The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 6: Clerks

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.