The clock strikes eleven, and Balthasar’s fingers touch the protrusions on the brass copy of the Antikythera mechanism. Caspar puts aside the whetstone and checks the sharpness of the scissors. Melchior wakes up, approaches the wall studded with countless pins, repositions a few, and frowns.

“Gone. She’s gone again.”

“Look on the floor,” answers a female voice.

“Here we go again,” whispers Melchior. “What do I care about that pin now, Moira! I need to know where she was. Every year...”

“I was sitting in the chair,” the woman shrugs. “Your colleagues are witnesses.”

“As blind as I am,” parries Melchior. “Easy to fool us. Where should we look for this star now?”

“Ask the people,” laughs Mara. “Those good people who gouged out your eyes.”

Melchior yawns. The wall he cannot see is a map of the starry sky - the pins are stars that he moves from memory, and only one, the most important, always slips away. Oh, if only he were in his Ziggurat now ... but there’s nothing there but wind, sand, and an abandoned air base.

Melchior puts on his jacket and a tall hat made of goatskin. Melchior goes again to search for that-same-star.

After a few minutes, Caspar and Balthasar catch up with him - just like last year, and the year before, and a hundred years ago.

“How could we let you go alone, old and blind?” says Balthasar.

“Don’t worry about the witch,” echoes Caspar. “Her scissors will fall apart in a week. No one has been born yet who can lift my spells.”

“Strange, you ruin them for her every year, and she still gives them to you for sharpening.”

“Dementia is a terrible thing,” Caspar shrugs.

“Moira with dementia is even more terrible,” nods Balthasar.

The kings fall silent.

This confrontation has lasted a thousand years - or more. Each year, the kings leave their home to find the wandering star that will lead them to The One who will fix everything - but they find it too late. Sometimes they pick up its trail in summer, sometimes in autumn. They return because the astrologer needs calculations, and also - they cannot leave the demented Moira alone for long.

The kings return - and see Moira, tangled in threads, trying to tear them apart with her bare hands - but even this is better than leaving Moira with proper scissors. Because when that happens - plagues and wars occur on Earth. Closer to Christmas, that-same-star always disappears from the map; Melchior thinks it’s Moira’s doing.

“Blind astrologers and Moira with dementia,” repeats Balthasar. “What will help this world?”

Someone nudges Caspar’s side.

“You won’t believe it,” the kings hear a guilty, excited voice. “But there’s a new star.”