by Anne Zoelle
He smiled slowly and the ball of light twirled out into a very thin, nearly clear magic. A clear field with delineated points of magic rotated in the air.
“Axer, you are a genius,” Lox said fervently.
“If only you wore a helmet more, you could say the same.”
“A humble, terrible genius.” Lox's smile crept upward the way my brother's had when he had been planning some horribly awesome mischief. “But this... Yes. We'll have to talk to the device nerds.”
“So, we go with the legislation?” another boy asked.
“The next few years are going to determine the future of this Layer. We capitulate to this legislation, and to what the Department is doing to campus security this term, all while putting...other plans into effect,” Dare said, his blue eyes dark.
“You have a plan for security?” the boy said.
“Of course he does.” Lox looked almost resigned.
Dare smiled. “There are key assets that are always overlooked. We aren't going to overlook them.”
Another book landed on my shelf, edging into place, pushing the semi-invisible books closer together. The books chittered at me as I nudged them again, trying to see what Dare meant.
Ultramarine eyes shifted suddenly, pinning me to the spot—as if he could see through the magic, and see me watching.
Time slowed for a moment—an audible clock in my head began ticking slower, heavier beats.
“Assets and threats,” he said, his voice drawn-out with the slowed time, intense gaze still seemingly connected to mine.
A real hand clamped my wrist and I jumped. Enhancing dropped. The book caught itself before hitting the floor, then in a kaleidoscope of swirling color and flapping pages it flew back up to the dome above.
Will's brows rose and his hands reached out, tracers of light tailing each movement. “Whoa!”
With one hand over my pounding heart and the lights tessellating around me, I stumbled, steering Will away from the shelves. The sound of the flapping books was loud—too loud. Dare was going to barge around the stacks at any moment and accuse me—rightly—of eavesdropping. He'd grab my arm like Marsgrove and haul me away.
I stared at the tiny hairs standing on end along my arm. One hair moved, then two, three—
“We're downstairs,” Will said, his voice echoing through my skull. “You weren't answering your journal and we were worried.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, increasing my pace and trying to clear my head. Without the focus of the book, sensory information everywhere vied for attention. Surrounded by a whirlpool of swirling shadows, the black-and-white book watched me with predatory intent as I shakily ditched my helmet at the stairs.
Freed from the weight, my head felt far too light and I grabbed the rail for support.
Neph was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs—she never visited the fourth floor—and she enveloped me in a long hug as soon as I reached her. Warm, dark brown hair scented with jasmine engulfed me. The area surrounding her was a sauna of comfort with her soothing tendrils of magic cocooning me against the overwhelming stimuli outside. I let some of the tendrils seep in—let the edge of lingering sickness float away—but pulled away before she expended too much energy on me. I could feel her exhaustion too.
As soon as I disengaged myself, sound, touch, and taste blasted from every direction once more. I could see magic connected to me in hundreds of different shades. The golden tendrils frightened me the most. I specifically associated gold with Raphael, and there were hundreds of points of golden light burrowing into me—and not just in my left hand as I had previously observed.
Neph drew a soothing finger down my aura. “What has you scared?”
Everything.
“Nothing. I'm fine.” But the lingering feel of Neph's magic made me blurt out, “Bad dreams.”
As we walked, light and sound wavered in patterns around me. At first the patterns were hazy and indistinct, then they became sharp and edged. The waves told me that twelve people were walking within thirty feet of us—five maintained a brisk, three-miles-per-hour pace, another four strolled, and three moved at a crawl. Two of the people were calling up magic flavored with ill intentions and my senses flagged them as threats.
“How easy is it to bypass silencing runes, Will?” I tried to keep my voice at a normal volume, uncertain whether I was whispering or shouting.
I didn't look at him, but he was a solid weight of stability at my side. If Neph was warm comfort, Will was a steady rock.
“Depends on the level of protection. The one we always use is Grade Four.” I heard the echoes of movement and sound as he tapped his pocket. “Because of the tethering, they aren't weak like silencing spells. You'd need a pretty wicked spell to get through a Grade Four.”
“What about a book?”
The feel of Will turned to unconstrained excitement as we headed toward our favorite spot in the south corner. “One was attached to you, wasn't it? I wasn't sure. Those are really rare. Non-head clamps give transfer bursts free of charge. The books usually want payment, though.”
I thought of the black-and-white book—I felt it was still watching me, even though the fourth level had a completely opaque floor. An enhanced certainty told me that at some point, the book would demand some form of payment. The same certainty said that it was a supremely dangerous book of magic. Of Origin Magic.
Not good. So not good.
Will pointed to his head and my eyes followed the motion as swirls of cream-colored magic followed his finger. “With head clamps, you give something to get something. And with all clamps, the results only last for a short period of time. Which book attached to you?”
I rubbed my head, then my palm. I could still feel the impression of each papered fiber on its pages. “Guide for Enhancing the Senses.”
Will whistled. “Nice. What did you use to bargain with?”
I shook my head and touched one temple. I could still feel where the metallic helmet had been pressed to my skull. I put my canvas bag on the table and the smack echoed, little waves of sound emanating out.
Neph put a hand over Will's, and I could feel the calming magic she released, like aloe vera pressed to a burn. I could see it flowing from her into him.
“Ren is overwhelmed. Give her a moment.”
I stared at the magic. Then at the tendrils that were flowing between Neph and me. In, out, in, out. I lifted my right hand, turning it, watching the turquoise, mint, and tan tendrils shift and stretch. The tendrils flowing into Neph were questioning, gentling, asking. The ones back to me were soothing and answering.
Will activated his silencing rune on the table. I could see vivid crimson and navy stitching a net over us.
“Okay.” I breathed in deeply, watching the magic that connected us—for there were threads to Will as well, and ones that ran between the three of us. I carefully avoided the gold ones. With senses enhanced I could see everything. Smell, taste, feel. If I could grow accustomed to the overload, then—
“Other than the creep factor, why don't more people use the books?” I asked.
“One mage, Arnold the Crazed, tried to clamp twelve books on at the same time.” Will circled a finger around his ear. “Thought he'd be a super-mage, but magic can't force the brain to process unlimited knowledge.”
I could buy that. I was having trouble with just one. But that didn't mean I couldn't learn how to do more.
Will was still talking. I tried to focus on him.
“Besides, if you are giving payment at the same time as you are receiving the benefit, it is really hard to concentrate. Kind of belies the task, even if one of the books is a concentration enhancer. You have to figure out how to separate the senses and most people have trouble with that.” He shrugged. “As to other reasons why people don't use them, the invasion of privacy can be...detrimental. All kinds of things can end up in the books, if you don't choose correctly. There are always strings attached.”
I pictured the black-and-whi
te book with its rigid spine. There would be strings there. Many strings.
“Olivia can tell you all about book contract magic and what you can do to protect yourself.”
God, Olivia. I swallowed, and looked at the wards connected to me—gleaming and distinguishable. Olivia's threads were forest green and strong, but a sickly, synthetic brown still swirled underneath—light enough now that I wouldn't have seen it without the enhancement. I tried to pulse magic to it, to nudge it to a redwood brown, but the magic slipped over it like oil on water.
“What is Olivia up to?” Will asked.
“She has a meeting,” I answered, trying to fix the sickness again without success.
Will nodded. “My Mechanics United team is meeting tonight too. Everyone is trying to pretend things are back to normal. You missed the real weirdness last night, Ren, when people were simultaneously trying to accept and reject the calm. Things are better today. The muses have been working overtime.”
Neph's soft brown eyes were unreadable, but I could see her exhaustion along with something spikier. I pulsed a soothing thread back along the input line to Neph. She gasped, the spikes softened, and her eyes turned glossy as she smiled at me.
“I am happy to be back on campus with you both,” Neph said in an unsteady voice. “The last few days of break were...taxing.”
I remembered the mages dressed in white who had given her dirty looks yesterday, but had demanded her help regardless of their animosity.
“What happened at Top Circle, Neph?”
She looked away, and her connection thread pulsed. “The community is required to assist in all emotional protection matters that occur on campus. In return, we are granted a continuous way to exercise our skills, the ability to attend school, and a few special privileges.”
“But what happened on Top Circle?”
Sickly colors swirled around Neph, almost as if her magic was panicking. “I cannot say. Please, Ren.”
Will looked at Neph with wide eyes, then at me, and shook his head frantically.
“Okay, it's okay.” I pressed at the threads between us and sent a continual flow of comforting magic toward her. If it drained my reserves, so be it. I had learned how to work at an absolute minimum level of energy last term.
Neph loved to talk about being a muse, but clammed up when talk turned to the community, what they did, or how or why she had been semi-excommunicated. I didn't understand the muse community or their need for so much secrecy.
But when it came to trust in a purely emotional way, Neph was at the top of my list. Will and I had clicked intellectually from the start, and Olivia and I had clicked magically. Neph was pure emotion. She was a cozy, comforting blanket for me, and I hoped the feeling was mutual. We hadn't needed a drawn-out process to be friends. We had met...and that had been that.
My friends were vastly different from each other––in how we connected––but no less important to me.
Neph relaxed completely, as if I had flipped some sort of calming switch within her.
“This is not a question about what specifically happened,” I said, picking my words carefully while keeping the steady flow of magic going. “But why are the officials trying to calm us en masse like that? It freaks me out,” I admitted.
Will grimaced. “Put a bunch of anxious, overpowered magic users under the age of twenty-two together, and even the control cuffs can't limit the destruction. And this campus is filled with overpowered magic users—some of whom make the Department nervous.”
Neph's anxiety level increased, so I switched topics.
They brought me up to speed on the events that I had missed, though they carefully and obviously omitted some things. Through the waning magic of Enhancing, I felt their good intentions, so I let their omissions slip by without comment. I focused on retaining the awareness of the links I had with them, committing all of the colored threads to visual memory along with their relative positions, focusing my warding knowledge to maintain them.
I'd be able to send energy to Olivia even faster now, not having to rely on using the magic in our room to see the connections. Due to my focused effort, as the effects of Enhancing dissipated, the threads didn't disappear from view.
A definite benefit, and perhaps worth the price I might have to pay.
As Neph and Will discussed the classes they planned to sign up for, I simultaneously drew designs for the protection project I wanted to construct for Neph, while monitoring the activity around us. There were lots of mages on the lower floors of the library, actively watching each other and watching us, around the walls and through the glass ceilings.
Some of the combat mages from the fourth floor were now mixed in with other groups around us.
Will and Neph paused their speaking, but I could see something travel the thread between them. Talking via frequency? Knit together as we were, everything that connected us was bright. I swallowed.
I wished Olivia were here.
“So.” Will looked at me expectantly. “Dreams?”
“Normal dreams?” Neph added softly, head tilted.
“No.” My smile wobbled. “He has been visiting me.”
Using Raphael's name in public, even under a silencing ward, was a bad idea. The verbal reactions to Cadmiat's destruction yesterday had made that exquisitely apparent.
“I need to block it from happening again,” I said. I would block him. Kick him out. Eject him from this Layer, if I could.
“How can we help?” Neph asked. Her initial look of horror at the revelation that Raphael was visiting me in dreams became one of support and determination. Will nodded, and I could see the connection lines strengthening between the three of us.
Relief and commitment fiercely crushed my other emotions. “What do you know about dream wards?”
Wards first, then I could begin disentangling myself from the rest of Raphael's net. I needed to tell them about Raphael's box—a leech permanently attached to me. But that was a revelation better saved for a more secure location. I shuddered. Speaking the words aloud would make them real.
Will immediately detailed everything he knew about traveling in dreams, and Neph elaborated on how a mage could affect the emotions of them through setting, details, and components. Then they helped me locate texts for further research.
I spent a two-hour maxed session in a reading room—combing over and combining five different texts—then a ten-minute session in the red streaming room. Will and Neph had stayed at the table while I was away.
As I returned to my seat, Justice Toad croaked from my bag to let me know that I was now on the clock for community service duty. Great.
I sat and let my forehead drop onto my folded arms.
Neph laid comforting hands on my shoulders. Her magic soothed the rough edges of mine. “Success?”
“Yes.” The streaming room mind spell was incredible, but being bombarded with a thousand pieces of information at once generated a lot of random data. I had funneled as much of the knowledge as I could into a notebook that was connected to a mind enchantment I had created.
I blindly tapped the notebook with one finger, and spoke into my arms. “I have lots of things to try, and thankfully there is a fourth-floor book that should help. It's going to take me all night, but I think I've got a solution. Thanks for staying.”
The sensation of being watched washed over me. It felt...familiar. With my forehead positioned as it was, I could see the multitude of connection threads weaving lights along my midsection. I absently examined them, trying to figure out if—
Rip!
I sat straight up and my hand went to my chest as a strange, unconnected rip tore through me. Justice Toad gave two loud croaks. I fished him out of my bag and saw that Two Level Twos had just occurred in the Politics Building next door.
I quickly logged that I was on my way.
Neph and Will continued what they were doing, both of them used to my community service routine. “Leave your stuff,” Will said. “We'll
be here.”
As I walked to the stairs, I could still feel the unidentified, but familiar gaze tracking my movements. I rubbed my chest. The dull ache was still beating there, and I fought a thread of unease as I headed to my first service call.
Chapter Nine: Olivia
Striding into the brick and glass Politics Building next door, I initiated the temporary enchantment I had mastered last term for a quick energy boost, then scrolled the call stats. Two offenders, curses thrown, a debate gone wrong in the debate auditorium.
I'd make sure to tell Olivia all of the unprotected details later. Even if she was still out of sorts, I was certain she'd be amused by a debate duel.
I stopped cold in the auditorium's doorway as I watched my roommate shoot a dart at someone and heard my tablet beep again. The beep meant that the offense had been upgraded. Possibly due to what looked like a poisoned dart. A poisoned dart that my cool, collected roommate had just thrown at someone's throat.
I hastily whipped the tablet forward and pressed a ready-made enchantment. All action stopped, all limbs froze. The girl on the receiving end of the dart, a lanky, brown-haired girl, froze in the act of falling—a violent red curse outstretched on her fingertips. Olivia's face was frozen in a mask of furious, deadly intent.
The debate audience sat at the edges of their auditorium seats, enraptured by the scene playing out in front of them. Cretins.
A tailored boy who looked to be on the upper edge of twenty-two, belatedly hurried up the steps toward the frozen combatants. “Okay, okay. I realize we might all be a little on edge with what has recently happened. Let's take a fifteen-minute break.”
People reluctantly began rising from their seats.
I pushed the tablet's re-right button. The magic pulled Olivia and the other girl upright and extinguished any remaining combat magic, shooting the unfulfilled magical components and any half-formed enchantments to the Midlands for modification and dispersal. The girl was vaguely familiar. I racked my image memory as I executed the steps needed to contain two combatants.
The Contract Magic was pretty creepy, as always, in the way it subdued mages. And enrollment contracts were signed in blood.
