turn it into a pill, but by then we’d reached the window. As he shuffled past, Flicker took his cup, nodded his thanks to the young female star sprite behind the window, and kept descending the stairs. His speed never slowed, which I found impressive. As for me, I’d fallen behind already and I hadn’t even gotten a good look behind the server! When I zipped forward and caught up again, Flicker mutely held up the plain white cup for me to inspect.

Condensed, processed, and dissolved starlight looked exactly like green tea. How anticlimactic.

Let me guess, I said as Flicker lifted the cup to his lips and took a deep breath. I couldn’t smell anything, but his face relaxed and his eyes drifted shut before he sipped. Let me guess: There’s a special department that oversees the production and distribution of these pills to all the other departments.

Plus the reclamation of the cups. How do you return the cups? put in Marcius, curious enough to forget himself.

As a minister, he used to blather on and on about logistics. Made sense if you were actually trying to make the empire function, I supposed, but it was so tedious that I’d nicknamed him Master Supply Chain. He hadn’t appreciated it – although the other ministers had.

Flicker nodded at me. To Marcius, he murmured, “We leave them in our offices. The cleaning staff collects them every night.”

The clerk ahead of us heaved a long-suffering sigh and clenched his fingers around his own cup, but I pretended not to notice. Cleaning staff…who serves as cleaning staff in Heaven?

“They’re a mix,” began Flicker, but his colleague had had enough.

Turning his head just far enough to let us see half of his scowl, he snapped, “Mostly goblins, a handful of star sprites with no aptitude for desk work, the like. Now, if you have no further questions?” Expecting that to silence us, he faced forward again.

I waited until he was looking straight ahead before I answered. I do, actually! I chirped, ignoring Flicker’s cringe and Marcius’ angry pulse. Why don’t you guys talk on the stairs? Don’t you get bored?

At that, the clerk whirled, his robes flying out and nearly brushing the woman who was on the same step in the ascending line. That clerk sidestepped, nearly banged into the wall, and gave him a murderous glare. She did not, however, utter a single word or slow her climb. But now every clerk behind her was making sure to glower at us as he or she passed. Ah, passive-aggressiveness at its best.

The clerk ahead of us flushed, his golden glow shading towards a very pretty cherry pink. “We do not, as you call it, ‘get bored’,” he bit out, stumbling down the next step sideways. “We think about our work and solve problems in our heads as we travel between floors. We are efficient. And you, soul, are disrupting the workday of everyone around you with your incessant chatter.”

Oops. Sorry.

“Don’t be sorry. Stop talking. Flicker, if you’re going to bring souls into the stairwell, make sure they behave.”

“Sorry, Wink,” apologized Flicker, who was also shining bright pink now.

I had more questions and comments, this time regarding star sprite naming conventions, but I decided they could wait.

Back in the waiting room, Flicker apologized to Marcius, “My lord – I mean, soul, I’ll have to wait for your paperwork to arrive before I can process you for reincarnation. Please make yourself comfortable.”

Marcius’ answer was to float around the room so deliberately that I could almost see his human form pacing with his hands clasped behind his back. He’d done a lot of that after I unveiled the plans for my pagoda. Mostly during council meetings as he tried to rally the other ministers to block me – good luck with that – but sometimes in private in front of Cassius too. The two were, after all, childhood playmates as well as cousins of some sort.

Although, honestly, that last bit wasn’t saying much. Human nobility was so inbred that it would be harder to find someone who wasn’t related to the emperor. Which then raised the interesting question of how you defined a dynasty. According to Lady Fate, Marcius had been destined to found a new one – but if he came from the same extended family as Cassius, then wasn’t it just a continuation of the old one?

“Come on,” Flicker ordered, breaking through my memories. “Let’s get this over with.”

Leaving Marcius to his pacing, I floated into the office and hovered in my usual spot. Everything was as we had left it, with my half-page oyster curriculum vitae positioned in the center of the desk, perfectly lined up with the edges. Flicker picked it up and reread it, even though I’d bet he remembered every word.

So, what am I going to be this time? Not an oyster again, right?

“You know it’s against the rules to tell you.”

But from now on I’m going to keep my memories when I reincarnate, I wheedled. The rules no longer apply to me.

He didn’t quite slam the curriculum vitae back on the desk, but he did replace it with a little more force than was necessary. “One of these days, Piri,” he informed me through gritted teeth, “you are going to push your luck too far – ” He cut himself off as he remembered that I already had.

Which was why I was still languishing in Green Tier.

Been there, done that, got the bad karma, I shrugged. Soooo, are you going to tell me?

His jaw clenched. “No. You’ll find out soon enough. And you’ll also find out why we use the Tea of Forgetfulness.”

Obviously so souls forgot about karma and Tiers while we were on Earth so we couldn’t game the system, I thought, although I didn’t say it out loud. Even if the Goddess of Life had approved my memory retention in front of an audience-chamber-ful of witnesses, who knew when another god might decide to meddle with, circumvent, or outright countermand her decision? No reason to give them extra incentive.

“All right. Are you ready for reincarnation?”

Yep.

Oddly, Flicker hesitated, pursed his lips, and seemed like he wanted to say something. Then he shook his head and stabbed his index finger at the air above me. Starlight streamed out of its tip, splitting into hundreds of silvery strands that started tying themselves into flat, square knots with loops around the sides.

Wow! That’s so pretty! I didn’t know you were an artist, Flicker.

I wasn’t even mocking him. The knots resembled those ornaments tied from colored silk cords, except that the starlight was much more delicate. A long strand began to weave in and out of the loops, joining the knots into a lacy square that drifted down towards me.

It’s kind of like a waist skirt, isn’t it? Except that you can see through it.

Flicker made a noncommittal grunt.

I was still admiring the knotwork when the center of the skirt brushed against my top. As soon as it touched me, it stuck fast. It swooshed around me, knotted its edges together, and started to shrink.

Wait, what’s happening? What’s going on? I squirmed, straining to push back the strands. Is this normal? Flicker? Flicker!

He was frowning in concentration. “Yes. It’s normal.”

The strands were cutting into me now. Bits of me bulged out through those pretty loops. It’s too tight! Take it off!

“Hold still. It will go faster if you don’t fight it.”

All of a sudden, the skirt tugged on me from opposite sides, stretching me out longer and longer and thinner and thinner until as much of me was in contact with the strands as possible. No matter how squishy and pliable I was, this was not comfortable.

Hey! It hurts!

The complaint was supposed to be preemptive, to warn him to back off, but even as I spoke, the pain began. At first it felt like claws raking naked skin, hard enough to raise welts but not enough to tear. I twisted and contorted, struggling to break the strands.

Are you sure it’s working right – ow! Ow!

The claws had turned into razors, slicing cuts all over me.

Flicker, stop it!

He’d planted his palms on the edge of his desk and was leaning forward, breathing hard. “There’s…a reason for…the Tea of Forgetfulness,” he forced out.

Forget razors – they were daggers with jagged edges now, dragging back and forth and back and forth as they sawed me to shreds. Clinging to Flicker’s voice, I gasped, The Tea – is it – painkiller, or – ow! – makes you forget pain?

His fingers clenched convulsively before he splayed them back out across the desk. “Both. Not…too late…to use it.” He started to straighten and raise his arm.

No! I shrieked, before he could dunk me into the vat. No!

“Then stop – fighting – me!”

On the last word, the skirt jerked, yanked, and flew open, ripping me into green wisps that stuck to every inch of every strand.

I screamed – not a musical chime but a high-pitched note that rang around the room and vibrated the walls and bookshelves and papers and Tea of Forgetfulness and went on and on and on until Flicker clamped his hands to his ears and hunched over his desk to shield himself.

“Stop it!” he panted. “You wanted this. Pull yourself together!”

Somehow, the irony of that statement penetrated the pain and the panic, and I stopped screaming long enough to realize that, even torn to pieces, I could still see. Wait, I could still see? There was still a me to see? That was strange. And interesting.

Focusing on my curiosity, I forced myself to calm down. The skirt with all…the pieces of me were suspended over the desk, above Flicker, who had fallen back in his chair.

I considered apologizing. I didn’t.

“Last part.” Sucking in a deep breath, Flicker pointed at me again.

The skirt flew into motion, scrubbing against itself to scrape me off and roll me around and around like a ball of clay until it mashed all the bits of me back together into a rough clump that it tugged and pulled and stretched….

Compared to this, the pain just now was nothing. Nothing in my thousand years on Earth could compare. For an eternity, I couldn’t find the words I needed. At last they came to me, and I howled, Make it stop! I’ll take the Tea! I’ll take the Tea! Just make it stop!

And, all of a sudden, it did.

I was floating. Floating inside the skirt, which was dissolving into silvery strands that flowed back into Flicker’s palms. Floating as a long, green teardrop, trailing whiskers on my jaw and filmy fins on my sides….

Flicker was speaking. I latched onto his voice, struggling to parse his words. “It’s done,” I thought he was saying. He sounded ragged. “It’s done, Piri. Now for the reincarnation itself….”

And then, blessedly, there was darkness.

Silence at last. Blessed silence. The silence of a starless night.

Alone in his office, Flicker massaged his temples, trying to relieve the splitting headache he got every time Piri showed up in his waiting room. True, many souls, especially the low-Tier ones, whined and grumbled and held up the reincarnation process – but none as much as Piri.

He groaned every time her name reappeared on the list of souls he was scheduled to reincarnate. Even though he’d explained the situation over and over to his supervisor, she refused to reduce his workload on those days, which meant that he had to work late to finish processing the souls behind her.

Straightening, he noticed that the cup had a few drops of liquid starlight left at the bottom. Piri would stick out her tongue (if she had a tongue) and lick them dry, came a stray thought. Not him, though. He picked up the cup and tilted it so the last drops ran into his mouth. As they slid down his throat, the headache eased a little.

Well, he comforted himself, she was out of his hair for now. With any luck, for a couple decades this time. Surely possessing her memories and her mind would help her survive longer on Earth. Please, Jade Emperor, let her survive longer this time.

Collecting her documents, he filed them back in their spot on the bookcase, lining them up just so with their neighbors. As he finished, a tap came from the grate behind his desk. He slid it open, and a star child passed him a file with the rune for “fox.” Inside was Marcius’ curriculum vitae, with a record of his deeds in Heaven as the Star of Scholarly Song. The post he had been granted after accumulating so much positive karma in his previous life by opposing a nine-tailed fox.

Well, Glitter, who oversaw the assignment of mortal forms, had always had a sense of humor.

He only hoped Marcius did too.