The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  The tablet's built-in first aid enchantment stabilized the poison, but the girl would still need to go to medical or to the Neutralizer Squad. It was the student's call which avenue to take.

  The vaguely familiar image of the girl slotted into place. She was the one I had tried to spell with Justice Toad after she had insulted Olivia last term. Unfortunately, the karmic magic had promptly turned me into a toad.

  This was obviously not the first time that she and Olivia had crossed verbal swords, though maybe it had been the first time they had resorted to physical ones.

  I looked at her name on the incident log. Inessa Norrissing. Another image connected as my gaze hit the three rings on her right hand. She had been sitting at the magicists' table where I had first placed a cafeteria tray––sitting next to the emerald-eyed girl, who had greatly overshadowed her. Magicists were old magic. That meant she and Olivia probably went way back, and obviously not in a good way.

  Great.

  I withheld a sigh, then released both girls. “A Level Two and Level Three,” I announced. Patterns were important in the justice system. Forms had to be followed.

  Inessa was immediately in motion, neutralized fingers pointing at Olivia. “I want her punished!”

  I gripped my tablet. “Punishment is the point of me being here, Miss Norrissing.”

  “Watch how you speak to me.” Her finger turned in my direction. “I know who you are, and we are watching you,” she hissed.

  I looked down at Justice Toad and tried to keep my intentions semi-stable as my body grew both hot and cold. “Looks like cleaning the facilities in the Eighteenth Circle field house is an available punishment.”

  JT helpfully listed fifty toilets in the scrolling description of the task. Even if the Norrissing girl cleaned with magic, it would still leave her magic feeling like it had cleaned a toilet. Magic was part of a mage and each use left a temporary mirrored mark. Unpleasant, if one used magic for things other than creating rainbows and butterflies, as I knew well.

  Her lips snapped shut and sharp spikes of black shot out of her aura. Even if I'd lost the remnants of the enhancement spell, I bet I would have seen those; they were so strong.

  Justice Toad scrolled a few other interesting possibilities. “Or, look at that, I could give you animal—”

  “I will clean the facilities in the Eighteenth Circle field house tonight, by my magic I so do vow.” The black spikes crystallized into a carbon film and small noises of rage worked the passageway from her throat to her nose.

  The taste of her wrath was as unpleasant as if I had licked a dirty fireplace.

  The spells inherent in the Justice Magic gave me the power to physically remove her from the conflict premises. I pointedly dismissed her, which made her back away from us with stilted, wood-burnt steps. I turned my gaze to Olivia, who coldly looked back.

  Her pink-furrowed lips were stretched and tight. I was already highly attuned to her and the extreme emotional and physical responses she couldn't control at the moment nearly made me forget my own name.

  Justice Toad vibrated in my hand. I wiped a finger across the smooth skin of my forehead, feeling the pounding in my skull underneath.

  “Well?” Olivia demanded. “What am I cleaning? Or am I going to run pointlessly for three days?”

  To my knowledge, Olivia had never been in trouble, though she had seen enough service workers give me punishments to know how the system worked.

  A thought wiggled around insidiously, my senses clinging to it from multiple directions. “Do you...? Do you want to shadow me for fifteen hours? It would increase your punishment hours, since you wouldn't be doing the penalty alone, but you could use this as an opportunity to get a first-hand observation of the system and meet future clients.”

  Her expression went flat and unreadable. “You would sacrifice your time?”

  I would be required to put in twice the hours, in order to compensate for the justice aspect of the parceled magic—which was a crushing sacrifice in the wake of all of the research I needed to do—but Olivia was worth it, and I needed to let her know that. We could share in this.

  “Yes. It will be fun, doing this with you.”

  Something broke in her eyes and a ripple of smothering tightness gripped me even though she physically turned away. A second later, I felt the ripple ease, and when she turned back she was composed once more. “By my magic, I so do vow.”

  She turned and strode quickly away. I let the contract magic wash over me, then made to follow.

  “Ren.”

  I turned to see Delia standing behind me. I hadn't seen her in the crowd, and I wondered how long she had been standing there. I had programmed Justice Toad's default setting to silence proceedings from strangers' ears, but I hadn't thought to add a shield against friends too. And Delia, in particular among my friends, was prone to mischief. Our first meeting had resulted in me almost getting eaten by a swamp monster due to her deliberate deception. I was really hoping she hadn't heard the entire conversation.

  “Hey. How are you?” A stupid thing to ask when the world was going to Hell. I awkwardly gripped my tablet.

  “You shouldn't have done that.” Her expression and eyeliner darkened. Her clothing, too, grew more severe with her emotion—lengthening and growing sharp edges. “You shouldn't give Price more than she deserves.”

  “What do you mean, Delia?” I asked carefully.

  “Your personal loyalty is one of your best qualities. It is not one of hers.”

  “That's not true.” I thought of all the secrets Olivia knew and had kept hidden for me.

  “Give it time,” she said bitterly. “You forget that I have known her longer. Magicists are loyal to their governments, not to their fellow mages.”

  I wondered what had produced the bitterness underscoring her words, since Delia was friends with numerous magicists.

  “Olivia isn't a magicist.”

  “No, but if you investigate her mom, you will see she is something even worse.” Delia stepped away as the club was called to order again. Her eyes were now completely rimmed in coal, and her charcoal eye shadow was extending upward. “Protect yourself.”

  ~*~

  I quickly retrieved my items from the library, reassured Neph and Will that everything was okay, then set off in search of Olivia.

  She was sitting on the west face of the mountain, the setting rays of the sun igniting her face with light almost too brilliant to focus upon.

  “Hey.” I sat down on the grass next to her. A balmy breeze blew over us, in stark contrast to the winter snow and bundled up skiers, snowboarders, and sledders three levels down. Weather magic was a beautiful thing, especially in the midst of emotional turmoil.

  Olivia and I sat silently for a long time, watching the sun sink beneath the peaks of the distant hills. The waning sense enhancement gently pulsed with conflicting feelings from her.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked quietly.

  “Norrissing said—” Olivia cut herself off and smoothed the hair above her forehead, straightening the already perfectly straight locks. “Well…what she said is hardly relevant.”

  “It's relevant to me.”

  Olivia looked off into the distance. The view was stunning here—at five thousand feet in the air, we had an uninterrupted vista for miles around, with zero altitude effects—but I had a feeling she wasn't seeing any of it. Her gaze was far off, but inwardly focused.

  “My path has become hazy,” she said.

  I weighed my response carefully. Olivia had never deviated from the path she had been born to—that had been obvious from our first meeting, and Delia's words had strengthened that observation.

  “I think that happens to a lot of people our age. All those self-help books say so.”

  “It doesn't happen to me.”

  “Perhaps your path is becoming clear? Maybe you are only seeing the haze you have been in as the path clears before you now,” I said.

  She did
n't reply and we watched the last rays disappear.

  “What did that girl, Inessa Norrissing, say to get you so angry?”

  “It matters not.” Her voice was strange—half-revelatory and half-bemused. “My path. Yes, you are right. I am in charge of my own destiny.”

  She rose and brushed off her tailored skirt. “And she is an ant beneath my shoe. Come. Let's sign up for classes, like the rest of the lemmings. Then we can go to the cafeteria. I'm hungry, and you haven't eaten enough in the past two days.”

  Startled, I nearly lost my grip on my bag's straps. Olivia willingly wanted to go to the cafeteria? “Really? Great!”

  Her gaze held mine. It was painful, the anguish and uncertainty that resided beneath her cool facade.

  I wanted our friendship, and our group camaraderie, to be the new normal for her. I wanted to envelop her into my family.

  As the winter sun faded and the magicked lamps on campus brightened, we fell into step and I nudged her. Some of the tension eased from her shoulders. A pained look stole across her face.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I nudged her again. “Hey. At least your bad days don't come with jumbo-sized monsters.”

  “Not all monsters are large,” she said quietly. She straightened her shoulders. “Now. Service. Let's discuss how we are going to bring miscreants to justice and help my clients stay out of trouble.”

  That sounded like my roommate, which was a huge relief.

  But as Olivia continued ticking off points on her fingers, the hair on the back of my neck prickled. I surreptitiously looked around. I couldn't see anyone, but there were eyes focused on us.

  Watching.

  Chapter Ten: Close Encounters of the Good and Worse Kind

  The relief of being united again was strong when Olivia and I finally sat down at the cafeteria table we had inhabited at the end of last term. Mike and Neph were already seated. Neph smiled at me and floated over a scratch paper that I had forgotten in my mad scramble to reach Olivia.

  I watched her easy use of magic wistfully. I could do some extraordinary things, but because I hadn't been brought up with magic, the easy, everyday magics still eluded me.

  “You are the best, Neph. Thanks.” The paper had a list of possible classes on it, along with animated doodles I had made around the ones I liked best. “We just signed up for classes.”

  That made me sound normal. Normal mages signed up for classes. Normal mages didn't worry about how their magic might be used to destroy civilization.

  Normal!

  The calming magic that was actively pushed throughout the cafeteria touched me. Everyone else was allowing it to blanket them—even Olivia—and Neph wasn't doing anything to make it stop like she had at Top Campus, so I drank the calm down too, wanting to be chipper and not paranoid for my friends.

  Positive thoughts—cross-layer peace would be achieved, magicists from all layers would clasp hands together and sing a united anthem, and Raphael would retire from evil, then gift my magic to an orphanage.

  “Hated to miss your birthday, Ren. We are totally rescheduling that celebration,” Mike said, pointing at me. He looked tanned and healthy, and not at all like the corpse he could have been if he had been part of our First Layer parking lot adventure.

  “You didn't miss much. Rescheduling sounds good.” I grinned.

  He returned my smile. “Good. What classes did you sign up for?”

  I relaxed into calm thoughts and smiled at him. “Individualized Architecture and Design, Layer Politics 101, and Engineering Concepts in Warding. I'm also continuing Personal Study with Stevens.”

  I needed to know more about the world around me, and Neph and Will had said they would take politics too, so it would hopefully be a solid combination of time, course requirements, and interest.

  Engineering Concepts in Warding, taught by the ever-awesome Professor Mbozi, would provide me with the extra tools I needed to ward my dreams, increase my protections, and keep the people around me safe.

  Since Marsgrove hadn't removed my art restrictions, I couldn't get into any of the regular art buildings. So I had to take art classes remotely—hence the individualized study.

  Someday, maybe I would be able to take the art classes I wanted, like a normal student.

  “What about you, Mike?” I asked, breathing in more calming magic.

  “Cloud Formation and Placement, Ice Manipulation, and Rain Dancing.”

  Neph looked at him in interest. “Rain Dancing is a difficult field of study.”

  Mike grimaced. “I suck at rain. My adviser demanded I take at least two courses in it this year.”

  He brightened. “But my snow manipulation has undergone a recent dramatic increase and I should pass out of it after this term. Will told me you three were thinking about taking Layer Politics, so I took it as an elective. Should be an interesting class with the current worldwide mess.”

  “I'm happy you're taking it with us,” I said, relieved. I could easily hide my ignorance in the midst of a bigger group.

  Delia pressed her tray down and lightly dropped into the seat next to Mike, her black bob swaying as she did. “Add one more to the tally. I signed up for politics too. They increased the cap and brought in more assistants because of the overwhelming student interest.”

  Olivia violently poked her tiny, blue asparagus stalks, and Delia ignored her as if she wasn't present.

  Mike shook his head as he looked between them. “What are the rest of you taking?”

  Neph lifted her hand gracefully, and the every-spice shaker lifted into the air. “Dancing in Teams of Five. Movement with Ten. Spectacles and Spectaculars. Layer Politics with you four, and Medical Field Magic.”

  Olivia glanced up sharply at Neph. Intensity I didn't understand still simmered between them, but Olivia's gaze was less harsh. “Medical Magic? Good.”

  Suspicion rose in me. Was Neph taking the class because I had temporarily lost body parts and been repeatedly maimed last term? She had patched me up more than once.

  “Do you have lab hours with the class?” Mike asked Neph.

  She nodded. “Two a week in the field.”

  “Great! You'll probably be working Winter Wonderland as a lifeguard then.” He pulled up a holographic image of the Seventh Circle runs that ran the circumference of the mountain level. Arches at the bottom of the level seamlessly ported the skiers back to different arches at the top, making the runs infinite and varied. In the image, a lifeguard exited a chair and used a red rod to tap the leg of one downed skier and the wrist of another.

  “On campus anything short of death is taken care of by students studying Medical Magic,” Mike informed me. “They rotate weather mages daily to keep the snow and conditions fresh, so we might be on duty together, Nephthys.”

  Delia tapped a holographic skier with her fork. “The runs are excellent this year. And the snow is perfect. I did the runs yesterday and today—no complaints.”

  Mike's chest puffed out and I felt fierce warmth in mine at the normal nature of the conversation.

  “Glad to hear it. Spent half my holiday doing credit work for the snow hours. There were twenty of us working on the weather, five working the ports, and two on the controls,” Mike said, ticking off the numbers on his fingers. “We were supposed to be working this week too—lots of stuff still left to do—but they activated the system anyway to get things 'back to normal.' Glad you are enjoying the runs, D. The challenge course on January twentieth is my design. As is the one on February seventh. Thought the Department was going to close the campus-port system permanently there for a bit, like they did with off-campus arches.”

  Uneasiness spiked around the table. The table threads that connected to Neph suddenly pulsed harder, lessening the disquiet.

  Mike cleared his throat and carried on the conversation. “So, what are you taking, D?” As far as I knew, Mike was the only one allowed to call Delia that.

  “Politics with you ruffians, Stitch-by-Stitch Magi
c, Threading 220, and Medieval Fashions through the Layers.”

  The middle two sounded unbearably interesting. And timely. I made a mental note to talk to Delia about interlaced clothing wards. Sleeping in warded pajamas seemed like a fantastic idea.

  Mike looked at Olivia. “What about you, Price?”

  “Legal Matters between Layers One and Two, Legal Matters between Layers Two and Three, Defense Defensibles, Corruption and Gain, Punishment and Guilt, Sacrifice and Glory, and Magical Lie Detection.”

  The entire table blinked.

  “You going to sleep this term, Price?” Mike asked.

  “I sleep as needed. William?” Olivia asked in her clipped way.

  Will rallied quickly. “Devices in the Age of Mysticism, Magical Engineering Mechanics 310, Architecture with Ren, and politics with nearly the lot of you.”

  “Architecture?” Delia asked. “Not quite explode-y enough for you, is it?” Delia had known Will casually from the delinquent circuit before we'd become a united table.

  Will pulled out a sheet of paper I had created with pulp and magic under Professor Stevens' guidance, and a magical pencil, also of my design. He sketched a device on the page. The sketched device exploded into a starburst on the paper, burning to the edges in flames that strained against containment.

  “Architecture and Design. Model sketching and animation. Stupidly useful for advanced models and pre-testing, but the Engineering Department doesn't utilize it the way they should. Yet.” He grinned. “But I'm sure Ren and I can blow up all sorts of things in the project portion.”

  More than one person rolled their eyes, but Delia smirked and stroked her alert bracelet. The bracelet automatically shut down the suggestion enchantments she loved to abuse so much.

  Funny, that. Other types of mages were allowed free reign to use such skills, but try and stitch them into clothing and people panicked. Something about wearing a rogue enchantment in one's favorite sweater terrified people in a way that government-issued control cuffs didn't.

  Will was grinning madly. “And, maybe we can get the professor to buy future class supplies from 'Renwill Enterprises' when she sees how awesome our completed assignments are.”