Ling Shuangxu of the Star-Scouring Bureau sealed off the alley with star guards. He proclaimed that Mu Chengyuan had secretly kept a Demon Star Chart and that the Mu family's star registries for three generations would be erased that very day. Mu Xinglan said that half of the chart was a copy, but the star guards dragged his younger sister, Mu Xingwu, out of the kitchen. He rushed at them and was knocked down with a halberd shaft. An iron boot pinned his shoulder. "Your registry's gone. If we kill you, we don't even have to file a report."
Lying on the ground, he looked at the expulsion order. The Star Contract Order from the Seal Hall of Government bore the Yun family's signature, written in a hundred-year-old hand. The final stroke always ended on the third stroke. But on this order, the third line ended on the fifth stroke. A copyist in the records office would extend the stroke to the end before finishing, afraid the ink would bleed past the edge. The person who traced it had a shaky hand: a tiny gap interrupted the radiance halfway along the fifth stroke.
He dipped his finger in star ink and drew two lines on the flagstones. One paused at the end, its radiance gathering inward. The other dragged out smoothly before breaking off. The old man who repaired scales craned his neck to look, then said, "They're different."
Ling Shuangxu didn't look at the stones. He took out a seal and pressed it squarely onto the signature. The imprint sank into the ink, flattening that tiny break in the radiance. Just like that, the only flaw in the entire order was gone.
He leaned close to Mu Xinglan's ear and whispered, "No matter how accurately you copy it, you can't get a name back."
Mu Chengyuan was imprisoned in the bottom-floor water dungeon of the tower. Mu Xingwu was sentenced to serve as a debt-bound star slave. Mu Xinglan knelt at the entrance to his own home, a thin, curved star mark now visible on the back of his hand. Its end had a tiny fork in it. He couldn't remember when the mark had appeared. All that remained in his mind was an emptiness, as if someone had scraped it clean with a knife.
