by Anne Zoelle
Did he always carry this around with him?
Kaine smiled, as if he could read my thoughts. “We always carry it, little mage. Just in case.”
He knelt down and caressed the edge.
The crowd nearest to us, who were able to see what was happening, pressed back as far as they were allowed, a few screaming in terror.
“Praetorian Kaine, don't you dare open—”
Kaine flipped open the box and the familiar, strident, panicked voice froze, drifting off into the ether as the world around me abruptly switched. Brilliant colors burst everywhere. Hues I had only dreamed of mixing appeared. The colors were alive, teaming with crystal and metallic bases. A wisp of Aurora Borealis Green, vibrant and coiling in the air, swirled suggestively around my head.
Draeger's box, in a practice room, so long ago, had been a little like this. Though less immersive. Visually engaging, but without the other sense attachments.
Kinsky's painting at the Library of Alexandria had been a little like this, but had possessed a far more personal touch in its otherworldliness. Kinsky's touch and personal thoughts had been dominant throughout the world inside the painting. This box was untouched—beckoning. No, demanding, that I stamp myself all over it.
Build. Shape. Change. Destroy.
A dot. A line. A circle bulging into a sphere. Three dimensional shapes began rotating in the air. As they rotated, they stretched and compressed, coming out of themselves, and diving back in—shifting perception to create four dimensions. Unable to resist, I reached for the first shape. There was a question within, asking what I could do with it. It was like being in a reading room and a practice room and the Library of Alexandria all shoved into one tempting complication of a shape that pulled me forth. Impossible. Inescapable.
Never able to resist the type of challenge that the puzzle represented, I manipulated it, breathing life into the shape and spreading it with my fingers, like peacock brushes on a canvas.
The tiniest, smallest part of me recognized that doing whatever this was would out me as an Origin Mage, but the magic was irresistible and I focused on that instead.
Unlike the domes, which had been out of control forces of nature, this magic whispered and teased, caressed and hinted, luring me with soft promises of what I could do with it. Telling me how it would reach to the raw, dulled edges of my internal pathways and reserves, and smooth everything. Promising it would fill the spaces.
Promising me that together, we could safely retrieve Olivia; we could wipe away the memories of everyone around us; we could save our loved ones. I just had to form the magic and give it to the box.
My magic hurt, though. It was twisted and tangled from all the mangled events of the past few hours that had taken, contorted, and incorrectly released my magic.
In here, the box whispered. Everything would be well and right. Just give the magic to the box.
I formed my mental pyramid, and the will of the box made it so that I didn't even have to use my own ragged bodily paths to engage the magic.
It would do everything for me, it whispered.
Love and enlightenment, Christian and Olivia, family and friends...if I just gave the magic to the box.
No more pain. No more heartache.
I eagerly lifted my hands, palms up and unfurled my fingers, then splayed them outward to pour the essence forth.
My love for Christian, always a part of me, forevermore. My bond to Olivia, who I would protect to the end. My bonds to my parents, Dare, Constantine, Will, Neph... The magic flowed faster.
External magic abruptly yanked it back, and I scrambled to keep my position, fingers outstretched to give, my twisted magic contorting further.
The external magic yanked more forcefully, and my fingers curled inward, clenching, then fisting against my thighs. I felt the vine around my ankle suck the magic downward, swallowing it in long, greedy gulps, not allowing my body to process a drop. My heart beat a furious staccato. No. I wanted to give the magic to the box.
I pulled and pushed, but the vine continued to extract the magic from under my skin, taking everything that I was creating and devouring it like the carnivorous plant it was.
As it devoured, my view slowly grew distant, returning to the unexceptional shapes and absurdly dull colors of the normal world.
I tried to reach for the glory of the box again, but it was agonizing to do so. The raw paths of my magic were bleeding. Had been bleeding. The box had just temporarily taken away the pain and my knowledge of it.
My newly instated, unexceptional view of the world showed Kaine looking furious and venomous at my failure.
I let go completely—opening my hands to allow all threads to drop.
Kaine's minion hastily toed the lid of the box closed, then hurriedly backed up two steps.
There was silence, then a slow roll of murmurs.
“She passed,” Mike said, shock in his voice that he couldn't contain.
The cloudy film of magic over Kaine's silver irises darkened, as if someone else were looking through his eyes. “No, I don't think so. Search her.”
The vine, which had been slithering down the back of my ankle, released abruptly, and only my sense of it allowed me to register it diving into the ground under my jeans—ripping the smallest bit of energy from the dirt to aid its tunneling dive. Burrowed into the ground, gone, in a motion too quick for anyone not connected to it to sense.
Kaine's strange eyes were examining me slowly from head to bent knees, as if he could see through my pockets and to everything beneath. Another Department mage yanked me to my feet.
Mike stepped forward, lips thinned. His complexion was pasty and there was the slightest tremble in his limbs, but his chin was lifted, determined. “She passed the test,” he repeated. “Time to reward her for her bravery today, as you said.”
I could vaguely hear people yelling and feel the pushing against the crowd as I was jostled. There were officials spilling out of buildings in the distance and running around the sides of the student pen.
But I couldn't concentrate on anything but the way Kaine was staring at the ground at my feet, strange eyes examining the grass and dirt, as if the shadows held answers. The vine was gone, but there was the tiniest residual feeling, and I had no idea what type of locating or identifying devices these people had.
Kaine smiled suddenly, sharply, his calculating gaze going to the front of the crowd. Hungry eyes shifted back to me—as if Kaine had ordered chopped steak at a fine restaurant and found them serving a buffet of filet mignon instead.
“Indeed,” he breathed, his smile chilling and all too alarming, as if he were speaking to someone else looking out from his eyes.
He tossed a silver coin to the praetorian nearest to me. “Bring her.” Kaine scooped up the box and strode toward the steps. “We but need to retest Alexander Dare. A simple check.”
The cloaked praetorian pressed the coin to my skin, and another man grabbed my other arm, yanking me forward. They marched me through Kaine's cleared path, bracketed by the solemn faces of the static crowd.
I craned my neck back and saw my friends frantically trying to move forward after us. But whatever the coin's properties, it allowed me to be moved, while no one else was able to break free of the five-foot cells Marsgrove had invoked.
Panic overtook me and I fought the hold on my arms. I heard the crowd nearest the steps—filled with combat mages—erupt in complaint and anger as we approached Dare.
“Your vendetta is getting tiresome, Praetorian Kaine, and edging into the ridiculous.” Julian Dare was standing on the other side of the magical field, looking as if he were three seconds from bursting through. “Alexander was retested two days ago, the morning the competition started. It was the fourth time in as many months, and he tested negatively for Bridge powers, as always.”
I struggled. Holy crap. Monthly? That meant Dare was exceptional at keeping his powers hidden—and the Second Layer officials were very persistent—if they were te
sting him over and over again simply because he was the extremely powerful son of a Bridge Mage.
As Dare had told me previously, all mages were dangerous, and to think otherwise was shortsighted. But there were controls in place for regular mages—like cuffs and intentions magic. Mages who could remotely take, without permission, magic from one person or object and transfer it to another, however, were specifically feared—as if they would suddenly decide one day to drain everyone surrounding them, and destroy the magic worlds.
Like Origin Mages, mages who could destroy the layers, were not to be trusted.
“Are you rejecting the test on his behalf, Julian?” Kaine said, his eyes cool, no surprise to be had as he stopped in front of them, his fellow praetorian dragging me to Kaine's side. This was a game that had obviously been played more than once. But the lift of Kaine's lips was a red flag, and Julian Dare's deep blue gaze shuttered, indicating he saw it clearly. The two men looked to be around the same age, somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties.
I looked at Dare, who was steadfastly watching Kaine. Dare's expression was neutral, but the feeling emanating from him...was not impassive in the least. He was coiled, ready. A fresh surge of panic surfaced in me.
“Maximilian's good will is starting to wane, Kaine,” Julian said. “Prestige Stavros would do well to take care with his next actions and yours.”
“A threat, Julian? Is Itlantes finally revealing its hand, overtly threatening the security of the Second Layer?”
Itlantes was the Dare's stronghold—an island they had successfully defended against the combined forces of the Second Layer before I'd been born.
“There is no threat,” Julian Dare said.
“Alas, your brother does so enjoy starting bloodstained wars over women.” Kaine smiled. His voice easily carried above the silent crowd, each word served to the bystanders, like a blow. “But what is this? You are nervous today. What could be the cause of this odd emotion for you?”
Their interplay was like watching a play where everyone had already rehearsed their lines. None of their questions or responses were anything more than movements replicated from an already laid out script.
“One of our premiere universities nearly wiped out? With two of my nephews in attendance? It's been a less than optimal day,” Julian Dare said. “Cease your theatrics.”
“Theatrics? The public always feels better when we test and retest. They like knowing that all is well. Keeping our layer safe means that we also have to protect it from within.”
He lazily tapped at the collar around his own neck, and I saw the thin silver band that I hadn't seen on any of the others.
Without waiting for a response, Kaine stepped up on the third riser of the cafeteria's massive promenade and addressed the crowd. “As an upstanding member of our society, Mr. Dare will agree to be retested.”
Everything in me went cold.
“Axer wasn't even on campus until the end of the battle,” Fallon Lox said, his expression furious, focused completely on Kaine. “And you followed on his heels.”
Ramirez and Greene, the two other male combat mages in Dare's personal group, were far less vocal, but their expressions were dark and focused on Kaine as well. Camille Straught, the sole female in their group of five, was staring at me, and she did not look pleased.
Still addressing the crowd, Kaine continued lazily, “Mr. Dare's dismantling of the Origin Dome around your Administration Building was laudable—I watched it myself—and we but need to make sure that he was untainted by the display.”
Kaine pulled long fingers over a device at his belt. A pulse of familiar, tainted magic shivered over me in response. So this was where the magic of the Administration Building's dome had gone.
I had thought at the time of the dismantling, when I'd been far down the mountain on the Eighteenth Circle, that whoever had collected the magic from the Administration Building’s dome had cared more for it than for helping campus. That opinion remained unchanged as I watched Kaine's coldly amused gaze move across the crowd, looking for dissenters.
No one said anything. Dare had taken down the Administration Building's dome.
Then died.
Hopefully, Kaine didn't know Dare had then taken down the dome under which Raphael and I had fought. Dare hadn't died after dismantling Raphael's dome, and I had a feeling that if it came to light that Dare was working up his tolerance to being able to touch and control Origin Magic, it would be an even worse strike against him.
“Excellent. Hold out your palm, Mr. Dare. Let's be prompt.”
Alexander Dare wasn't going to pass this test. I could feel it. Something in me knew. He had blown whatever lid he normally kept on his magic in order to help me control mine. He was going to be exposed.
And Kaine knew it.
No. No.
Blind fury surged through me. I couldn't let this happen. Couldn't let another friend sacrifice for me. Another loved one. Christian, Olivia, Alexander…
Unable to access anything further up, magic lethargically oozed from my wrists into my fingertips, squeezing painfully as it twisted the magic channels completely excised by the strain of the days' events, and by being tested and drained.
But the box...the testing box had said that I didn't have to use my magic.
My hold on reason slipped as scenarios scrolled, one after another, dripping down my vision in a series of ones and zeroes, half-drawn lines and bursts of half-mixed colors. Consequences, actions. My likely death. Blowing up part of the mountain; creating a portal; disappearing in a blaze of glory—things that would make every Department agent mobilize to find me—that would give Dare time to recharge or cap whatever he needed to pass the test.
Dare's gaze whipped to me, and the line connecting us grew taut and painfully tight, interrupting the scrolling, and obliterating the feed. Don't you dare, everything about him said.
But the vine was gone, and he had no way to stop me. I fought to gather the streams of thought that, at a highly painful cost, I could still turn into magic. The Department mage holding my left arm swore and let go of me, as if he'd been shocked. The mage then grabbed me tighter.
The edges of Kaine's lips sliced upward as he watched. “Such an unexpected and intriguing discovery,” he said as he looked between us, though, strangely, his voice no longer sounded like his own, and it did not carry to the crowd behind us. “The tests we will run in the lab...” He snapped his fingers and motioned to a man on his left. “Tarei, the device.”
I could see Julian Dare doing something, finger moving at his side. Maybe he could break through the pen and stop all of this. But I couldn't trust him, and I couldn't let them test Alexander—the boy who had saved me, and who had let me have one last moment with my twin.
“Yes,” Kaine murmured temptingly, his soulless gaze on me, reading whatever my facial expressions were exposing. “You should stop this from occurring.”
I pulled at the streams and his smile grew. It didn't matter. It didn't matter that doing this would expose me. I would lead them on a merry chase away from Dare. I would find Olivia. Return her. Everyone would be saved and safe.
There was a sound registering somewhere in my brain that my thinking was off, but I was in a dreamlike state I couldn't shake.
“Ren,” Dare hissed, completely out of character and off-script. I could see the absolute anger on his normally inscrutable face and feel his fury through the threads that connected us. But there was nothing he could do to stop me now. His powers didn't—
The jerk against my chest where the ultramarine thread connected me to Alexander almost made me drop the magic.
“Praetorian Kaine!”
I dropped the magic completely, shock vying with anxiety as Marsgrove neared our group, almost at a run. A sharp wave of his palm dropped the magic field holding all of us in.
The backlash of releasing the magic twisted my already burnt channels into an agonizing mass and I sobbed at the pain.
“Dean M
arsgrove,” Kaine said, turning toward him with nary a flinch. “You are just in time to stand witness.”
“You will cease this spectacle,” Marsgrove commanded, still striding forward. “No one move.”
Officials of all stripes spilled toward us in Marsgrove's wake.
Kaine's gaze was unperturbed. “Surely you are not suggesting that you disagree with the need to test rare mages?”
“I do not see any reported, rare mages here.” Marsgrove slowed to a controlled stride, making his way through the crowd on the promenade. “Only students who require physical and emotional care. Ones who, in the five minutes that we have been gone, you have sought to further terrorize. And through a loophole you exploited in the Justice Magic under which you have sworn to serve.”
“Ah. I do miss our discussions on semantics. Potential rare mages, then,” Kaine said, without missing a beat. “And determining threats is the thing most necessary to the long-term care of your student body.”
“Instilling fear, you mean. Badgering and threatening.”
“I weep for the generations to come,” Kaine said, as if he were some sixty-year-old, jaded politician instead of a young, scary mage who moved in and between shadows. With a wave of Kaine's hand, his minion, Tarei, re-pocketed the device that had been about to test Dare. “How ill prepared they will be.”
“They will manage,” Marsgrove said through tight lips as he came to stand in an off-square formation against Kaine, the Dares, and whatever praetorians were holding me.
“Have you made an arrest, Praetorian Kaine?” said a bored voice two dozen feet behind Marsgrove.
My gaze followed the voice to see the cadaverous-looking man from the battle field projection standing behind a large number of Department mages. His gaze was as flat and soulless as his voice. In the blink of an eye, that vision disappeared and a plain-faced man—pale and profusely sweating—stood in his place.
Like an old moving picture where the frame flips, the face of the head of the Department switched onto a face twenty feet, fifteen feet, ten feet away, then swirled into place on the head of the Department stooge next to me.