by Anne Zoelle
“We should do some wall and ceiling art in our room at school,” I said lightly, trying to think of regular art magic and not the kind of magic that made artistic creations actually pop out and come to life—or that allowed you to travel through them. “Fun stuff. The night sky? Real celestial events?”
She gave my walls another pointed look but made a note on her pad.
Warmth gripped me that she was considering it even with a lot of bad evidence surrounding my artistic tendencies.
She activated the internal magic of the pad so that the words rearranged themselves on the list, prioritizing each sentence, then she checked the little black gauge at her right that resembled a compass.
She had been eyeballing the gauge every time she used a bit of the magic stored in her container or in one of her checkpoint-approved magical devices. Like all mages, Olivia couldn't pull and use magic in the First Layer unless she had a bundled container of it that had been disconnected from the earth and atmosphere.
“What does the gauge do?”
“If you hadn't been staring at Alexander Dare when we were in line to leave campus three days ago, you would have heard William explain. It monitors the grid. I am allowed to use a specified amount of container magic in the First Layer, and each use shows up on the Department grid—or should. It is beneficial to know each impact.”
“I...I was not staring at Dare,” I said lamely. My cheeks heated, though, because I had been so distracted I couldn't remember seeing Will give Olivia anything. I hadn't even registered said conversation. And I hadn't said anything about seeing him in the Depot.
One of Olivia's perfect brows rose and she made a note, then flipped a switch on the gauge. The little meter lurched. “Event recorded,” a voice announced in a perfect imitation of Olivia’s.
She nodded, satisfied. “Excellent workmanship on William's part.”
I watched the magic on her pad work again and the grid gauge bob. “How do you get everything through the checkpoint?” My brother's burial picture, though it had been neutralized of most of its active magic, had to be at least somewhat concerning at a checkpoint where people were arrested regularly for trying to sneak things into the non-magical world.
“Helen Price's daughter would never misuse magic,” she said calmly, her gaze focused on the pad as words and sentences continued to follow her fingers. Her tone never wavered, but the natural magic I felt in connection to her, did.
At the checkpoint between the magical and non-magical world, Olivia cleared more magical items than anyone else in line simply by raising a brow and pointing at her last name––a gesture that never escaped me.
“Besides which, one or two extra items are easy to slip by since, as the child of a high-ranking government official, I require additional magical defense devices and stabilizers, and am cleared for their use.”
I imagined some sort of allergy to the non-magical world and stabilizing pills that would help one acclimate. I scratched the skin around my cuff again. I could certainly use a pill like that. My magic had been urging me to return to the magical world since I had stepped out of it with my new and improved cuff.
“How did you get permission to come here?” My parents would lock me in the attic if they knew it would keep me out of danger.
“I didn't ask,” she said coolly, looking up at me, her eyes just as chilly as her voice. “Besides, it would make Helen Price's week to sadly sacrifice the life of her abducted child in order to confirm that she will never compromise her agenda.”
My uneasy feelings turned darker. “What? Olivia––”
“We need to get down to dinner. We have a timetable to keep.” She brushed her fingers down her skirt, but didn't stand.
I looked through my window into the dark December night. “Maybe...we should stay in tonight.”
“William, Nephthys, Mike, and Delia are meeting us in the city to celebrate your birthday.” Her voice brooked no argument. “We are in the First Layer, and you promised that birthdays were fun. We are going to have fun.” Her tone held a distinct “or else” vibe.
I smoothed a section of loose hair behind my right ear, and focused my gaze on the floor. “Yeah, about that guest list...”
She quickly interpreted my guilty expression. “If you tell me that you invited Constantine Leandred, I will be most put out.”
I cringed as she crossed her ankles in the other direction. “He said he was mostly busy with something.” My words got faster as I tried to get it over with. “He might drop in for a few minutes, after dinner, just to drop something off.”
“Ren—”
“I know, I know,” I said quickly. “But he might not come.”
The savage delight that had been in his eyes when I had mentioned visiting the First Layer made me think otherwise, but saying so wouldn't help my argument.
“You told him where you live?”
I forced a bright smile. “Just a quick stop, then he'll be on his way.”
“You told him where you live,” she stated flatly. She made another note on her pad that I was sure was not in my favor. “We will discuss this later, after we celebrate,” she said grimly. “With or without Leandred.”
People either pined after or loathed Constantine. Very few people had feelings to the middle. “He's rather brilliant. Truly.”
“I've never second-guessed the intellectual capabilities of the Leandred scion. Basil serpents are viciously clever too, even as they poison and consume you.”
“He's...” Nice. Helpful. Loyal. None of those traits were descriptors that anyone else would use for Constantine. “He's a savvy businessman,” I finished, lamely.
“He's a serpent. Without a single minion, because he devours the mice around him.” Her mouth twisted.
I didn't dare to point out that Olivia didn't have minions either, regardless of her notes detailing plans to collect some. Minions required some trust be instilled, which neither Olivia nor Constantine possessed in any abundance.
Her gaze narrowed on me. “Do you realize—?”
“Ren, Olivia, dear, dinner!”
Saved. Olivia stood promptly, her words cut off and her expression strange once again at my mom's use of an endearment for her. I thought of Olivia’s words about her mother sacrificing her.
I stuck my arm through hers and squeezed. “Mom made meatloaf. Horribly normal and First Layerish. The first thing you should know about us is that comfort food is the key to our enslavement.”
Olivia jotted a note instead of laughing—but she made the note without releasing my arm.
I rolled my eyes at the squiggling letters. “Come on, Genghis. Let's go.”
Our reflection in the windowpane at the bend of the stairs made me tighten my arm with hers. Her hair was austerely styled while mine was wild, and her eyes were hazel to my mixed teal, but we looked right together with our arms hooked. Friends. I wished Christian were here to rib me about it. Or to flirt with my roommate. That would be something to witness.
Movement in the backyard caught my eye as shadows shifted along the fence. The wards on the house spiked, then echoed their pulse within me. I couldn't use magic in the First Layer, but I could still feel it. And I was intimately attuned to warding magic due to my first death in the art vault, when I had died attached to hundreds of powerful wards.
My second death, due to being crushed by the bone monster, had been far different.
“What?” Olivia's eyes narrowed and followed the path of mine to the window.
But there was nothing in the yard to see that might have caused such a spike. No man with a gold earring, a sly, twisted grin, and a swirling box in his hand. And no boy with ultramarine eyes.
“Nothing,” I said too quickly. My imagination was running wild again.
~*~
For a meatloaf night and birthday celebration, dinner was painfully formal. Olivia's presence played a part in the formality, but celebrating Christian's birthday without Christian was far worse.
An aching sensation settled in my gut as I watched my parents with their over-bright smiles. We were still tiptoeing around each other. Two months spent living apart had healed some wounds and widened the chasm between us in other ways.
That I would do anything to protect them, though, would never be in question.
“Earthquakes and tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms, and droughts. This last month was particularly disturbing.” Dad shook his head. “I'm relieved that both of you will be safe at school in the new year.”
The skin under my new control cuff itched. The same chaotic magic that had produced the weather and geophysical problems my dad was speaking of—earthquakes and tornadoes, ice storms and droughts—could be traced to that which resided beneath the flexible metal on my wrist. Magic channeled by my repeated attempts to raise my brother from death.
Using power without respect for limits. Giving into desire without regard for consequences.
Responsibility nagged at me. Like too many comic book morals read in too short a span of time. And the idea that I might be...the villain of the series, held no comfort.
Olivia eyed me, glanced down at the repetitive, jerky bounces of my leg, then looked back at my dad. “The Layers bleed into each other sometimes, but Excelsine is one of the safest places to be in any Layer.”
That prompted my parents to launch into a question session on the Layer system and the security at school. Olivia answered every question precisely, and if she glowed a bit at the attention, it could be explained away by the brightness of the chandelier's light on her skin.
But when my parents went to the kitchen to light the birthday cake, Olivia crossed her hands in her lap—a sure sign that I was going to get the third degree—and visually dissected me.
“You keep touching your cuff. And your leg won't stay still.”
I forced the anxious bouncing to cease and looked down at the flexible metal band. “It's tight. Tighter around my wrist than my last, even when that one was first placed.”
She seemed unsurprised. “Your body is readjusting to the full restriction of the new cuff.”
“Marsgrove probably put some horrible spell in it.” As a dean at Excelsine, he had a lot of control over my fate while I was a student.
“If he figured out a way around our agreement, then it is likely. You frighten him,” she said.
The metal was cool against my skin, impersonal. I stared at it instead of looking at her. “Do I frighten you?”
“Don't be stupid,” she said without inflection.
I wasn't sure what that meant. That I did frighten her? That I didn't? That our magical sympathy was so great that it overrode all else?
“Happy Birthday, to you!”
My parents came out singing, Dad, out of tune, and Mom's voice a little high. But I could see the love in their eyes, on top of the wistfulness and pain. My heart clenched in response.
“Happy Birthday, to you!”
I thought of the first ward I had erected for their protection—a complicated design full of spiked vengeance born from my fear and motivated by love. It would incapacitate anyone containing a magical spark and ill intention who tried to enter the house. If some enraged, ignorant, slightly magical door-to-door salesman got a foot in the door, it would be the last thing he would do for a long time.
“Happy Birthday, dear...Ren!”
The pause. The pause. For seventeen years it had been Christian and Ren.
“Happy Birthday—”
I would never allow another such pause to develop. No one under my watch would be vulnerable.
“—to you!”
I pasted on my brightest smile and made a big deal out of blowing out the candles—the first time I had ever done such a thing alone—then divvied up the best parts of the cake.
~*~
An hour later, with birthday cake consumed and wearing a new top and jeans, I stepped into the kitchen with Olivia.
“Going to meet some friends, Mom. We'll be back sometime tonight.”
Mom's smile was superficial and strained as she finished wiping a platter with a soapy sponge. “Okay. Have a great time. We'll see you at 1:00.”
I frowned. “What?”
I could count the number of times on one hand that I had been in my dorm room by 1:00 a.m. The main library, Battle Building, and Midlands were open twenty-four hours a day and I'd had quite the schedule to keep.
“Your curfew is 1:00 a.m., Ren.” She smiled and continued soaping the pots and pans that were too large for the dishwasher, as if we were done with the conversation.
I hadn't argued about the restrictions they had imposed following Christian's death; I’d been too depressed at the time to care. But now...the issue of trust was coming to roost. “No way. I'm eighteen. And I'm in college.” Or the magical equivalent of college. “I'm not coming home at 1:00,” I said, throwing all of the debating tactics I had learned from Olivia right out the window.
Mom's lips pursed and she gripped a pan with tight, soapy fingers. “Ren—”
“We will be back in plenty of time tonight, Mrs. Crown,” Olivia said, voice smooth. “Then tomorrow you and Ren can discuss a curfew and terms that please both of you.”
Mom blinked, and not realizing the danger of ever agreeing with anything Olivia said, replied, “Very well.”
Olivia gave me a pointed glance and walked from the kitchen, leaving me alone with my mom. Mom looked at me and despite the stubborn cast to her expression, I could see the love, and I could see the keening hurt that was still there, especially on this day, of all days.
I could tell her about Christian. About trying to raise him from the dead. About my failure. About his now-peaceful rest. I could reach for the solace I so desperately wanted, and the chance to share the burden with those I loved.
This was my chance.
I don't know who moved first, but her arms were firm around me. I held on tightly.
This was my chance.
“Thanks for dinner, Mom. It was great.”
“Happy Birthday, Ren,” she said softly into my hair.
“Thanks.” Say it, say it. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “See you later tonight.”
I tore away, guilty words frozen, a stone heavy in my gut. Blindly making my way down the hall, I deliberately didn't look at the family photos adorning both walls.
Guilt twisted and increased my emotions into a mild panic.
I repeated the words from the stack of grief books everyone had given me. Christian was no longer here, but I had friends and family. There were many lights in my life.
Lights I could nurture.
Olivia was waiting for me in the foyer and a little of the tightness in my chest eased upon seeing her. The wards shivered as we exited the house. I stepped in front of her, but I couldn't sense anything dangerous in the shadows.
Olivia checked her little magical-detection device. “Nothing is out of place.”
I nodded and we headed to my car, parked in the street. Olivia had flat out refused to take the train.
“Even if I come home before 1:00, Liv, that's not the point, you know,” I said, as we got in. I ran my hands along the steering wheel where my brother's hands had rested just four months before. I had been happy as the eternal passenger. But that was no longer my life.
Olivia shrugged as I turned the key. “It's simple. Put together a presentation of why you should have no curfew. Tell her you will text her at midnight when you are out to let her know everything is okay. That will reassure her that you know she is worried about you. And is it any big deal to give in and let her have her comfort by going with the curfew? You can stay out until whenever you want at school. We'll be back there in a week.” Olivia's points were all delivered smoothly, but her eyes were unreadable.
I pulled away from the curb. “Your points are well taken, but it's the principle of the thing. I'm eighteen. I'm an adult now. It's like magic. The clock ticked past twelve and poof––adult!”
“You are in the ro
cky period of a secure, parent-child relationship when the child is becoming an adult,” she said, her calm delivery making my words seem more juvenile.
“Ha. I knew it.” I pointed a finger at her. “Don't think I haven't seen those self-help books you have been trying to hide.”
“I see the use in personal relationships now and am filling my knowledge gap,” she said, primly.
I grinned. It was easy to shed dark thoughts when I focused on a friend—on Olivia, just as I had once done with Christian. The desire to tease her wiped away my lingering obstinacy and I nudged her after shifting into third. “You are filling the gap rather well. You will take over the world more easily with friends.”
She nodded. “Of course I am, and, of course I will.” It was said matter-of-factly, but I could hear the pleased tone, both at the compliment and the physical affection. Eight weeks ago, she would have blasted me for both.
She was right, of course. I just needed to figure out how to handle my mom. To balance the need to do my own thing with the part of me that still wanted to curl up on her lap and have her tell me that everything was going to be all right. I might have made peace with my inability to resurrect Christian, but the hole of his absence remained.
~*~
It was an hour's drive into the city and Olivia was in rare philosophical form the whole way—clarifying points from the books she had been reading, with their message of choices and alternatives, and arguing the authors' merits of how to determine what to do when presented with forks in the road. Listening to her made me smile.
Parking sucked in the city, as it always did, but when Olivia had refused to ride the train—saying there was no way she was getting in something non-magical that she had no way to exit—I had scoped online and found a neighborhood near the club that was known for ‘sometimes’ having available curb spots. It took four patient circuits around the neighborhood, but we finally got lucky. We locked the doors and started walking briskly in the cool December air.
An itchy feeling registered under my cuff almost immediately as we turned the corner out of the residential area. The street shadows jumped and a four-headed creature—with tusks and horns and talons—blinked into being ten feet away. It winked out of existence a half-second later, so quickly that my heart didn't get a chance to fully stutter to a stop.