The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  But now it was going to recon something else.

  The wasp lifted into the air and banked around the copse. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the thread of magic connecting me to my creation. I focused its auditory sense, which I had been practicing with Draeger.

  “Yes, Helen.” Stevens's voice reflected a combination of irritation and placation. “I do know how to implement a simple spell set.”

  “If he has contacted you—”

  “Then you will be the first to know of it.”

  “I worry over you, of course.” Helen Price's voice was cultured and sharp. A politician's voice. “And only want to make sure you are safe.”

  “Don't.” Stevens's voice went from firmly polite to one of veiled fury. “We both know why you are here.”

  “Very well, dearest. But I am here for two reasons, actually. I have to send another message to my daughter. She doesn't seem to be receiving them correctly.”

  Pain burst beneath my cuff as my magic responded to her comment. I grabbed it reflexively, fingers circling the flexible metal manacle.

  It was getting harder for me to concentrate on their voices over my need to destroy. I couldn't hear my professor's response. I called my pyramid construct to mind and struggled with my control.

  “Nothing that a few gentle reminders won't fix,” Helen answered, as if talking about how to deal with an errant caterer. “Campus is now sealed in completely. The Troop will take care of the rest. I will be back after the Games are finished. I expect a better report then.”

  At the thought of Helen Price's “gentle reminders,” the pain in my cuff buckled my knees. I staggered to the nearest bench and stared at my wrist through painfully watering eyes. Deep breaths. Pyramids building. Flowers blooming. Paper wasps and dragons lifting and flying.

  When I finally looked up, the little wasp was perched on my knee, lifeless, his purpose exhausted. The alteration in purpose had used up his magic.

  The twinge that affected me every time one of my creations ceased to exist, clenched, and I carefully placed the paper body in my bag. I would resurrect him later with a drop of paint. Paint that I would make.

  Rounding the corner, I could see that Helen was gone and so was Stevens.

  I jogged to the edge of the mountain and looked at the immensity of Dormitory Circle two levels below. No silky blonde head was walking the staircases toward the Fifth Circle. Looking up a level, however, brought visual success. Helen Price was moving toward an arch that led to Top Circle and the Administration Building. I'd have to sprint to beat her to her port. But...this wasn't merely a battle. This was a war. Olivia's responses to the magic assaults confirmed that the “gentle reminders” had been going on for a long time.

  I sent a violent burst of warmth down the thread that connected to my roommate. The cord pulsed brightly in my mind. Sending and sharing magic was getting easier and easier each time I did it.

  The caterpillar would be a cocoon when I returned. I was sure of that. But it wasn't enough of a protection. Olivia's forest green magic would still be tinged brown.

  I touched the controller in my bag, thoughts streaming around the situation and possibilities.

  I could...give Olivia more magic when she needed it.

  Paint was my medium—paint allowed me to make things live. And there was a drop of paint connecting me to the protection I had given Olivia. But in order to be enough, it would require applying the results from a combination of the projects I was working on.

  When I finally entered the vault and looked at Stevens, the gulf between us dripped with tension and anger.

  “You are late. Get to your station, now,” she said.

  Making magical clay, an otherwise interesting task, might as well have been ditch digging today. We could have at least compromised on glaze.

  Whether it had been due to her interaction with Helen or my tardiness, Stevens was short tempered, and took it out on me. I held my tongue, and while I magically pugged clays together—some with the pugmill and some with pure magic—I mentally scrolled through concise statements and accusations I was brimming with the need to unleash.

  What are you up to with Helen Price?

  How do you know Raphael?

  Why did you take me on as a student?

  What—and whose—schedule am I on?

  Why can't I make paint?

  It always came back to paint. Raphael had pushed me to mix it during my Awakening. Marsgrove had cast a spell on me so that I couldn't use it freely on campus. Stevens was controlling my ability to create it.

  Paint was the force that had accomplished results in nearly all of the most difficult tasks I had set for myself. I was at a distinct disadvantage in this world, working my way up a steep learning slope—except when it came to using paint. Paint I created.

  It was my ace in the hole, as had just been proven by my eavesdropping wasp, which contained a half-drop of the substance.

  But, I still needed help making it—making powerful paint. Raphael had guided me through the process during my Awakening. Stevens had subtly tweaked my mixing last term.

  Similar to when I watched Will get so far into a spiral of thought that he forgot some of the outside criteria that still needed to be satisfied, having a supervisor limited my otherwise limitless tangents.

  With Marsgrove's restrictions, and with campus currently sealed, Stevens held the key to so many things that I needed. But I could not rely on her. And I wouldn't even ask now.

  I needed another option.

  The magic I was imbuing sparked onto the table as I abruptly stopped kneading. I had another option. An option packaged in a tall and dangerous form, wrapped in a black ribbon.

  I simply had to offer him a few secrets first.

  Olivia was going to be really furious.

  After fiercely wiping two hours' worth of dried clay from my hands, I strode down the mountain and away from Stevens' terse reminder to be on time next session. Instead of going to the Midlands as I'd previously planned to do, I went to see Constantine.

  ~*~

  A current of pure dark delight underpinned Constantine's expression. “So that's it,” he said, pulling his ribbon around his fingers. “That is how you activate the storage boxes and designate the pulled space. Paint. Of course it is.” He said the last in an almost husky murmur.

  I closed my eyes. I had told him nearly everything, leaving out only Raphael's name and direct manipulations. Constantine was now completely tangled up in my fate. Olivia was going to be so angry.

  “For now that is how I work the magic,” I said, opening my eyes. “There might be a better way. I don't know. But paint lets me do things I otherwise cannot. Exceptional things.” I looked at him. “Will you help?”

  “Of course, darling. Anything for you.”

  “Constantine…”

  He smiled darkly. “Dean Marsgrove will never remotely approach my list of favorite mages. And Stevens is the master I am destined to surpass and defeat.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “That makes you sound like a supervillain. That is not comforting.”

  His smile grew, and was no less dark for its magnificence. “You knew that I would want to work on this, otherwise you wouldn't have asked. We can prep right now.” He uncrossed his long legs.

  I checked the time and sighed. Dare expected me in thirty minutes. “I can't. I have a service commitment I can't get out of.”

  He paused. “I thought you were on duty at nine tonight?”

  “I am. A different service commitment.”

  He re-crossed his legs and waved me off. “Well, go off and do ill deeds with your service power, then come back after. And send your revised schedule so I can find an appropriate slot in which to schedule vault access,” he said, as easily as if I had asked him to loan me a pencil instead of asking him to do something nigh on impossible. “You should have asked last term.”

  We both knew why I hadn't. Constantine hadn’t even tried to seem trustworthy. Even now,
in my head, Olivia's voice was screaming her list of “When with Leandred, you will not...” invectives.

  But Constantine had kept all of my secrets so far. The secrets I was sharing now shed light on how I used magic, but the knowledge that I could occasionally manipulate Origin Magic was what would actually get me locked up—and he had guessed that secret during our first conversation.

  Irrational choice or not, I did trust him. He was firmly entrenched in my fate already, and his leech usage and First Layer manipulation would earn him the cell next to mine. And there was a degree of fondness between us that he didn't hide.

  Likely it was a trap that women fell into with him all the time—thinking they were special. But as work colleagues, we had a concrete basis for working together successfully. Constantine was all about what interested him. At present, I fell into that category. I wasn't fooled about my future.

  His smile thinned, and he waved me away again. “Go. Shoo.”

  I sighed at his mind reading. “Sorry. I'm a realist. And you are kind of a dick. But you know I value you.”

  His expression turned to amusement. “And that you don't place value on yourself. Yes. You are easily manipulated into thinking that you need to offer more than you receive. You should correct that mistake with everyone except me,” he said smoothly, stroking his ribbon.

  “Very funny. Oh, before I go…” I fished Asafa and Patrick's controller out of my bag and handed it to him.

  Constantine examined the device, a sliver of a smile on his lips. “I do so enjoy how your mind works. And I recognize the work. Adding another few hapless souls to your gravitational pull?”

  “I think they bounced right into Olivia's actually.” I smiled thinking of the glint in their eyes as we'd left.

  He grimaced. “Speak nothing more of it.”

  I nicked the device from his hands. “Be nice and I'll bring dinner with me. Magi Mart?”

  “Horrid.”

  I grinned at his vocal resignation and waved backward over my head as I pushed through the door.

  Chapter Twenty-two: New Designs

  Olivia's caterpillar had indeed morphed into a cocoon in response to Helen Price's “message.” And once again, it hadn't been quite enough to stop Olivia from being hit with some of the magic.

  It took me two days of intensive searching and a few extremely shady bargains with members of the delinquents' club, but I tracked down and modified an enchantment that would require some karmic pain from me. Still, darkly pleased with my vigilante effort, I slipped a pre-made spell and a drop of burnt-orange Awakening paint into Olivia's cocoon. Since she always carried it with her now, any spell that touched Olivia would also pass through the cocoon.

  And since the cocoon had already been hit by Helen Price's magic, it was easy enough to code it so that any malevolent spell containing the same magical signature would hit the cocoon, then be sent back at the caster at threefold strength.

  Olivia would barely feel a tickle as the magic traveled over her, and the returned threefold magic wouldn't register as hers. Olivia would be completely in the dark, so if questioned, her answers would be truthful.

  She wasn't going to hurt her mother. I was.

  The added enchantment I placed on the cocoon required black magic. Splayed on the floor in Okai while the rocks hovered around me, I healed slowly from the agonizing backlash with a smile on my face.

  Neph said nothing about the livid, striped wounds on my skin when I went to see her afterward. She merely healed me and gave me a long hug.

  Protection of friends: +1 again

  Helen Price's health if she sent another “care package” or “message:” -1 billion

  ~*~

  With the Department taking care of the super-spy threats to national security all over the news feeds, the student watch groups on campus stepped up their watches as well. I took extra care to look ordinary and cheerful whenever I passed one.

  I began meeting with Dare multiple times a day to case the trouble spots on campus—hello again, firesnakes!—and to deal with the strange magic or monster-of-the-day issues that always cropped up.

  Even with trekking all over campus, the privacy of the Midlands continued to be the place we spent most of our discussion time. My perception of him constantly evolved, as he did a lot of things that were unexpected. He analyzed dirt and magic samples as often as he battled monsters, and he quizzed me and encouraged me to come up with new containment solutions that didn't include fighting.

  I did know some things about him fairly well though. The first time I tossed him what he needed without him asking, he looked surprised.

  The second time, his eyes had focused on me in an uncomfortable way.

  What could I say? “Oh don't mind me, I used to watch you from up in the trees. I think you were stalking me, though. Unknowingly. You know, because we somehow got magically attached.”

  No.

  But he became used to me knowing what he needed most of the time and would simply hold out his hand without looking or asking for an item.

  We met frequently at the library. The one time I asked if I should drop by his room, he looked so annoyed that I switched the subject and never asked again. Some mages apparently didn't like others in their personal spaces. I tried not to take it personally. There was a good chance that Dare's room was his oasis. Somewhere he didn't have to be on guard all the time.

  ~*~

  Classes, research, leech work, Dare, campus security, and special projects filled my already full schedule.

  And I added paint creation happily to my calendar with a coded doodle of a pointy Hieronymous Bosch Garden of Delights plant. Because Constantine, with an elegant snap of his long fingers, had been granted permission to use the art vault.

  “I don't understand how you, the bane of the Justice Squad, secure whatever you want from the powers that be,” I said, shaking my head as I walked with Constantine through the high gardens near the vault. “Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Just baffled.”

  Constantine smirked. His strides were long and languid in contrast to my more energetic ones. “It's all in how you are regarded by those with true power, darling, not in how you are regarded by the hoi polloi.”

  I checked my translation spell. “Did you really just say hoi polloi like a First Layer Brit instead of riffraff or rabble or common folk?”

  “I'm versed in many ways for referring to those beneath me.”

  I rolled my eyes, but darted a glance around the copse to make sure we were alone as he activated the vault door. “Three times a week, an hour each, starting at four p.m.?”

  That would be enough. Using paint outside the vault and the Midlands racked up extra hours of community service for me each time I tried it. They were still listed as substance abuse charges, but at least I didn't have Justice Squad members looking at me disapprovingly anymore.

  Because I had community service already, additional hours were simply added to Justice Toad's tally. But it was a little like having a magical credit card—at some point I was going to have to pay some severe interest.

  “Aries Rising, Ren, not four p.m.”

  “You just used hoi polloi,” I said as we entered the vault. The space brightened with the abnormal, magical lighting that originated from no discernible source, as there were no windows and no light fixtures. “And I've heard you use First Layer times. If someone wants the time translated, their translation spell converts it. Will said there are lots of people who've only been mages since puberty and they still use First Layer sayings, especially for time. Laziness is universal.”

  “But it is something that provokes further poking into your background. Something that matters not, in regards to me.”

  “Fine.” I thought about Bellacia Bailey who always seemed to be hovering somewhere near. “You have a point.”

  “I always do,” he said silkily, as he set up a workstation. I chewed my thumbnail and stared at the closing vault door. “Relax, Crown. No one can enter un
til our time is up. And I will have you out of here ten minutes early every time to make sure no one sees.”

  I looked around me. “No one ever enters when Stevens and I work here, but I figured that was just Stevens being a ball buster.”

  “The vault can only be entered through permission of the magic holder who controls the time slot. They changed procedures after someone entered without permission last term.” He smirked at me.

  I sighed. I had paid for that in thousands of community service hours. I was still paying. “What did you have to do to get permission?”

  Constantine's long fingers paused over the scales, then continued their actions. “Nothing to worry yourself about.”

  That was not good. I knew that from the many bargains I had gone through in order to secure the karmic enchantment for Olivia.

  “Con,” I said warningly. “I don't want you indebted for me.”

  “Do not worry. I'm just indebting you to me.” He smiled. “Besides, I'd freely give someone else's soul—maybe even two of them—to take part in this.”

  “Great.” I sighed, and slung my bag onto its regular hook.

  We only had an hour—fifty minutes, if Constantine was serious about leaving ten minutes early—and neither of us ever dallied when we wanted something done.

  Our first session produced three mixtures we fully tossed in the vent that would send them to the Midlands toxic recycling plant.

  Constantine watched me carefully, cataloging every moment and measuring my reaction to each new item placed on the scale or in the mixtures. Slight variations in emotional and magical reaction were dealt with swiftly and deftly—at times he was faster than I was at realizing the internal changes in my magical response.