The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Junior Department eyes focused intently upon our group whenever we passed an enclave. They keenly tracked the movements of every combat mage—even Camille Straught, who was firmly part of the magicists' social set.

  Camille Straught, in turn, watched me.

  Information imparted by Dare in the group session was without the dimensional edge that his instructions in our solo sessions held—and I listened more attentively to what he was not saying to the group. Aloof and superior, he offered none of the personal anecdotes or tricks that he had shared with me.

  That made a strange impression on me, and I questioned my interpretation of the events. It seemed as if Dare didn't care about the other four Justice Squad members in the group, even though he kept firmly demanding that I practice and pay attention to how to impart information to a group at large.

  After the two hours were up, the combat mages went off to raid, pillage, practice, or protect something—they hadn't specified which—and the five of us trudged back up the mountain, thoroughly bedraggled.

  “The Troop arrives in a few weeks, thank Magic,” one of the Justice Squad members said.

  “Then we can stop going along with this madness,” another grouched. “The combat mages are insane this year. I didn't sign up for this.”

  “And some of us certainly shouldn't be here,” Peters said.

  I rolled my eyes and continued following after them, all of us heading to the dorms as the rest of campus rose to begin the day.

  There was something special about sunrise. I just preferred to experience it behind closed eyelids.

  The thought suspended as the world slowed around me.

  No.

  Shouting broke out across the grounds, jarringly, and three mages who had been watching us just moments before sprinted past and into the henge we had all been heading toward. They disappeared through an arch, and the other squad members hurried after them.

  Returned to motion more quickly this time, I fished my reader from my bag and debated whether I should run after them while I read. I had turned my hologram setting off after the horrific, looping images of Cadmiat, so only stark text greeted me now—“Secret Department installation obliterated!”

  Raphael had been silent for too long.

  ~*~

  “Thunderstorm of pain,” Mike muttered five minutes into Layer Politics.

  I tried to keep my shaking unnoticeable in the midst of a thousand people sitting on the edges of their seats in order to hear our professor enthusiastically share the latest on what was happening.

  Professor Harrow put forth all of the rumors and theories about the destruction of the secret Department installation. Fresh news with fevered hypotheses of “open war!” and fearful whispers of “Origin Magic!” liberally spread through the uncertain and on-edge audience.

  Fueling the fear, a series of unseasonal tornadoes had wiped through a section of the Midwest United States in the First Layer as a direct result. That news just exacerbated my shaking, but at least other people looked equally as unsteady as I felt.

  The pictures of the destruction were full-on crazy. A before picture contained a normal looking town that must have been hiding the installation underground. The after picture showed an entire five-mile cube of space...gone. As if a giant monster had taken a humungous, square bite, then swallowed the evidence.

  Time to reset the leash clock. But I had very few data points, and I was working against time.

  “Discuss the repercussions of the installation's destruction. How will a regulatory body, without a body, respond? How do you think they should respond? What about the responsibilities of other nations? Who do we look to? Do you side with more security or more freedom? Do we look all the way back to the disaster that happened at Salietrex? Discuss.”

  He clapped his hands and our seats whirled, and Neph was lost again, even though she'd been sandwiched between us. Her seat zipped out and whirled to a muse cluster.

  Will's shoulders drooped with mine as we watched her seat fling itself far from ours. My gaze caught Asafa's at a table near to Neph's and he gave me a wide grin as we both realized we were in class together. I gave him a thumbs-up and the signal for “tonight” that I had seen others use on campus—a circle and upward motion. He signaled back in the affirmative before his attention was grabbed by his group's moderator.

  I needed to get my hands on that controller, now more than ever. I would end this madness. Full steam ahead.

  “Ferals are the reason. And what happened at Salietrex is a prime example.”

  My attention snapped back to my group, which unfortunately, included the reedy stooge from the Midlands, a second boy who frequently followed me, and Bellacia, who was seated next to me. She gave the reedy boy an encouraging smile.

  “Go ahead, Keiren. Elaborate,” Bellacia said to him. “Salietrex happened eight years ago and escalated the current conflict.”

  “Verisetti used three ferals to wreak the destruction. Killed five thousand mages that day, mostly civilians.”

  My heart beat like a hammer in my chest.

  “The Third Layer bastards can't do it on their own. Sure, we all know there are second and third generation mages in the Second Layer who pretend to have immigrated fully, ones who still ally secretly with the Third.” Keiren shrugged, a vindictive little smirk on his face. “But they are always tracked. Right, Peoples?” He turned to Delia.

  Delia looked a little scary as she silently observed Keiren and picked deliberately at her blue-and-brown scarf with her sharply lacquered fingertips.

  I stared at her. Delia kept up with the Second Layer Magicist crowd. I'd thought that was because they were friends. But maybe it was because she had to.

  Keiren smirked at Delia. “Tracked and neutered nicely.”

  “Now, Keiren—” Bellacia started to say in a tone of parental disappointment.

  “You should watch yourself,” Mike said, sounding bored, even though I could tell that he was clearly angry. “Some of the families you are referring to are quite powerful and have proved their loyalty to the Second Layer twenty times over.”

  Keiren smiled, falsely. “It's the new, unknown entities we need to fear anyway. The ones who slip by.”

  “Sure, all eight of them.” Mike sounded bored, “What happened at Salietrex was a tragedy. But ferals don't automatically become terrorists.”

  “There are far more than eight,” Keiren said, and the other stooge nodded in agreement like an irritating shadow.

  “Scary, different, new! Help!” Mike gave a fake shiver. It earned him a scowl from Keiren and a burst of affection from me.

  “Ferals are new.”

  “Everyone is new at some point—mages awaken at different ages,” Mike said pointedly.

  “But the young get trained early. They become part of our society legally and acceptably. Their edge gets cleansed away and their views conform to society's.”

  Essentially, he was saying acceptable mages got brainwashed. Why had I taken this class?

  “And yet you don't believe the Third Layer refugees who came here decades ago have conformed,” Mike said casually.

  “I'm questioning their conformity,” Keiren bit out.

  Mike nodded. “Of course. It's a lot easier to pinpoint who needs to disappear during secondary school when everyone is loaded down with aptitude tests.”

  Get me out of here!

  “That is what the conspiracists would have you believe.” Keiren sneered. “Before sixteen, one's magic is containable and still trainable. After sixteen—”

  “After sixteen, what? You're a monster automatically? Can't be taught?” Mike’s arms crossed in clearly dismissive body language.

  Keiren smoothed his sneer into a cracked smile. “Statistically, ferals are more likely to become rare mage types. I dislike most of their magic because it is dangerous and explosive. And ferals come in thinking they don't need a cuff or require restrictions. They feel they can do great things, change things. But we don't
need change. We are already the best just the way we are.”

  Bellacia nodded regally to that, not interjecting her verbal opinion into an advancing discussion, but clearly stating her beliefs.

  I exchanged a quick glance with Will. Individuals who were anti-progress; always lovely.

  “That's quite an opinion,” Mike said, obviously willing to field the discussion for the rest of us.

  Delia examined her nails and looked bored. But I could see the way the edges of her eyes were tightly creased under the fall of her dark bangs.

  “Keiren's points have validity. The older a feral awakens, the more likely that said mage will possess an unusual set of skills,” Bellacia said lightly. “And that they will be less inculcated in our ways. Their control is always quite poor at the beginning too. They blow themselves up rather easily.” She waved a graceful hand through the air. “But a feral who manages to assume control and become part of our society, is welcomed, of course. We don't turn away our own.” She gave a beautiful smile.

  “You register and track them instead,” Mike said.

  She speared him with a smile. “Registration is for the good of all. What harm does it do to set to paper one's skills and background? I proudly list each of mine.”

  “That's because everything you do, and are, is at the top of the list,” Mike said easily, with an affable, returned smile.

  Delia looked like she'd swallowed a lemon. Whole.

  “You are too kind,” Bellacia said demurely. “But Sirenic mages give others pause. No one likes to have someone around who can unduly influence them. The same as the muses, who are regulated through their communities and bound to the quality standards they must meet. All of which make the registry valuable. I registered freely and happily. Everyone should.”

  “Not everyone wants to be tagged and followed,” Mike said pointedly.

  She tilted her head like an exquisite bird. “What is your focus?”

  “Weather.”

  “A celebrated discipline. We rely on your skills to keep us safe, happy, and provided for. Don't you wish others to engage in the same practices?”

  Mike smiled. Some of his teeth showed. “I rely on people to make good decisions, just as I rely on our governments to do the same.”

  “Then you must see that equality for everyone, knowing what everyone is—their threats and potential—is a grand decision.”

  “We must agree to disagree.”

  “Oh, but no, I don't think that we need disagree at all.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “Let's discuss it further.”

  “You would shackle all those who don't support your views. Anyone out of the norm.”

  I saw Delia touch her bracelet—the one that stopped her from dealing out suggestion enchantments. Except... Tracked and neutered, Keiren had said. I stared at Delia's bracelet, and something appallingly close to rage replaced my urge to flee.

  “Unusual mages are to be celebrated,” Bellacia said to Mike, their conversation continuing without input from the rest of us.

  “And collared.”

  “Only if necessary,” she said demurely.

  I looked at Bellacia closely, trying to see through the haze of anger that was enveloping me. There was a distinct possibility that she believed her own words.

  “I have no collar. And I am unusual and registered,” she said.

  My haze grew and I felt my cuff contract as magic sparked unconsciously, seeking a target. Delia looked sharply at me and dug her fingernails into my wrist. The sudden intense pain abruptly made all of my thoughts—subconsciously and consciously—switch to OW!

  “And rich and protected. And charming.” Mike's smile was wide at Bellacia.

  She laughed. “So kind of you. Why—”

  “We are supposed to be talking about the destruction of the installation, are we not?” Delia asked harshly. Her fingernails were still painfully digging into my skin, but our hands were hidden from view by the table top.

  Bellacia looked at her in censure. “Delia.”

  Delia smiled tightly. “I don't want to be penalized when we have to do a write-up on our class discussion and haven't covered any of the assigned topics.”

  Bellacia's smile was perfectly polite, but her gaze hardened. “Of course. Let us discuss the Third Layer terrorists who are trying to end our way of life and take our lives.”

  An hour later, I pushed out of the room, horrified and drained.

  Delia smiled tightly at me and started down campus.

  “Wait!”

  She turned. Her expression was carefully blank. “Yes, Ren?”

  I reached out a finger to touch her bracelet. “I will figure out how to get rid of this,” I whispered. It was a vow and my mind was already whirling with possibilities from the leech books I had been devouring.

  “No.” She pulled her bound wrist against her chest, her expression both pained and fierce. “No. I chose it. It...it keeps me safe. I couldn't attend here otherwise. It's only for a few more years. You have no idea—” She shook her head. “It doesn't matter what my family has done for this layer over the past seventy years. We will always be suspect. I play the game, though.” Her expression took on an edged smile. “And sometimes I flatten the game.”

  “But—”

  “No.” She grabbed my wrist and a tendril of magic wound over my skin. “You will do nothing. I want this. But know that you wanting to help means everything to me.”

  She walked away, and, bereft of direction, I let her.

  “Can I just not go back?” I asked wearily as Will and Mike drew beside me. “To class, ever?”

  Will nodded vigorously, his expression the one he wore when he was considering how to implement a tricky solution.

  Mike shook his head. “It would be worse if you dropped. We'll figure out how to pull you through. If you get past those crasseetars, you're free.”

  One thing was for sure—there was nothing we could do about Bellacia, but we needed to keep Keiren and the other boy out of our group. And we needed Neph back in.

  Chapter Twenty: Caterpillar Friendships

  Draeger put me through my paces in the simulation room, then I uploaded an anatomy chip to his programming in order to finish sketching and testing the designs for Asafa and Patrick's game. I had spent a hilarious previous session grappling with the game characters' physical viability. My first mistakes in creating monsters with magic had produced ones unable to move without tripping over too-long claws or that couldn’t maintain balance with their monstrous beaks.

  “Squirrel tips, Cadet,” Draeger barked. “You can't make a tiger with that large of a forked tail!”

  Those had made for some amusing iterations. Creating monsters while making Draeger swear relieved a lot of pent up stress.

  With the three dimensional abilities of the room, I manipulated the last beast, then sketched my changes onto the paper. The simulation rooms were awesome, but didn't save true creation. It was more like dreaming—I still had to get the images on paper and into life.

  Saf and Trick had been pretty particular in what they wanted and had given me skeletal sketches for much of it. But the art had been missing that vital component of life. Breathing it into the designs was pure pleasure. I couldn't wait to show them the results.

  As I packed up the papers, Draeger barked at me to give him another recounting of what had happened today.

  By the time I was finished, my left sleeve was rolled up to my elbow, and I was staring at my cuff as I leaned against the wall. I was thinking of Delia and the choice she made to be tagged and tracked, I was thinking of the weight of freedom and fear.

  “There's a thing somewhere within me. Pulling on me,” I said, shaking my head. “I'm scared.” It wasn't something I had acknowledged to anyone else. The word sounded foreign in my mouth.

  “Raccoon paws, Cadet! You are not trying hard enough.” His crisp projection paced angrily around the simulation room. Draeger didn't respond well to fear. He beat fear into submission wit
h anger and action.

  The image of his shaved head and barrel chest was comforting, even while his overly large muscles flexed as if he were going to pummel me. When I'd purchased a mentor simulation, my subconscious had picked characteristics that it had thought I needed at the time.

  The real Draeger, on whom he was based, had been a soldier in life. Now that I had Dare too, it became very clear I seemed to be collecting drill sergeants.

  The thought and sense of Dare connected suddenly to the wall. No! Thinking only, no connection! I snatched back my hand. A ribbon of rich brown to match the room's default color pulled from the wall and attached to my palm.

  Panicked, I tried to peel the ribbon away. I should have made Draeger practice auditory defense with me instead of mooning around and complaining. At the auditory thought, another wall ribbon immediately launched toward me, combining with the first.

  “Stop poking at Axer, Bella,” a familiar female voice said.

  I looked wildly around, but no one was in the room with me other than Draeger, whose anger had morphed into half amusement, half exasperation. “You connected to another room, Cadet.” Draeger shook his head and muttered one of his many weird animal curses. “You aren't keeping your thoughts straight, but at least this is more entertaining.”

  I had accidentally connected to Dare in the simulation rooms a few times last term, and Dare had always demolished me and cut the connection in two seconds flat. But that hadn't been Dare's voice.

  “But Cami, he's going to win the Combat Games again,” another familiar female voice said into the ether of my room. “And he will look lovely on my arm.”

  Instead of connecting to Dare, I had somehow connected to Bellacia and Camille talking about him. Wow. Seriously, time to exit. I tugged at the strip of magic stuck to the wall. It stubbornly refused to part.

  “That tack won't work. He isn't interested in you.” Camille Straught's voice was no-nonsense. “He doesn't date. You know that. And he'll flatten you socially, even with your influence, if you continue nagging him this way.”