The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Which was exactly why the combat mages didn't want them here.

  “So devoted to this mountain after such a short time,” he mused.

  “It's a wonderful place,” I said sincerely. I loved school. It wasn't a secret. Maybe I could infuse some of my love for it into him.

  “And working with Alexander Dare doesn't enter into your love of it, of course.”

  “He's very dedicated to the defense of campus,” I said diplomatically.

  “He is indeed. So dedicated.” There was an emphasis to the words. “One wonders from where such dedication springs.”

  “I assume it springs from a desire to protect.”

  “He does seem so earnest in that aim,” he said, odd leaf-green eyes focused on me. “It's almost enough to believe.”

  “You want me to turn against my teammate,” I said, as I turned to examine the wards surrounding the one that formed the perimeter barrier. “You are baiting me, trying to get an emotional response.” I had one, but I wasn't going to let it show.

  “I'd never think to do such a thing, Ren, never. You seem very...fond of him. I would never think to come between young love, however ill-advised it is.”

  “You wield words like poison,” I said absently. I knew quite a few people with that skill, which made the tactic obvious. “You do it quite well, though.”

  He laughed, a full-throated, delighted bark and squeezed my shoulder a second time, then put a hand on my wrist, over my cuff like he was trying to weirdly shake my hand. “Oh, I do like you.”

  “I don't know why,” I said frankly, feeling tired again. Merely sharing air with Emrys was exhausting. I'd been energized before we'd begun our route. I disentangled myself from him.

  He smiled at me as his fingers drew the last inch over my cuff and he stepped back. “Words are like weapons, like magic. They can cause untold pain. That you appreciate my attempt to drive a wedge between you and Mr. Dare just makes the game more exciting. You are quite a loyal soul, aren't you? What would it take to make you feel betrayed by him? What would Alexander Dare have to do?”

  I took a step away from him and touched my leather bracelet that held Constantine's stamp underneath. There was a rune in the stamp that would give me a thirty second window to get away if I hit Emrys with it. “Listen, I realize you are just trying to do your job all nefariously and the like, but I'm not that interested in social politics and picking sides.”

  “Everyone picks a side eventually, even if it's their own side. Neutrality ends in fiefdom and subjugation.”

  “Sometimes neutrality ends in peace and happiness.”

  “Tosh. The only time neutrality works is when the person or country with the biggest stick allows the other entity to have it.”

  “That's pretty depressing. I'd like to think that people can work to better what they have instead of seeking to take what they do not from someone else.”

  “You must sympathize with the Third Layer cretins, then.” His eyes sparked and his smile grew. “The whole struggle is fascinating, don't you think?”

  Participating in this conversation was the worst thing I could do, but I felt impelled to say, “I think it is sad.”

  “Mmmm. Perhaps we are just different kinds of personal engineers in the end. You work with what is—always trying to capture and protect the spirit of a person without changing them—while I'm always looking at ways of creating anew, based on what has worked, or destroying what has not.”

  His words caused my pulse to jump unpleasantly. It indicated a deeper knowledge of me and my past than I was comfortable with.

  The reaction must have shown, because he smiled. “Discussing such things always makes people nervous. So poor of me to make you uneasy. You seemed so less...stressed...this afternoon. And it is a guilty pleasure to see you somewhat content.”

  A small part of me relaxed at the sudden change in the tone of his voice, which was infused with comfort and kinship. “Some friends are helping me with a project.” I touched my scarf reflexively.

  “That sounds like an interesting tale.” His voice was enthusiastic and his eyes mischievous but kind—like Christian's had always been. It was easy to see how he had enamored some of the students and admins. “Do tell.”

  “It involves me and I'm quite dull, unfortunately.”

  “Nothing could be farther from the truth, I'd say.”

  We checked three more access points. It was odd that Emrys had quizzed Dare on anything and everything campus related for two entire weeks, yet here we were alone and he wasn't trying to wheedle campus and Midlands secrets out of me. Dare had been nervous about that.

  But, no, instead, Emrys was trying to wheedle personal admissions and making me feel suddenly companionable to him. He was the most insidious type of Department plant. And I was easy prey.

  “Why did you join the Peacekeepers' Troop?” I asked. Might as well attempt my own digging for personal information.

  “A delightful question. A previous engagement was ruined, but an alternate opportunity presented itself, and I took it.”

  “What was your previous job?”

  “Training. I was in the midst of training the most perfect specimen. But then—”

  “Norr!” The leader of the Troop motioned sharply to Emrys from twenty-five yards to the east of us. “Turn your frequency back on and let's go!”

  Emrys's gaze narrowed unpleasantly on the man, and he tipped his head as if debating some sort of violent retribution.

  Adrenaline poured through me at the very familiar gesture on an unfamiliar face. I listened to my body and backed away slowly. “Well, you should see what he wants, and we are all done for the day...so see you tomorrow!”

  He regarded me for a moment before tipping his head to the other side, increasing the weird sense of jumbled familiarity. “Perhaps sooner than you think, Ren, my dear.”

  He turned and strode toward General Telgent. His comment along with the way he moved was extremely upsetting. He walked like Christian.

  I turned and ran. I ran right through the group of Junior Department members who had been following us again. They gasped and scattered and I didn't bother to apologize as I ran through the Fourteenth Circle West arch. I immediately took another arch to Sixth Circle North.

  I'd pay later for running them down, but at least Keiren and his friend that I had nicknamed 'Stripes' were gone—they and a few other high profile students had been given permission to leave campus and had been collected by their parents and a Department escort yesterday. They had bragged about going to watch the competition in real time, instead of via projection and feed as the rest of us were doing.

  I was surprised Bellacia hadn't gone as well, but she was hosting special news reports for her father's papers about Excelsine, in anticipation of the school placing first in the competition.

  Justice Toad croaked an alert, startling me and making me almost drop the tablet.

  All-hands meeting for the Peacekeepers' Troop, Justice Squad, and Neutralizer Squad—report to Dorm Eleven immediately, the screen read.

  Great. No wonder Emrys had made that comment. I looked at the Magiaduct one level up and started reluctantly tromping toward Dorm Eleven.

  Emrys had gone from fearsome Department lackey to serious creeper. He was seriously creeping me out. Why was I seeing my brother in his movements?

  My control cuff squeezed my left wrist hard, and I stopped and stared at it blankly. It gave a more vicious squeeze, waiting for acknowledgment. Seriously? Now?

  I put my fingers around the cuff and let my acknowledgment seep inside. Dean Marsgrove was calling me in for our review. Relief at getting out of the squad meeting vied with irritation at Marsgrove.

  I'd figured that we wouldn't meet until next week or the week after, since the Excelsine staff held their quarterly and yearly meetings during the week of the Combat Games. While the students were busy watching the games, the teachers gathered and held a symposium, probably discussing things like, how to make class
es more brutal, and what to do with the troubled mages on campus—feed them to the Blarjack or assign them more community service?

  But Marsgrove hadn't forgotten me, and the contract magic I had signed upon enrollment would force me to answer the call in a painful fashion, if I didn't do it on my own.

  I shook my left wrist. My cuff felt weird and it hurt—like the metal had split somewhere and raw edges were now curling down to pierce the flesh underneath. There was a slight ultramarine hue to it now too. What had Marsgrove done? How did he know to associate that hue? The morning after my Awakening, he had only seen the brown sludge aftermath of my blue painted massacre.

  Regardless, it was not a good sign.

  I sent Isaiah a note saying I couldn't be at the squad meeting and that I'd catch up later, then jumped through three different arches to reach Top Circle and the Administration Building. All the way up the mountain, my magic was doing things without my conscious say-so—small things as I passed people who were heading to the battle field, like changing their eye color to match Dare's, simply because I was thinking about the hue—so I wrapped fingers around my cuff, trying to keep control and not freak out.

  My increasingly panicked thoughts couldn't wrap around the blurred data points that were jumping around my conscious thought—or those thoughts simmering on the edges, waiting to come together to form a picture. Unable to do anything else about my panic, I alerted Beta Team to go on immediate rounds. On the off-chance that something was wrong with campus, rather than me, I needed an unbiased second opinion.

  I increased my pace, swearing under my breath. I didn't want to go to an all-hands meeting with the squads on campus, I didn't want to see Emrys, and I didn't want to see Marsgrove. What I actually wanted to do was to join the majority of students on campus on the battle field in front of one of the giant hologram, or “Jumbogram,” projections showing the remote competition live, and to soak in the excitement of the matches, and the brilliance of the competitors—namely one competitor.

  But if this was an appetizer for how my day was going to go, I'd be lucky to catch any of the action later on repeat feeds.

  I sent a quick note to Olivia, letting her know I'd called in Beta and was on my way to meet with her cousin. She was, unfortunately, in the midst of a scheduled social debate despite the rest of campus having already flocked to the large areas that were projecting the combat competition live. A quick reply from her said to stay calm, say as little as possible, and remind Marsgrove of the contract he was under.

  Sinking slowly onto the straight-backed metal chair in Marsgrove's mixed modern and traditional white and brown office, I mentally scrolled through questions he might ask.

  Origin Mages. Raphael Verisetti. Kinsky's painting. Cuffs. Stolen golems. Leeches. Leashes. The Troop. The community service network and underground black market. The Midlands and Okai—had he discovered Guard Rock and Guard Friend?

  Gray eyes regarded me coldly. “You are working with Alexander Dare.”

  His opening statement was not at all expected. But maybe that's what the ultramarine overlaying my cuff was meant to be—some sort of weird forewarning about what Marsgrove wanted to discuss.

  Honestly, no wonder Dare never spoke to anyone outside of his crew. Everyone was always digging for information about him.

  “Yes, I'm aware of that,” I said. “I just spoke to him two hours ago.”

  He'd been all tiny and hilarious sitting on my desk, like a dangerous little Muppet. Hologram communication could be enormously entertaining like that. I wished my parents' journals could work with holograms.

  Marsgrove tapped his fingers impatiently on the desk. The sound pulled me back to the present.

  “You can see him too—he should be on the field soon,” I said. “He's doing really well. First in all staffs, first in offensive wards, first in dismantling, third in swords and a list of other placements. The three-person team competition is up soon and they are expected to kill it. It'll be a great time to fanboy out. No need to pump me for info.”

  Marsgrove's chilly visage grew...chillier. “Take care with your tone, Miss Crown.”

  I really wanted to get out of here. I needed to gather my scattered thoughts. The pattern, just out of my reach, was trying to form, waiting for me to relax and think it through. I touched my cuff. The sooner I left Marsgrove's company, the better.

  I disliked him, but I was well aware of the power he had over me on campus as a dean, even if his title was the inexplicable Dean of Special Projects.

  “What do you want to know?” I could give Marsgrove all sorts of empty information with zero real content. I was pretty used to answering these sorts of questions. “Yes, Dare got stuck with me and I'm helping with campus security. Yes, I'm putting effort into it. Yes, he's good at his job. No, I don't think he's interested in your love spell. No, he has not told me of his world domination plans. No, I didn't bespell him, and you are delusional if you think I could. Didn't he beat you in competition, Dean Marsgrove?”

  Will had said something to that effect back in the info dump he had given me when we'd first met.

  “Are you quite done?” Each word was deliberately enunciated.

  Okay, maybe in my litany of memorized answers I shouldn't have tacked on one about Marsgrove getting beaten by a teenager, military wunderkind or not. “Debatable. Are we?”

  “I haven't asked you an actual question, and yet you spew words without a shred of control.”

  I pointed at his face. “The questions are all there in your unfriendly expression. It's a family trait. Though I'm happy to say that Olivia is blooming like a sunflower away from you people. How is Helen, by the way? I hope she isn't in pain these days.”

  Olivia was going to murder me.

  Marsgrove's eyes narrowed. “You play an increasingly dangerous game, Miss Crown.”

  I absolutely should be saying nothing more. Implying to Marsgrove that I was in any way responsible for reverse-spelling Helen Price's care packages was stupid. Saying anything at all was unwise. But now that it had arisen, my rage couldn't be swallowed back down.

  “It's not a game. You know what she does to Olivia. You know and yet you sent her to our room, knowing what she would do to her daughter. You are a terrible dean and a worse family member. You tell that—” What word had Constantine used? “—that friest that worse will happen if she touches my roommate again.”

  From the look on Marsgrove's face, Constantine's word was stronger than even my dictionary had translated.

  He leaned back and examined me like a bacteria-infested microscope slide. “I owe you no explanation, but to set the record straight, I didn't send her to your room. In fact, I sent Olivia a warning as soon as I saw Helen. And I won't even get a chance to flatten you in a month when I'm out from underneath our 'contract.' You will already be dead from gross stupidity. Congratulations.”

  I smiled, showing a lot of teeth. This was the man who had tricked me into enrolling at school, then kept me prisoner under suppression and calming spells, trying to make me into a complacent vegetable until he could do...whatever he was planning to do with me. The fact that he hadn't sent Helen to our room didn't change my opinion of him. He obviously knew what his cousin was capable of and he had sent a warning. Yippee.

  “You underestimate my unfortunate ability to stay alive,” I said through clenched teeth. “But celebrate my stupidity, please do. It will serve your agenda just fine.”

  “You don't know what my agenda is,” he said coldly.

  “You hate me. As soon as magic releases you from your bargain with Olivia, you will turn me over to the government.”

  “Hate implies far more emotion than I feel for you.”

  That sapped my anger better than anything else he might have said. There was nothing to be gained from arguing with Marsgrove. I needed to save my strength for other things. I wasn't going to change his mind about the risk of me continuing to draw free breath, and he wasn't going to change mine about what a rott
en human I thought he was.

  My shoulders dropped. “Why did you summon me? I thought we were doing a great job at ignoring each other.” I got to pretend that I was a normal person attending magic school, and he got to pretend I didn't exist.

  He frowned and his shoulders tensed. “I summoned you because we needed a review, and it seemed like a good time.”

  I sat forward in my chair, unnerved by the thin thread of underlying confusion in his voice. He wasn't completely sure why he had summoned me? He should be at one of the staff meetings currently in session, not meeting with me.

  Marsgrove grimaced. “Enough. I want to know what Alexander Dare is teaching you. And why he picked you.”

  Without argument, strangers always accepted my false answer that Dare had gotten stuck with me. None of the Junior Department stooges or anyone else who had moderate contact with Dare or with me ever accepted that response.

  “He's teaching me how to guard campus. And...” I sighed. “You know why he picked me. I'm powerful, and it's obvious.”

  Enough people had told me so, and I wasn't delusional. Power attracted people, just like any other charismatic trait. It didn't make people have to like me, though. I was lucky to have found good friends, and I was going to keep them.

  “And what have you told him?” Marsgrove asked, eyes narrowed and pen tapping a funereal beat on his desk.

  I was lucky to have found good friends, and I sure as hell wasn't going to sell any of them out.

  “The only thing Alexander Dare cares about on campus is keeping it safe. And it would be against my best interests to tell anyone the things that you are insinuating.”

  Of course, that last statement would only be true if I had any actual self-preservation instincts when someone I considered “mine” wanted something. Dare knew plenty of my secrets, including the one Marsgrove didn't want him to know. One, because Dare was extremely sharp, and two, because when he asked, I answered.