The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Will and Neph busied themselves by standing and mindlessly fiddling with their packs—adjusting the straps on each other's shoulders. They judiciously did not look our way.

  Five lost arguments and five absurdly short minutes later, I watched the yellow cab disappear from view, then trudged back to the family room where Olivia was being tightly hugged by my mom on the couch.

  “Oh, Ren.” Mom's expression was distressed, and she pulled me down into their crushing hug as I entered.

  I gave her an awkward pat in return. What was going on? I looked over to Olivia for direction, but she was staring wide-eyed at my mom as if my mother was some sort of rare magical creature.

  Catching my gaze, Olivia shook off the expression and jerked her head to the left. I followed her gaze to the late night newscast on TV.

  The announcer said, “Five men were attacked in gang-related violence in an area of the city usually free of gang activity. Authorities have said this was a random event. All five victims suffered brain related injuries and are currently under watch at St. Mary's. In other news, a tsunami has decimated the western coast of—”

  The newscaster enumerated a devastating death toll in some faraway place, but my mind was stuck on the “gang” violence and brain related injuries.

  My mom's hug grew more fierce. “That's right near where you were going! You just missed it. My baby. Not again,” she whispered almost too low for me to hear. I didn't have to hear it, though, to understand her freak out. Christian and I hadn't been lucky enough to avoid the same type of incident four months ago.

  I gave in and returned the embrace fully.

  Dad gave me a bear hug with whispered endearments, and Mom hugged the stuffing out of Olivia again. Mom petted her hair in an entirely surreal gesture. One didn't “pet” Olivia Price. Mom was obviously unaware of this.

  “I'm going to make popcorn.” Mom wiped her eyes and hurried out of the room. I hoped she wasn't going to start scrubbing the kitchen again… Or start crying.

  I looked at the new drawings that were pulsing with energy on the walls around us in an artistic blend of the abstract, geometric, and fanciful. I had carefully hung them throughout the house in the last few days. The designs—the very fibers of the paper—were full of magic as powerful and intense as I could manage under the constraints of my brief library time. Normal people would see them as static pictures, instead of the vibrating forces that they appeared to me.

  Without being able to use active magic in the house, hanging them had only been possible for me because of Raphael's base wards.

  My lips tightened.

  “Ren?”

  “S'okay, Dad,” I said, without looking at him. “It'll be okay.”

  I hugged my cuffed arm close to my chest. It had to be.

  ~*~

  I had given Olivia my bed and slept in the trundle beneath since the start of vacation.

  Tonight, though, Olivia was lying as stiff as a mummy on the bed, her arms tightly crossed and the side of her body pressed against the wall, leaving a conspicuous amount of empty space next to her.

  “Safety sleeping?” I asked as lightly as I could, knowing that I had to take the lead. If someone had told me months ago that I would be leading any social interactions, I would have laughed.

  “Fine.” She gave a wave, as if long-suffering, but she didn't have to move an inch, already in sharing position.

  I pushed in the trundle and climbed in with her, our shoulders touching as I got comfortable. Olivia stiffened, then relaxed. I could feel the low hum of sympathetic magic circulating between us. It wasn't live, active magic, it was just a simple connection. Since I was connected to the wards, and Olivia's innate, natural magic was mixing with mine, the entire ward set would strengthen as a matter of course. Probably not enough to keep Raphael away, should he decide to do something, but enough to enhance the protections already in place.

  Enough to fortify the newly wrought wards that I had constructed in Olivia's presence. They had to be enough. Please.

  I stared at the ceiling for a long while. “My magic—”

  “A rock is just an object until it is picked up and used to bash in someone's skull.”

  “But—”

  “That someone illegally took your magic and chose to use it in such ways is not on you.”

  I nodded shortly, jerkily. “I'm sorry for throwing you lip over toe through that doorway. And yanking you through the painting.”

  “Well, you should be sorry for those things.” She tried to make it sound like a joke, but it fell flat in the silence of the room. I could feel the comforter tug as she gripped it harder.

  “We were going to die,” she whispered, looking up at the ceiling. “Had our positions been reversed, I would have let go of you.” Her voice was barely audible—a confession in the dark. “I wouldn't have thought otherwise.”

  I gently nudged her shoulder. “Letting go would have been the smart move.”

  She didn't respond.

  “It would have,” I repeated.

  “Ren—”

  “Liiiiiv,” I drawled out, trying to tease her out of the shaken, strange mood that had suddenly overtaken her.

  “I don't...I don't know how...” Her voice trailed off miserably.

  I turned my head toward her. “You are my friend,” I said definitively. “We are friends.”

  “Okay. Yes.” Her voice was even shakier.

  I turned back and gave her another light bump with my shoulder, letting it rest there. I could feel some of her tension physically drain away. “Let's get some sleep.”

  Surprisingly, she dropped off to sleep immediately, which allowed my own tension—forcibly subdued so I could help Olivia—to creep back into existence.

  With thoughts of protection—successes and failures—heavy on my mind, my thoughts invariably turned to Christian and his life and death. My brother—who I had always protected, usually from his own hilarious schemes—had pushed me to the side when we'd been attacked by rogue mages four months ago. He had used that single moment to save me instead of using his newly awakened magic to save himself.

  I couldn't let that kind of thing happen again.

  I thought of Olivia's words of a rock being just a rock. I wrapped the idea around me, but I couldn't reconcile the matter in my head. Once the rock was used as a weapon...it was considered a weapon.

  It was a long time before I fell asleep.

  Chapter Five: The Enemy Within

  Five bleary mornings later saw Will, Neph, Olivia, and I huddled in my room watching a looped cycle of news reports, listening to Second Layer gossip, and doing “dimming” work.

  The Second Layer had enacted more serious security measures and most of the major cities were locked down. I had seen news feeds of Alexander Dare helping with security on three separate occasions. I could pick him out of a crowd of five thousand combat mages—it was a little sad.

  With the new security measures, returning through the checkpoint would be a concern, but I was decidedly grounded, at present. And my magic was “lurching” increasingly beneath my cuff, trying to escape.

  Will had the good idea—and sheer balls—to suggest using the leech, Olivia's container, and the four person ritual we had used last term to heal campus, in order to “fix” me. That Olivia had been displeased with the suggestion, was an understatement.

  Arguments. So many arguments.

  Olivia had been pretty harsh with her thoughts about Will's motivation. One thing about Will's delinquency, though, was that while he misused magic, very frequently, he never misused friends. Constantine, on the other hand...

  I rubbed my fingers along the postage-sized stamp of material that Constantine had given me for my birthday. There was nothing remarkable about it in size or shape, but nothing about Constantine or anything he created was unremarkable. I poked the middle and a ripple ran along the tiny fibers. The entire paper lengthened with the motion, more fibers rippling out to accommodate the change in size
.

  The material kept its innate properties while changing shape and size at my command. It had been created specifically for me to draw upon, then shrink again.

  “Ren, are you listening?” Olivia demanded. She and Neph had finally come to a grudging agreement on how to do the ritual piece.

  “Yup.” I flattened my palm and drew my fingers inward to collapse the material again.

  “What is that?” Will leaned closer.

  “Leandred's birthday present.” Olivia's lip curled. “I recommend against touching it.”

  Will poked the edge anyway. He swore and stuck his finger in his mouth. “Electrified,” he said, his voice, garbled. He shook out his hand. I could see him forcing himself not to reach forward to touch the material again. “And still able to maintain its original attributes regardless of size. Fantastic.”

  Its protection mode activated by the foreign touch, the material immediately shrunk the rest of the way to its postage-sized shape. Days ago, Olivia had experienced the same misfortune as Will.

  “That's unlike anything I've ever seen,” Will said, leaning forward, fingers twitching. “He made that for you? I was so right.”

  “No, you weren't. It's not friendship, it's calculated advancement. Leandred never relinquishes a worthwhile investment,” Olivia said irritably. It was only something she had repeated five times already.

  “I know, Liv.” I stuck the stamp back in its envelope and picked up the leech, giving it a little shake. “Now, what say we give the ritual and this bad boy a try?”

  “Yes.” Will pumped a fist into the air.

  “No,” came the other two voices in the room.

  If it had been up to Will and me, we would have had a trial under our belts ten minutes after discussing it the first time, and two-dozen trials since. But with Neph and Olivia participating, we weren't allowed to do more than read books and plot.

  I exchanged an agonized look with Will. This whole “safety” thing was grueling.

  “We've agreed to do it, but there is still something missing, and you both know it,” Neph said, never losing her normal, calm facade. She was spreading all the serenity she could muster, as her muse training dictated. “Will and I won't see you for a few days, but we will be doing research and asking the elders about spell linking. We will have plenty of time to fix things before school starts.”

  That meant Day Five was also a scratch.

  And not being able to do something made the emotional impact of the week surrounding Christmas a thing from which I could not escape. Maintaining a grueling, sunny expression was at an all-time high in the face of the holiday and all the family events surrounding it.

  Overly cheerful during the daytime, I pulled Olivia into everything, tried to keep smiles on every face, and forcibly attacked the creeping sadness I could feel in my parents every time they had a moment to think. So I didn't let them have time to think.

  I pushed aside my research in favor of keeping everyone as jolly as possible. For my parents, who had lost their son. For Olivia, who couldn't quite understand my family's bond, but felt compelled to participate in every moment she was afforded—playing four-person board games and cards, discussing politics with my dad, cooking with my mom, watching crappy and awesome movies, teaching me how not to be crushed by her at chess.

  Everyone was going to be happy and safe, or so help me, I was going to go on the reign of terror that a mage with a proclivity for Origin Magic was expected to muster.

  Determination fueled me, even when I failed to fully sleep at night, plagued by fevered dreams I could never quite remember upon waking.

  But the itch of my magic had almost started to hurt in the last few days. I missed using magic. I missed Excelsine. What if—?

  A tentative hand petted my hair, making me jerk out of my thoughts. Olivia was on the couch next to me, her hazel eyes questioning, her book open on her lap. Across from us, Mom was doing something on her computer and Dad was attempting the crossword in the paper.

  I smiled—a real smile at Olivia. She smiled back and gave me another tentative pat, before returning to her book. Foot to leg, magic hummed around us. I took a deep breath. But I couldn't release all of my anxiety.

  Neph and Will were taking care of their demands at home and wouldn't return until the twenty-eighth. Add a few days more to that and we'd be looking at the start of school again—possibly with me unable to return.

  And Olivia...Olivia was hunkering down, as if she had already started planning the best way we would need to live as hermits in the basement. That thought made my magic itch worse.

  Two nights after Christmas, and with increasingly wrenching thoughts on my mind, I fell asleep with one thought in the front of my mind. I had to do something.

  ~*~

  Monsters and beasts lunged and snarled from the walls of my room, wisps of magic and memory swirling them into knights and warriors, then back again, as I stood in the center of the madness.

  My walls were once more alive, and the creatures, graphics, and mad things I had painted and drawn, galloped chaotically—knights and warriors, monsters and beasts—amongst twining grasses and mercurial landscapes. There was no more brown, congealed paint on the walls. Colors swirled around me, like crazy, painted fireflies. If only I could catch one... If only I could make everything safe...

  “So sad, butterfly?”

  I whipped around. Raphael Verisetti stood in the center of a star burst, relaxed and unconcerned, his warm golden skin and eyes in direct opposition to his nature.

  Without thinking, I threw a blast of magic at him. Astonishingly, magic surged to my fingers, then shot into a kaleidoscope of riotous colors that swirled around him. A strange, non-magical deflection. He smiled at my shock.

  “What...? How...?” I looked at the swirling colors, then quickly checked the bed, to make sure Olivia was okay.

  “She's fine. Quite a dark bit of prey, though, isn't she?” He smiled. “I do hope she survives what is coming. She'd make a powerful bishop on my board with a little...motivation.”

  The colors swirled around Olivia's sleeping form, then moved back to Raphael. I watched the colors tessellate. “I'm dreaming.”

  “Mmmm.” His head cocked to the side. “Such boring and sad dreams, butterfly. Tsk, tsk.” He strolled forward. “But you have finally let me come rescue you from them.”

  Even knowing it was a dream, I backed away. Raphael had powers and knowledge that I did not, and we both knew I was not yet his equal. “I don't require rescuing.”

  “Ah, then you can rescue me from them. Depressing. Elation and triumph would serve you far better.”

  The shifting colors brightened his eyes, edging them with a manic tinge. The edge had always been there, but I concentrated on it now. Helping Olivia with her personal-interaction study had made a few things obvious. “Elation can only be followed by decay.”

  “Don't be boring, butterfly. I detest such consummate inaction that analyzing others begets. Better instead to make people dance to your favorite tune. You were made for the latter. And you know it. That's why you sent for me.”

  My fingers curled, kaleidoscopic color squeezing from between my knuckles. “I didn't send for you.” Not again, not again.

  “And yet, here I am.” He spread his arms wide. “Squeezing through your explicitly warded wishes and into the absolute prison of a padded cell you have made the place you call home.”

  I set my mind to undoing whatever I had done to invite him into my dream.

  “Butterfly, I can feel that. I'm hurt.” He pressed a hand against his heart.

  “Did you send those men?” I demanded. “Did you try to kidnap Olivia and Constantine?”

  Cities and towns and global destruction, I could barely comprehend the kind of scale at play in Raphael's world. But the fate of my friends...that, I clearly understood.

  “You wound me, thinking I would find any excitement in such dull tasks. I have allied myself with witless creatures, unfortunately
. Ones who now believe themselves to be stalks of celery.” He looked at Olivia's sleeping figure. “Wretched and lovely, that little bit of magic performed by your friend. It made it impossible for me to figure out why they were there. Your entire quadrant should be off the map. An annoyance all the way around, as they lost us something valuable. But do remind me to praise your roommate for her vengeful creativity when next we meet.”

  I focused on Olivia and the steady rise of her chest. I wasn't going to let that happen.

  “You, however...” He grabbed my chin. It felt as real as any touch. “Allowing that boy to use your magic? Don't ever let him do so again.”

  I yanked away. “Only you?”

  He smiled. “At another time, I might cheer our melodramatics, but you have been foolish and require fixing. You do me no good stuck in the non-magical world. And if we linger here too long, you will be unable to accept my glorious proposal.”

  “I'm not making any deals with you,” I said flatly.

  “You've already made a deal with me. The tube of lilac paint for a second level magic. A contract that has not yet been fulfilled on your side.”

  Even in the dream, at his reminder, I could feel the magic of the contract we'd made circulating through my veins. I clawed at my arm and the promise living inside of me.

  “You wanted that tube of paint so much. You would have done anything. On a scale that numbers to ten, what is a pitiful second level magic in the scheme of things?”

  “Bad, when you are involved.” I'd been so stupid. But he was right, I would have done a lot to gain that tube and the promise it had presented to resurrect my brother.

  “Hurtful, but true. Alas, for you, not even death will stop you from fulfilling the terms. And if you stay in the non-magical world, that is what will result—in glorious and sanguinary technicolor detail.”

  He could be lying. I wanted him to be a liar, instead of just being painfully cryptic and demented. But the furious, painful itch under my skin, under my new cuff, said he spoke the truth.