The Rise of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Stuart Leandred smiled down at me. Whatever his true expression would have been, it was completely masked by a political one full of courteous interest. “Ren Crown, isn't it? Charmed to meet you. Your name has been on everyone's lips today, and your face on everyone's frequency.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” I said politely.

  Constantine gave me a more forceful nudge. “Go on then. Go help your starving orphans and downtrodden creatures,” he said.

  I stared at him, sharply reminded of Olivia and how she'd told me to get out when her mother had been on her way to our room. There was something equally electrified in Constantine's gaze.

  “Go.” His tone turned more forceful.

  I had left Olivia's side, and Olivia's mother had tortured her.

  I moved my hand to set my things back on the edge of his bed. “You know, I think I'll—”

  Constantine grabbed my elbow, and slightly grimacing, opened the old path between us. Turquoise and copper blazed into view, completely unhidden for the first time since he'd become aware of the connection's existence between us.

  There was no fear in the absolute tumultuous ball of emotion that was vibrating the connection threads. The ringing emotions that were present were exceedingly concerning, but Constantine had no fear of his father torturing him. Hatred was, by far, the strongest emotion. Bitterness, abandonment, fury, coldness, righteous betrayal.

  The only thing pointed toward me in the connection—Constantine was so good at only showing what he wanted to show—was the fierce desire that I have nothing to do with his father.

  Shaken by the emotional feedback, I nodded and pulled my belongings back against my chest, then sidestepped his father and headed toward the door.

  My last view of the room was of Stuart's hands thrust forward in entreaty, and Constantine's dark gaze pinning him in place, full of nearly the amount of hatred he had shown for Raphael.

  Chapter Nine: Counseling in a Sea of Grief

  Walking through Medical and back to my dorm, I wondered at the relationship between Constantine and his father. I didn't understand what could have—

  My steps stuttered as I passed a room that contained a semi-familiar face. The girl who had lost her roommate. The girl who had been yelling for “Shinsara” on Top Campus before she'd been magically sedated. She twitched in her unnatural sleep, her features pinched.

  I touched her window. Unlike with Constantine, though, I had no connection to this girl that I could use to bypass my twisted magic channels.

  I tapped the side of my bag, my thoughts racing. I looked at the wards and magic zipping through the halls. I didn't have the ability currently to throw my magic directly to her. I had to allocate resources differently.

  I waited for the hall to clear a fraction before palming my picks and making short work of the girl's door. She didn't have half of the wards on her room that Constantine had. Hers was an emotional pain, and there was less physical reason to keep others out of her healing area. On the contrary, calming and Community Magic was absolutely being pumped into her room.

  I set my bag down and carefully withdrew a sheet of paper that I had created while I was thinking about Christian—healing thoughts of him, brimming with memory and forgiveness, acceptance and love.

  I slowly folded the paper into an origami rose, concentrating my thoughts on my goal. I had no active magic at my disposal; however, I hadn't lost my hard-won ability to distinguish wards and intent.

  It was easy to watch the streams of magic zipping around the edges of the room—the same ones that zipped through the entire ward. It was easy enough to see which ones were rootless and not seeking anyone specific. Easy enough to see which one was available when a healer needed a boost. I held the rose up and caught one of the streams, moving the paper in a spiral as if I were filling an ice cream cone, letting the magic coil and settle inside the folds.

  The magic immediately started to push at the magic in the paper. I swallowed, as an echo of my love for Christian seeped slowly from the paper onto my hand.

  I set the rose carefully in the girl's hands, crossed on her chest. She shuddered, then stilled, and some of the pain in her expression eased.

  “I'm sorry,” I murmured.

  I let myself out and hurried down the hall, not wanting to look in any more rooms.

  A blonde head bounced in the distance. Familiar magic encased her. My magic. My breath caught.

  I could see her stopping and tweaking something. Helping. Sending comforting magic to one room, then another. My magic still heavily laced hers—revealing remnants of the enormous amount of power I had blindly channeled into her, in order to resurrect her on the battlefield. And with the power, the blonde was giving her all—to help everyone she could.

  I fumbled with my bag and a few minutes later I was shoving an armful of paper roses into the arms of a wide-eyed orderly who wasn't much older than I was. “Give these to the blonde.” I motioned. “Her. Please.”

  He looked horrified, as if I had just handed him bombs, but a moment later, his expression morphed into one of wonder and he looked down at the papers.

  “Please. Don't tell anyone,” I said. “Just.” I motioned again.

  He looked at me as if I were crazy, but I just walked quickly away. He ran toward the blonde and I ducked into the stairwell as he reached her.

  I made the long trek to the dorm, nearly shaking by the end of it. I turned the corner to our hall and put a hand to my mouth as I saw who was waiting in front of my door. I sprinted the last few yards and flung myself forward.

  ~*~

  Curled on my bed, I tried to let the rejuvenation magic in our room do its thing.

  I was more tired after visiting Constantine, and because of the emotional turmoil experienced afterward, but something had worked free during the visit to Constantine—and a single knot released from a twisted mass of muscle. Only forty, or four hundred, more knots to go...

  Neph hummed and the magic worked around us. We'd been holed up in “comfort position” ever since we'd hugged ourselves inside the room.

  Justice Toad beeped, informing me that Dorm Twenty-five was holding its mandatory roommate-less assembly in five minutes. The idea of getting a new roommate and listening to why I needed one filled me with bile. But I couldn't skirt the assembly. My magic was in no shape to do anything rebellious at the moment, and Administrative Magic would make me attend, the same as every other roommate-less student in my dorm.

  Just like the girl in Medical would be expected to attend in her dorm.

  Neph had tried to obtain an exemption to move in with me—as my muse, she was allowed certain privileges outside of the usual ones. But she had been denied. Neph's roommate was a high-profile daughter of a politician, and without permission, roommates couldn't swap rooms in a lockdown situation. Roommates had to stay twelve hours out of every twenty-four in the same space, for the safety of all involved.

  I was a little tired of hearing that last statement.

  For the safety of all involved. My entire life was stretching before me in a series of cells with a giant red banner and those exact words scrolling the top.

  Neph paused, then tilted her head as if listening to something.

  “What?” I asked, pushing upward on my hands.

  “Beta was just taken offline.”

  Neph's scarf had been taken at the mandatory muse assembly. She'd been tight-lipped about what had occurred at the meeting.

  But she still maintained a connection to the scarf network. It was a muse thing where the connections that she formed no longer required the physical objects. We'd made tentative plans to channel Olivia's scarf through her when we found someone else who had retained their scarf. I was reluctant to try it, though, due to the way Neph had hesitated before agreeing. There was something she wasn't telling me. And Neph would sacrifice herself as easily as I would. I had to make sure I was the buffer.

  No one else was going to sacrifice themselves for me.


  “Do you know who took Beta offline?” I asked.

  “Lifen. Or at least someone using her threads. She took Epsilon and Delta offline earlier.”

  Lifen and Delia, as the physical creators of the scarves, had the ability to unravel them.

  Panic spiked in me. “Tell her not to unhook Alpha. No matter what.”

  Neph nodded and gently pushed me to the edge of the bed as a ding sounded—an alarm from the walls—indicating that I was past due for being assigned a new roommate.

  For going to the roommate recycling session.

  “Tell Lifen that she can't unhook Alpha, Neph,” I stressed, refusing to move further.

  “I did.” She nudged me again. “She says she can't, Ren. We'll discuss it in an hour. It's time.”

  I felt emotion bubbling up within me like the girl in Medical on Top Campus—a little hysterical and willing to fight for my right not to recycle.

  “I don't—”

  She placed her hand on the back of my neck. “I know.”

  Nothing more was said as I dragged together my things then locked the door behind us.

  Because the Magiaduct was the only place students could be now, there were students everywhere. Students who would normally be meeting up in any of the thousands of public campus spaces—the libraries, the battle rooms, the focus-specific buildings like the Legal Hall or the Art Annex, Top Circle or the fields—were here instead, crowding into rooms and splaying all over the large track on the top of the aqueduct-like stone structure. Even on the stone stairwells that allowed students to head into the different dormitory segments, knots of students were arrayed on the sides of the stairs.

  “Olivia would hate this,” I said to Neph as we navigated the groups, keeping our sides tightly pressed together.

  “She would not enjoy sidestepping bodies, that is certain,” Neph concurred.

  Fifteen thousand student bodies on campus, as of a week ago. Less now.

  Up ahead, I could see a group trying to console a girl.

  “I can't do it!” she said to the person on her left, an older girl who looked to be trying to counsel her. “They can't keep us here like trapped rats! Like the terrorists—they can expunge us at any time!”

  “No, shhh. Lockdown isn't like that. They can't kill us with it or cut off any magic or air. All they can do is stop those possessing magic from entering from the outside, or from leaving from within.”

  “Trapped, without food! They could starve us. Siege us!” The girl laughed hysterically. “And there's nothing to siege! I don't want to be here!”

  “You can apply for a pass,” the older girl said calmly. “They are taking fifty students an hour to other locations—”

  “To interrogate them.”

  “To help them. I believe some questioning will be—”

  “Wake up,” the girl hissed.

  “We have to be here for another week. Mandatory surve—”

  I was never so happy to turn a corner and leave a conversation behind, even if it caused me to draw closer to my goal—a location I did not want to reach.

  But there were similar groups all over Dorm Twenty-five and spread across the Top Track of the Magiaduct. Inescapable.

  Second Layer folks were a bit hardier than most First Layer folks, in that they were far more accustomed to daily surprises and death. But like anyone who had had their home attacked, they were shocked and unnerved. And even though ninety-five percent of Excelsine students experienced at least one death while enrolled, almost all of those deaths were reversible. But today, twenty-six students hadn't made the ten-minute timeframe for resurrection—or had otherwise been unrecoverable.

  Neph touched my elbow, accompanying me on this thankless task, while navigating the sea of grief.

  Dorm Twenty-five's session was being held in the ground floor lounge—a roomy area that was usually rather inviting. Today, it might as well have housed Iron Maidens on the walls.

  A small line of students stretched behind a sitting area, and five people joined behind us. But other than that, this seemed to be it for Dorm Twenty-five. So lucky, all those others living here who didn't need to be in this line.

  I reached the front, and Neph smoothly withdrew to the side to wait.

  An older boy, one I had seen many times inside the dorm, but never spoken to, motioned me to the chair on the other side of a small table that held a crystal ball. The boy was straight out of an alternate reality mashup where people dressed “punk” Princeton style.

  I'd always thought he would be an interesting person to talk to. This hadn't been what I'd had in mind.

  I sat slowly. I had learned to be wary in this world—chairs could tie you down, magic could spring at you like the face huggers from Alien… It paid to be paranoid.

  The boy looked at me, then surprisingly, at Neph. Even more surprisingly, I could see that he could see her. Usually, I had to introduce someone to Neph in specific ways for them to be able to speak to or see her. Muse magic and mages' stupid reasons for distancing themselves from muses at large—wanting to sample all muses instead of binding themselves to one—usually made it impossible otherwise.

  Of course, there was that whole thing with muses being able to control mages they were bound to, but I had shrugged that off long ago.

  Princeton Punk looked back at me, eyes narrowing and mouth thinning around his lip ring, which I could see was an ouroboros, a snake swirling around the ring, constantly swallowing itself.

  “The Crown girl, right?”

  I swallowed. I really hoped he'd gotten that information mentally because he was the Dorm Manager, and not because I was now infamous. “Right.”

  His lip ring stopped swallowing itself, and the eyes on it blinked at me. The boy tapped his magical pen against his thigh. Something complicated was happening in his expression, but I wasn't sure what.

  Finally, he shrugged. “Have to go through the list, no matter who is on it. Chin up.”

  I blinked at him, but he touched his starched Oxford-like collar—which like many things in the Second Layer, was close to its equivalent in the First Layer, but with subtle differences. Magic reached up from the chair and wrapped around me, giving me a moment to think I knew it, before the magic retreated, leaving me unpinned and unharmed.

  He tilted his head in the way that people here did when they were getting information mentally. “Ren Crown. Dorm Twenty-five. Room Twenty-five. Roommate Olivia Price, listed as missing.”

  I nodded jerkily.

  “Your magic reserves are listed in the black, though you've recently edged into purple.” He grimaced. “You could enroll down in Medical. Get a fortnight recovery stay.”

  I shook my head. They would keep me for the entire two weeks, probably in the healing coma Greyskull had recommended. Way too long to save Olivia. And they might start letting anyone poke at me while I was unconscious. It was best to remain in the general population, even if that meant other horrors were in store.

  I couldn't trust anyone in the Administration, which was slowly being eaten by the Department, and that included Medical.

  “Is your preference to stay in your room and have someone added, or to move to a different room where someone already lives?” the boy asked.

  “Neither,” I whispered.

  His expression wasn't without sympathy. “This is not a punishment. I know it doesn't seem that way, but this is for the health and safety of the students and campus. We can't play with the magic dynamics too much without risk, do you understand?”

  I nodded, understanding mentally, while at the same time not understanding emotionally at all.

  “Which do you prefer?”

  Being in my own space was preferable. But did I want some stranger invading our space, sleeping in Olivia's bed, using her things? I put my hand against my lips, swallowing down the bile.

  “I'd like to stay in my room alone,” I said, fingers pulling over my chin. “But if I have to have someone with me, I'd rather go somewhere else.”r />
  He looked relieved. Relieved to have me out of his dorm, probably.

  “Put your hand on this.”

  I carefully reached forward to touch the crystal ball in front of him. It looked so benign, just as it had when I'd touched it earlier. The milky white haze swirled and pictures rapidly blinked through the space, like a deck of cards being professionally shuffled. I thought I caught sight of a few familiar faces, but it was hard to tell in the rapid flip.

  Princeton looked into the depths and the skin around his eyes pulled tight, moving the shape-changing ring in his brow, like the ring in his lip.

  With a wave of his hand, the crystal reset, stagnant once more. He tapped something out on his wrist, and I saw magic scroll through the swirling tattoos on his skin.

  “Dorm One. Room Sixty-two.”

  Dorm One? That was where Dare and Constantine lived. That was their floor. That was...

  “No,” I whispered.

  The world tilted. Literally. Warm, soft hands pushed beneath my armpits, pushing me back upright, and soft words murmured in my ear.

  “She has enough base power to support you.” Princeton's words sounded far away. “And she filled out a very specific form and opened herself to a new magic source that is highly compatible to yours, which makes her the best singly available mage on campus.”

  Princeton looked at Neph critically, but didn't tell her to move away from me as he continued speaking. “Without stuffing you in with a twosome, Bellacia Bailey is the best qualified applicant right now.”

  “I'm not doing it.”

  There was a bit of pity in his expression. “You have to, kid. It's already logged.”

  “No.”

  “You should have seen the other option that came up in the ball.” He shook his head. “Come on, kid, it won't be so bad.”

  It could not be worse.

  “What were the other options?” I asked desperately.

  He shook his head. “Doesn't matter. Bailey is now logged, and it will be a good match—she procured exactly the right source of magic to help you. With your magic as it is, the recommendation is for fourteen hours spent in her room. Report immediately,” he said, looking at my magic. “For your own health and safety.”