The Awakening of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  I was wiped out when we finally headed for the dorms. Olivia and I split off from Neph and Will, who called out that they would see us in the morning. Now that they all knew, I could figure out how to key Will into Okai so we could share a secret lab. The thought of his reaction to such a thing brought a smile to my face.

  Olivia entered our room first, and I took the time to close and turn the lock on the door.

  “You think anyone will notice that the Midlands are quiet tonight?” I asked. “I give it an hour to stay that way once everything returns to normal on campus.”

  Olivia didn't respond. I turned to look at her, but she was frozen in place.

  “Hey? Are you ok? Don't tell me that we forgot a bunny soothing enchantment or something. I don't think I could handle rabid rabbits running around.”

  But she didn't move. I moved forward and touched her. “Olivia?”

  “She'll be fine in a bit.”

  I jerked around and magic flashed everywhere.

  Raphael Verisetti was lounging against our window's frame, spinning an enchantment. It was a very Dare type of thing to do, manipulating a ball of magic.

  “What are you doing here?” My voice sounded far away, cold and distant.

  “But you called me here, Butterfly.” He motioned around the room. “Invited me in.”

  “I never invited you in.”

  “You tugged upon my thread and asked it to find me, to make me known to your eyes. An invitation.”

  I stared straight ahead. In the Midlands, right before the smoked bone beast had appeared, I had tugged upon the thread and done just what he had said, thinking that by doing so it might show him hiding in the bushes. Obviously the tug had done something far different than what I had intended. Yet another thing I had done without knowledge. Another bad thing.

  Olivia moved, just a fraction. Mr. Verisetti looked at her in interest. “Quite an interesting roommate for you, Butterfly.” He motioned with his finger and her body slowly pivoted with the motion. Olivia's eyes were dark on his. She looked surprisingly alert, and supremely pissed. “She's aware. Very interesting indeed.”

  I stepped in the path of his gaze. “Leave her alone.”

  He smiled. “For now. Let’s make it so that she can't hear us, though, shall we?” He waved his hand.

  I threw up a shield between them a second too late. “Leave her alone.”

  “Ah, Butterfly. I want to thank you for a front row seat to the chaos you've sown.” He motioned to the window, and I knew he was referencing the devastation caused by the monster, though we couldn't see it from our side of the dorm. “I couldn't have done it better myself. Nor could I have gotten one of our scholarly sympathizers here to do as wonderful a job with the madness as you have done in your ignorance and determination. Beautiful.”

  He had gotten here, on campus, in my room, and not a single alarm had been raised. Traveling restrictions, sure. I thought of Marsgrove and his words those many weeks ago. “What did you get from the sketch, Mr. Verisetti?” My voice was strangely cold.

  “So formal. Call me Raphael, Butterfly.”

  “What did you get from my sketch? And where are my vessels?” The second question emitted from my lips before I registered the words in my mind. “You took them,” I whispered.

  He smiled. It was a gorgeous smile. And in that moment, I knew that he somehow had. “But now is not the time for that. They are entirely the wrong questions for you to be asking. A chess master plots and plays other pieces, waiting for the perfect moment to deliver a checkmate.”

  “What is your checkmate?”

  “That is a good question, Butterfly. It might be providing you with the knowledge that you haven't delved deeply enough into the extent of your abilities and what they actually mean.”

  His smile grew, which meant something must have shown on my face. “Or maybe you have. Excellent. But a check you might like better is, why haven't you enjoyed my gift to you?”

  “What?”

  “The gift I left in the world of your sketch. Your greatest desire, above even your own life's force, was to have your brother back with you. I could taste it.” He pulled a finger along his lower lip. “You almost vocalized it in your Awakening—and your magic would have granted it. It took all my effort to hold you back.”

  The cold hand of certainty gripped my heart. “I hate you.”

  “No, no, you don't. You are simply overly emotional. I couldn't let you have your heart's desire instead of my prize, it would have ruined my plans. But I am not a horrible man. Didn't you wonder why none of your experiments worked?” He motioned toward my research box, which he had obviously rifled through. “Quite ingenious, some of them were too, as are your vessels. Though, the experiments would have taken a massive toll on you, had they worked, instead of the piddly temporary loss of body parts you experienced. And some of your experiments would have worked.”

  I could feel a tear slip down my cheek. “You...I hate you.”

  “No, Butterfly, no.” He was suddenly in front of me, and I wished I could gather the magic to stab him. He scooped the tear with his thumb and brought it to his lips. “Didn't you wonder? How could you resurrect someone who was already resurrected?”

  “No.” My voice was choked and low.

  He smiled his beautiful smile as he stepped back. “Examine your world, Butterfly. My gift to you.”

  “Why didn't you just tell me before?”

  “Where would the fun have been in that? You did so much better on your own. And you made me such a beautiful start to my army. Besides, I'm telling you now, am I not? A sketched trap needing only its external vessel. Completely karma free. At least, it is for you. Don't forget my generosity.”

  “I won't. You may consider this all a game, and playing me as a wild piece to manipulate, but it made me stronger. Your machinations have made me stronger. And someday, I will come for you.”

  I didn't care that I was threatening him while he still held the upper hand.

  “Oh, Butterfly, yes. I look forward to it. We are linked now, you and I. A chain that cannot be escaped. Our journey together is just beginning.”

  I could feel the truth of his words. The echo of his statement weeks ago that I was now forever involved. “I will break that link.”

  “Never. There are so few people around to surprise and intrigue me.” He smiled. “In fact, I have something to reward such bewitching gall. For such a lovely, dark treasure who is beginning to bloom.”

  He held out a sample tube of paint, then placed it in my hand, wrapping my fingers around it. “I can't wait to see what you do with this—such a destructive color. When you are ready to negotiate again, do let me know. There is so much more to come for us. Until next we meet, Butterfly.”

  And then he disappeared in a black-and-white patterned mass, sucking him from my existence. The feel of the fading patterns told me that he was truly gone. Likely to another layer, even though Will had said that type of traveling was impossible.

  Impossible for a normal mage. For a normal mage who didn't have access to a rare mage's magic.

  I closed my eyes tightly together. Devastated, tempted, then devastated again. Over and over. Did I really want to risk devastation once more?

  I strode toward my sketch and snatched it from the wall, staring at it, searching its depths.

  Sound and movement made me look up. Olivia was striding to her desk. She picked up a pen and scribbled something on a note, tacked it to her wall, then scribbled something on another.

  “Are you ok?” I hugged the sketch to me.

  “Yes,” she said shortly. It looked like she was making a list. “That will never happen to me again. Why, may I ask, was Raphael Verisetti in our room?”

  Her voice was clinical, though I could hear the grim certainty underlying her tone. Olivia would make sure whatever he had done to her really wouldn't happen again.

  “Um...” Keeping the sketch firmly against my chest, I checked under the cap of the sam
ple tube in my hand—the garish orange mixture made from betrayal, the last of the three colors I had created so many weeks ago. But merely a sample, which meant, like Mr. Verisetti—no, I would not call him that like some terrorized youth—like Raphael had said, there were more tubes of my Awakening paint in his possession. I put the sample down and fished out my nearly-depleted tube of lavender paint instead of answering her.

  “Ren?” she demanded, turning to me.

  “I'm sorry. I swear I didn't invite him intentionally. If he fell off a cliff and into a pit of eternal hellfire, I'd be ok with that. I'll figure out how to ward the room against him, I swear.”

  “Do you know who he is?” she demanded.

  I peeked up, rubbing the end of the tube between my free fingers. “A terrorist mobster?”

  Olivia's gave me the look. “A terrorist mobster?”

  “He's not?”

  She pulled her list to her lap and wrote something else down. “It really was you all along. It's a good thing you have me as a roommate. Anyone else in my position would have handed you over to the Department five minutes ago. Did you destroy the Lolinet Arch after the Ganymede Circus Arch blew?”

  My shoulders drooped. “I'm a feral, unsafe mage, a dreadful necromancer, and an unwitting terrorist.” I looked at the sketch. “Well, actually, I might be a pretty decent necromancer, all things considered. He did say my tests would have worked.”

  “You—” She pointed at me sharply “—will tell me everything you know about Verisetti and how you know him, then we will get you out of this stupidity. Have you learned nothing in our political debates? If he buys a pack of gum from you, it will get you on the Watch list. He is a man too dangerous to know in this world.”

  “You're not kidding.” I looked at the empty sketch in my hands. My Awakening magic could have brought Christian back. “It really sucks knowing him.”

  “How do you know him?” Her magically-controlled pen flew over her paper as she mentally scribbled everything down.

  “He was my art teacher.”

  The pen stopped abruptly. “I think I misunderstood you.”

  “That happens a lot.” When her face took on the look, I sighed. “He was the art teacher at my high school when I Awakened.”

  There was something in her eyes then—a spark—like she had just slotted a puzzle piece into place. “Waiting for you,” she said, almost softly, completely unlike herself.

  “Yes. Unfortunately.”

  “Of course he was,” she said grimly. “It is what I would do in his place.” She looked at the picture in my hands, then at me. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “You heard?”

  “I can read lips just fine.”

  I wondered what she had read. We had been moving about the room, so she couldn't have pieced together the entire conversation.

  I also wondered what she had figured out a moment ago as well. I had a feeling she guessed just what kind of rare mage type I might actually be.

  It didn't matter, unless she was going to fry me where I sat. Nothing mattered at the moment save one thing.

  “I'm going to bring Christian back,” I whispered. “Are you going to stop me?”

  “No.” She looked at the note-filled board above her desk for a moment. “I've never had someone I would want to raise from the dead. I envy you this insanity,” she said in a low voice.

  My heart clenched. “Well, if you want, I'll share my brother with you. He can be annoying”—I stared at the sketch and readied myself—“but he's still mine.”

  Olivia said nothing.

  My fingers traced the glass above the circular portals in the drapes. All this time I had been on the correct mental track, but the physical track had been right in front of me.

  My magic broke the glass. I wiped the pieces carefully away, my heart stuttering in my chest. I opened the lavender tube and touched my painted thumb to the page. “Christian?” I whispered. “Are you there?”

  I could feel a large presence shifting behind the drapes. Could see the slight billow of the fabric at the bottom.

  I swallowed and wet my lips, then touched the stitches on the drapes and pulled each one apart.

  The root of a tree slid around and pulled the right drape to the side. Another long root shifted the left drape. The roots were just as I remembered.

  A tree figure stepped through, like a large dryad in an older myth. Christian.

  “You were the sapling in the girl’s hands,” I whispered, touching the bark of his cheek. “She planted you when Will entered the sketch.”

  “Yes.” Bark moved roughly across my palm as his mouth moved.

  I gripped the edge of the sketch with my other hand, happy the paper was still in the glass-less frame, or else it would be irreparably bent. “It wasn't a lie.” My hand was inside the sketch, touching his rough cheek, and I realized it was raining in the sketch world, fat drops of tears falling into the paper.

  A branch reached around my hand, and he touched my hand over his cheek, his eyes closed. “I thought you would never answer the call.” His voice was the same. Christian. The sound bounced around inside of me, lighting places that had been dark for months. Then his words registered.

  “You've been calling me from in there.” I held in a sob with effort. “All this time. You've been waiting.”

  “It's ok, Ren,” he whispered, patting me. “It's ok. You were listening. You always listened. Even when I didn't know what to say. Even when I couldn't speak.”

  “Why didn't you come through the drapes?” It was agonizing. The sketch had lived next to my pillow ever since I'd been here. He had been trapped in there all that time, while I had been out here. Separated, yet always together.

  “Your magic sealed the drapes when you pulled Will out.”

  “I...have you been aware of everything that has happened since?”

  “No. Bursts of things that I can sometimes stitch together, and that sometimes fracture apart. It is easier when you are sitting close. Easier to tap into your consciousness when you concentrate hard. When you dream. I'm so sorry.” He reached his hand toward me, rippling the sketch face. “Such terrible nightmares.”

  “I have been so alone without you.”

  His branched fingers stilled, then stroked the space in front of him. I felt it on my cheek. “But you found something to love. The magic inside of you. And people to love.”

  “I...yes. But nothing can replace you.”

  “Of course not.” He smiled in the cocky manner I was used to, breaking his seriousness. A sudden harsh light came to his eyes. “And you could suck out their souls for me.”

  His hand covered his eyes and he bowed forward, like I did sometimes when I was trying not to faint. His eyes were haunted when they lifted back to mine. I could see the struggle inside.

  “Christian?” I kept my voice from going high and desperate through will alone.

  “Ren.” He took a few harsh breaths. “Use your magic when you think of me? It's so alive inside of you.”

  I grabbed his arm, the bark coarse beneath my fingers. “I can't wait for you to experience it with me. Think of the magic we can create together.” It was a wild, wonderful thought that spurred a dozen images and feelings of magnificence and contentment.

  “Keep your friends close. I like them. I trust them with you. I...”

  I could see that he stopped his alter ego just in time from saying something more. “Stop being so serious,” I said lightly. We would get through this. “You are supposed to be telling me that you are going to give me the equivalent of a magical swirly or something.”

  He smiled, a cracked smile. “I wish.”

  I straightened. “Well, enough of this chatter. Let's get you out.” I picked up the tube.

  “No.”

  I stared at him. “What? What do you mean, no?”

  “I don't have a body, Ren.”

  I looked at his treed state. “Will—”

  “Had a body when he
entered the sketch.”

  I opened my mouth, and he quickly shook his head.

  “No, you don't understand, Ren.” He released my hand and backed away. “If you tried to remove me like this it would be worse than the bone beast you dreamed of all last night. I would...” He shook his head, as if to rid himself of the thoughts.

  “Then I just need to make you a new body.” I straightened up. Raphael had said that an external vessel was required. “I can do that. The golem, sculptures, and dolls are gone, but I can make more.” I'd give Constantine anything he asked for at the moment, and I wouldn't rest until the vessel was complete. Now that I knew Christian was here...

  “Just like the old myths, yeah?” I gave him a reassuring smile. “I can work you up a body in no time now that I have your soul. I bet I can even transfer you around. Place you in a temporary vessel now, a more permanent one later. You'd be ok with a sweet robot body for a while, right? You could be like Robocop.”

  “No. No.” He shook his head, as if denying something inside himself. “I'm cursed to a half-life, Ren.”

  “We will make it a full life once more.” I nodded firmly. “I know I can get you out of there.”

  “You can, yes.” His bark smile was brittle. “But can you?”

  “What's with the riddles? Yes.” I put my hand on his branched wrist and tugged. Nothing happened. I tugged again. “Just give me a day or two. I'll figure it out. Safely.” I quickly tacked on the last.

  “I know how to get out,” he said darkly.

  I blinked. “Oh. Great. Let's do it.”

  “I need a fully human body.”

  I slashed sculpture dolls and blob matter off my list. “Ok. I can get your—”

  “Not the one that has been buried for three months.”

  There were morgues. There was further research. Now that I knew where his soul was, my trials would work. “I can be trusted to pick you out a good one.”

  “There already is one available.”

  I blinked again. “Ok. Where?”

  “In Dorm Twenty.”

  “Ok. Will lives there, I'll bet he can...”

  Christian watched me make the connection, his eyes flat.