The Awakening of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  That explained the little paddles. Will groaned and slumped in his seat. “That sucks.”

  I nudged him. “We can come back next week.” If we weren't going to learn anything, I had a million other things to do—looking up wards and special areas of campus, most specifically.

  “Yeah,” he said morosely. “But let's give it ten minutes, just in case.”

  The emcee clapped his hands. “We have our normal displays, informative brochures, and material purchases located in the booths around the room. During break, take some time to browse around and see what your fellow art mages are up to. Never know, after today's events, you might be looking at the work of a future Kinsky.”

  A number of mages rolled their eyes, though some sat forward in their seats.

  “But first, padded door prizes!”

  There was some snickering and the emcee smiled broadly. “We'll have another round of door prizes at the end too. Just by entering this room, one ticket was deposited for you in each bucket, but to increase your odds, you may purchase additional tickets, and tonight folks, we have some wild raffles. Six professors have volunteered a small session of their time. One on one with the professors, folks. Don't wait for the auction portion—the professors go for thousands of munits each. You can increase your chances for the door prizes by buying more tickets until each container is drawn.”

  Hundreds of little yellow tickets flew from the seats and settled into different containers.

  “Great. Let's begin!”

  Five professors were prized off in quick succession. They were the adults who had been in the group near the entrance. I took notes on their titles and the information the emcee gave on each. If I could audit larger classes—sitting in without signing up—I could learn without being tracked. I’d go through the class schedule tonight.

  “And now here's a real treat, folks, Professor Stevens, master professor of chemistry, materials, and chem-creations has just offered to be part of the door prize raffle. Folks, this is the big time. Professor Stevens rarely takes on personal students, and her sessions go for a fortune at auction, but she is offering a thirty minute session on constructing anything you fancy—legally, of course—to one lucky door prize winner!”

  Laughter ensued at the mention of the legality clause and a flurry of tickets flew into her glass globe. It was far fuller than any of the other containers had been. Surprisingly, Will shot five magic tickets into it.

  He shrugged at my questioning look. “Worth it. If you aren't majoring in one of her fields, you go through her assistants, and her seminars are always fully booked. I could get all kinds of questions answered.” He rubbed his hands together.

  A last ticket from the audience wobbled, then settled inside.

  The student emcee bowed and waved his hand toward the globe. “Professor Stevens, please draw the lucky mage's slip.”

  To my surprise, the woman with the marvelous cheekbones stepped forward, pinched and regal, and her hand dipped inside. Two students to the side of me leaned forward, hands clasped together. Even Will looked excited as the professor pulled out the slip of paper and handed it to the emcee.

  Professor Stevens must have practiced a penetrating stare designed to make everyone in the room feel as if she were dissecting them, because I felt like she was staring right at me and holding a scalpel.

  “And the winner is...Florence Crown!”

  ~*~

  I stood in front of the frosted glass door and tried to breathe normally. So much for not being noticed. My name had been yelled out and the ticket had zoomed into my hand, urging me forward, seeking to fulfill a contract.

  I looked at Will, who stood at the end of the corridor holding his purchases and free product samples. He gave me an excited wave. The ticket tugged. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  “Enter,” a voice said sharply.

  I walked just over the threshold and could feel a magical net settle around me, poking, looking for weaknesses. The woman on the other side of the room was looking at a device she was holding.

  “Well, come in and shut the door,” she said, just as sharply. I shot another quick look at Will, then moved forward with reluctance.

  Click, click, click. Professor Stevens was a thirty-something, tall blonde with impossibly spiked heels, cheekbones that could cut glass, and a hairdo just this side of severe. The severity was echoed in every clipped stride. However, when she turned her head to look at something to her left, I could see the wisps of hair at her neck seeking escape. She was like a beautiful and dangerous natural creation by Constable—a veneer of painted perfection underscored by wildness. Thunderstorm clouds caged and leashed only by strict control. Perhaps Constable had known someone like Professor Stevens, and the mixed medium of weather was a representation of that woman.

  She stopped in front of me. A very complicated series of emotions crossed her face and were reflected in the pinching of her eyes and a working of the muscles of her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed upon the top of my head.

  “I'm, um, Ren Crown,” I said, when she continued to just look at me as if she were deciding how to dispose of my body. “I won your raffle, and they told me to come here.” I finished the sentence awkwardly.

  Her hands reached out, quick as lightning and one set of fingers wrapped around my cuff, the other pressed against my forehead. Her device hovered freely in the air. “Where did you get that shield set?”

  I froze, terrified, but was compelled to answer. “Dean Marsgrove placed the shields on me.” One thing was very clear—I was ingesting the anti-dust Mr. Verisetti had given me as soon as I was out of here, and to hell with the consequences.

  “Why?”

  “It was a trade for a task I performed.” Truth, though not full disclosure. I had put on the limiting cuff in partial exchange for the shield set.

  “Who are you allied with?”

  “The Crown family, Will Tasky, and Alexander Dare.” Wait, what? Where had that last one come from? My magic felt as if we were allied?

  “No one else?”

  “No.” Thank God, thank God, thank God, no “Raphael Verisetti” emerged.

  “What kind of mage are you?”

  “A feral one?”

  She let go, and I quickly stepped backward, keeping her in view, hands raised in front of me.

  She turned and walked to the desk. “You are dismissed,” she said, waving me away.

  My flight response paused at her dismissal. “Why did you just do that?” My breath was coming too quickly, catching on the words.

  “Dismissed,” she enunciated, picking up a bag.

  “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “Have you done something that I should turn you in for?” she asked briskly, walking toward the door without looking at me, obviously intent on leaving. Her dismissal assuaged my panic more than anything else could have.

  I looked at the ticket, which had tugged me here, then squared my shoulders. “I want my thirty minutes. The one where my questions get answered. Or aren't you bound by the raffle terms?” Magic seemed to hold people accountable.

  She stopped abruptly, her eyes narrowing. “You want your winning session?”

  “Yes.” Obviously, my winning had not been luck. I needed to be careful and smart about this, but I also couldn't deny the opportunity in front of me. Mr. Verisetti's words ran through my head. Some professors will be able to override the restriction.

  I had always let Christian be the daring one, but since that fateful night, my life had turned into one peril after another and it was up to me to either fold or break down the walls. Grab the opportunity, take the risk.

  “I want you to show me paint making techniques. I want to know how to make magical charcoal. I want to know what makes one tube of paint do wondrous things while another produces lackluster results.”

  “You can find those answers in a textbook.”

  I could feel Guard Rock pacing at the bottom of my bag. Activated with paint that could
make things live. What kind of materials might this woman who was so revered by the students be able to teach me to make?

  “I want to know how to make exceptional charcoal and extraordinary paint.” I wanted to know why she cared about my shield set.

  Stevens’s eyes narrowed further, and her eyes once more went to the top of my head. “Be at the art vault at sharp Libra Falling tomorrow.” She turned sharply, her heels clicking. “If you are one second late, the session will be void.”

  She opened the door and strode through. Will's encyclopedia beeped that Libra Falling meant ten in the morning, and that falling numbers indicated the right side of the clock as the hand fell toward the bottom. I took a few moments to compose myself—the elation caused by the thought that I might finally be able to use paint was tempered by abject terror of discovery. I walked out to see Will examining his bounty in the hall.

  He looked up. “Hey, how did it go?”

  “Fine.” Terribly fine, possibly with the edge to the terrible part. “I’m meeting with her tomorrow. What's with the zodiac timekeeping, by the way?”

  “Oh. That's right, the base translation enchantment doesn't include timekeeping. So you hear what people actually say. There’s an update that allows you to choose how you hear things—Capricorn Rising, one p.m., thirteen hundred, etc. The update makes it so you don't have to spend time mentally looking stuff up—the translation magic does it for you. Lots of First Layer born students use it. You can also change how you interpret names and slang. Many people have crazy names here, but the standard translation enchantment normalizes them to something you are accustomed to hearing and allows you to pronounce the name back without you even hearing yourself say something different. Sometimes it's pretty fun to remove that tweak. Want me to transfer my tweaks to you?”

  “What does that involve?”

  “I just spell my own translator to you. Like an update. But it has to go into your magical subconscious because it takes too much energy and time to do it on the conscious level each time. You'll never get the translations in time to participate in conversations if it's kept in an external device—like in your leather bracelet. But I can port it through your cuff so that your magic can check it out first—make sure it is virus free and safe—before it is absorbed.”

  I looked down at the cursed flexible metal band. I trusted Will. But I think I had hit my magical threat quota for the day. “Maybe...later. Your encyclopedia is awesome, by the way. Thanks for that.”

  “Sure!” He beamed. “Do you want to go to the library to check out our loot? I want to hear about Stevens.”

  “Well, the interesting thing about that...”

  ~*~

  Will and I spent two hours in the library as mages gossiped silently around us. The atmosphere on campus had split into two camps—one of continued loose whimsy and the other of focused paranoia. The latter was extremely unnerving. I felt gazes land repeatedly on me. I hoped it was just my paranoia that made my skin crawl.

  Will was busy looking for information on the port situation in Ganymede Circus. Luckily, that meant he kept a rolling news feed going. My name and face hadn't made the news yet, so I was hopeful.

  “Stop hanging out with him, Ren.”

  “Suck out his soul!”

  Christian's disapproval was about as useful as his psychosis, so I muttered, “How about you tell me how to get you out here instead?”

  Silence from sane Christian. “I told you, suck out his soul!” from insane Christian.

  Used to doing things on my own, it took me a few minutes of mental debate before I passed Will the anti-dust packet Mr. Verisetti had given me. Will, hungry for all knowledge and discourse, didn't bat an eyelash when I told him what it was supposed to be and asked if he would check it out.

  “Yes! Absolutely. Awesome.”

  “Just be careful. I...received it...from a suspicious person.”

  Will nodded and I let him infer that it had come through the mail system.

  I excused myself while Will was inspecting the substance and headed to the fourth to research soul separation and soul bonding techniques. With a helmet firmly in place, I batted away the book The Psychology of Criminal Accessories. Thank God nobody was around to pay attention to the title—Dare most especially.

  But the imposing black-and-white book I had seen on my first visit—whose title I still didn't know—sat atop the upper railing watching me intently.

  I struggled with a few other books, until a prick of blood from a paper cut made one settle down. It wasn't one of the caged books, but I was still unnerved. The damage was done, so I flipped through it. I had paint now. And depending on what happened with Stevens, I could possibly obtain other resources. Once I figured out the correct dimensional space, the soul bonding ritual aspects, and how to make a body, I would be all set to pull Christian out.

  I felt pretty confident in my dimensional drawing and conceptualization abilities—I was just going to have to tweak them until I found the ones that worked best for holding Christian—so I focused my search on bonding and securing a soul. When I eventually pulled Christian through, I wanted to make sure I got the sane one, and not the psychotic doppelganger. In order to achieve that, it looked like I needed to perform purification and container rituals to secure him properly.

  Pertinent information from the books went into my notebook as straight text, while my interpretations consisted of a mishmash of text and pictorial representations which were easier for my brain to decipher quickly.

  On the way down the stairs, I saw the girl who had helped me previously—Nephthys—ghosting through the second floor aisles and speaking softly to people she passed. The mages nodded, but otherwise ignored her. She disappeared before I could speak to her again.

  ~*~

  Will and I had discovered the “art vault” was on the south side of the third circle, attached to one of the busier art studios and lecture halls. I woke early, scouted the location, then settled into a small benched courtyard nearby to look at every “material and compounds” text available on the server, just in case Professor Stevens was the taskmaster she presented.

  No one entered the vault while I was cramming. At ten to the hour, I moved my position so that I was sitting next to the humongous steel door leading into the mountainside. I scrambled to my feet as Professor Stevens approached, her heels clicking steadily over the cobblestone path without a single stumble.

  She barely looked at me as she pressed her hand against the door at ten sharp. Blue energy zipped along the surface of the steel, and the two foot thick door slid inside a pocket. Stevens stepped over the threshold, but I hesitated. The door started to close, and I quickly darted inside. In for a penny, in for a pound, at this point.

  The single room of the vault was only about five hundred square feet in area. Stations and equipment were set up along the sides with an island in the middle. There was no discernible source of light—no windows, no candles, no bulbs—and yet it was fully lit. Furthermore, there were no shadows. I didn't even cast one as I moved, which was a little freaky.

  Stevens moved toward a station. “Your minutes start now. Crafting requires power, creativity, and control. Anyone can make a charcoal pencil.” Professor Stevens cut her hand through the air. “Any mage can shove magic at an object. True craft comes from the ingredients you use to create the medium, what magic you put in, and the process you undertake.”

  I hurried over to watch her, thinking of the words Mr. Verisetti had used when I'd been mixing paint. I nodded to her even though she wasn't looking at me for a response.

  “You put magic in the instrument, then you extract the magic later—forming a direct conduit for your intentions. Injection and extraction can be done in a thousand different ways. But the connection between your internal magic and the object magic is what will bring success. I despise adequacy. Anyone can be adequate.”

  Glass boards, material supplies, and oddly shaped tools flew from around the room and gathered on
the island counter between us in a flurry of magic. She stabbed a sharp, manicured nail into the steel of the counter. “Make paint.”

  My heart picked up speed.

  I opened my mouth to ask for direction, but at the last second clamped it shut. No, that was not the way to proceed here. Christian had always won over people with charm and interpersonal skill, even when he barreled past their preferred boundaries. I only had simple honesty and observational skills. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Professor Stevens.”

  Her expression was still cold, but she tilted her head and gave a short nod.

  I took a deep breath and dipped a fingertip into the linseed, then touched a lilac pigment with my fingertip, waiting expectantly for the campus police to arrive. But no one knocked on the vault door. I pulled the almost-paint along a piece of waxed paper at the side. Still no knock. Excitement gathered under my sternum and surged upward. I could paint here. I could paint here.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped.

  I moved a glass board closer to me, trying to hide my fierce smile as I tucked my chin to my chest. “Getting a feel for the materials, Professor.”

  I started mixing, and quickly realized that silence and concentration earned points with her. She started to give me sharp tips and pointers as I worked. I soaked them all in, trying to absorb everything while injecting that desire into the materials I was mixing.

  After another quick test of my ability to freely touch paint—real, mixed paint—the twin urges to crow and panic gripped me simultaneously. Go time.

  “Can students rent time here, Professor Stevens?”

  “No.”

  “What about the time when the space isn't in use?” No one had entered all morning.

  “Inconsequential. Only mages with clearance can open this space. And if a cleared mage is not present, anyone attempting to perform active magic would be very sorry.”

  I took my hands away from the mixture and touched Will's bracelet, scrolling through the active and passive magic topics until I found what I was looking for. Studying wards was considered passive magic.