The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

It would be stupid not to be leery of the man on the other side of the door. Constantine was very, very dangerous. I had known that from the beginning. But I fingered the expandable stamp he had given to me for my birthday, and thought of all the time he must have spent creating it. Of all the late nights we had spent on different experiments. Of the serious, concentrated look that overtook his features when no one else was there to witness it, the delight when one of his experiments worked, and the helpful hand he automatically extended in the workroom. That was the Constantine I was friends with. And the one I sought.

  I gave three raps in quick succession.

  I was not alone, and my friends wouldn't be either.

  The door opened as my knuckles hit the third time and the movement pulled my hand forward.

  “Crown.” His customary seductive smile was in place, but the confidence that usually underscored his direct gaze was tempered, as if he thought he needed to monitor what he said to me. The expressions in his eyes and smiles rarely matched, but the caution I sensed in him, was something new. “Something you need?” he asked smoothly.

  For someone as narcissistic as Constantine, even a slight deviation toward a normal emotional response was worrying. I knew the concern showed on my face, so I discarded the verbal script I had prepared. “Are you okay?”

  “Are you?” he asked in a lazy voice.

  This was my fifth day back on campus and even though I hadn't seen him, he assuredly knew I had been on campus this whole time—he always seemed to know what I was up to.

  I wondered if he really had been standing on the other side of the door for the past two minutes, wondering if I would knock. With all of the other indications, that was entirely possible.

  I looked down. The violet and bronze threads that spanned the space between our elbows pulsed with guarded, yet hungry, bursts. The feeling in them was so similar to Olivia’s.

  My shoulders drooped with remorse. “I'm sorry it took me so long to visit. Can we talk?”

  His expression grew less readable, but the threads gave a jolt and he opened the door fully.

  I swallowed. “I wanted—”

  “Stop.” He tapped the jamb in a pointed manner, indicating caution, and his eyes narrowed as the change in his position allowed him to see down the hall.

  I cast a quick glance that way and saw the girl was still there. The concentrated look on her face said she was talking to someone internally via frequency, but her gaze was still locked on me.

  Constantine's hand gently wrapped around my back and he pulled me past him. I quickly stepped with the motion, almost missing the look of physical agony that suddenly overcame the green-eyed girl's features as she buckled over, clutching her stomach. And then she was out of view completely and Constantine was locking the door behind me.

  Smirking, he slipped something into his back pocket. “Now, what did you wish to discuss?” he asked, as he sat in his favorite wing-backed chair.

  I blinked. “What just happened?”

  “I invited you inside,” he said blandly.

  “No, with that girl.”

  “What girl?”

  I shook my head, still standing. “Fine. I want to talk about the leech.”

  The violet and bronze connections twanged, but he laughed and pulled his fingers along the black ribbon that he always kept near. It had been strangely absent when he was in the First Layer. “You are too direct, darling. You've been living with Price for too long. Evasiveness and prevarication make good allies. The longer and more diabolical the truths, the better. You need to try to trick me into a revelation. Now, what did you wish to speak about?”

  “Can we just talk about the button?”

  “No,” he said.

  “There once was a mage from Old Crow, who had a leech used on her elbow. Her friend said, here try this! It's something easy to dismiss. Oh, that too-trusting mage from Old Crow.”

  “Limericks aren't evasive, darling.”

  “You waited for Olivia to be taken down, knowing I would give you permission to use that leech on me to save her,” I said.

  He hadn't counted on being hit with the horribly damaging purple spell, though, and I wondered if he would have fought differently had he known it was coming.

  He gazed at me with hooded eyes. “Of course.”

  There were many questions that could follow that statement. Why, being the topmost of them.

  “Did you accomplish what you set out to do?” I asked instead.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell me your plans?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to do it again?”

  His ribbon stilled. “Will you let me?”

  I sighed and sat on the seat across from him, pulling my legs beneath me.

  The black silk remained motionless. “You trust too easily.”

  I met his gaze without break. “Only the first time.”

  He smiled, and the lines of his body and face relaxed into their normal positions—or at least the ones I only saw when we were alone. Palpable relief pulsed both ways along the connection threads.

  “Thanks for the stamp. It's brilliant.” I held it up, shaking it into a palm-sized sheet. “It must have taken you days to make it.”

  “Weeks,” he said, with false humility.

  “The envelope spell to allow this to travel between the layers is extraordinary. Good thing, as no one could help me bring it back here.” I looked at him pointedly, referencing the protection spells that had shocked Olivia and Will.

  Even if he usually used it for evil, Constantine knew a lot about mind and protection magic, which was another thing I was eager to discuss.

  “The material is only for you, Ren,” he said, his voice lazy. “Why would I want anyone else to have something—or know about something—so brilliant?”

  “And here I figured that you would want everyone to know how magnificent you are. To be the most renowned materials maker in the land.”

  Constantine's smile was casually superior, but his eyes told a different story. “Fame makes fools of us all.”

  Fame, notoriety, Raphael... Those were things that I could do without. Just thinking about Raphael made me take a deep breath and reach for calm, but as I did so I was not gripped by any of the eager spells laced through campus. It was as if the calming magic was thwarted here.

  Constantine's ribbon moved more quickly between his fingers. “That explains the thin, jagged layer of peace overlaying your horrible mass of anxiety. You aren't drinking in any of that rot with the calming spells are you? Don't you listen to the conspiracy mages?”

  His tone was teasing and derisive, but his gaze was not.

  “Er...no?”

  He raised a brow.

  I looked at the connection threads. They now hummed with dark fondness and light derision. A checkered pattern wove between us. “But that's not important right now,” I said.

  Later, everything else later.

  “Con, I—” I swallowed, suddenly unable to get the words out. His black ribbon went as still as his body. “I need to know about the leech.”

  His ribbon stayed still. “A trick-worthy line of questioning finally, even if the trick is emotional extortion.” His tone was considering, but his body positioning was not. “Didn't you ask Price about the device? I'm surprised she even let you visit me.”

  “She doesn't know.”

  “Slipped your metaphorical leash, darling?”

  “Con…”

  “I can't control who you befriend either, more's the pity.”

  “Constantine.”

  “Didn't you look up the information in the dark library? I'm surprised at you,” he said.

  “I looked up four-dozen books in Main. It was all rot—ethical concerns and arguments. Nothing about construction.”

  Just like information on Origin Magic; either I had to register myself on a list somewhere in order to access the good stuff—something I couldn't afford to do at present—or I
had to figure it out through long, intricate, devious study.

  “And you are stalling,” I said, giving him a look I hoped expressed that I was unimpressed. “You said you've been studying up on...things. Where did you get the leech? How do you make one?”

  Heavy pulses waved along the threads connecting us. Desire and anger, anticipation and fear. I tried to examine the emotions individually, but just as they separated, they were brutally crushed, stilling and suddenly empty. I blinked before looking up at him in astonishment. How had he done that?

  His gaze was narrowed on mine, tension crinkling the edges of his eyes. “You are so full of surprises. How did you tether an enhancement spell?” he asked.

  “Death? And a strange book?”

  A bark of laughter issued. He released whatever knot he had created in the threads connecting us, but there was an absence of something in them now, something Constantine. His gaze remained piercing. “You can see a connection between us.”

  I looked down automatically. “Yes.”

  “Colors?” he asked tightly.

  I looked at the waving lines. My parents' deep, strong shades of rose coupled together, and the ones that connected me to Olivia, Will, Neph, and Dare were all vibrant. Each of them had engaged in powerful, personal magic shares with me. Some threads defied characterization, comprised of my own magic—to Rock Guard, Guard Friend, Okai. Others existed in various degrees of brightness that had yet to be labeled. Raphael's, unfortunately, shone brightest, like sunlit gold.

  The other sense enhancements from the book had ended. But the one highlighting the people I was connected to remained. Determination, coupled with all of my weird experiences with wards—especially with my first death—had allowed me to keep the connecting threads in view, once I was made aware of their existence.

  Constantine's had been strong like the others, but now his were dull. Masked.

  “Yours were a strong violet and bronze,” I said pointedly. “And somewhat informative. What are you afraid of?”

  “I'm afraid of nothing. Don't be silly.” He unfolded from his chair, his gaze already on the door to his workroom, his connection threads still absent of anything I could read. His voice frequently lied, but his eyes rarely did. He was hiding both his gaze and the threads.

  “Come, Crown. I'll show you what I have.”

  I didn't know which part of our conversation had made him stop playing games, but I felt no small amount of relief as I rose to follow him. “Thanks.”

  He waved a negligent hand over his shoulder as he unlocked his workroom, but there was an air of disquiet about him.

  “No, seriously… Thank you, Con.”

  His hand paused on the knob. “I know, darling,” he said softly. “I feel your gratitude and unnecessary concern. Thread connections work both ways, if one knows they are there and how to find them.” He pushed the door open.

  They did? I looked anxiously at the pulsing gold one that I feared the most. “How do you stop them? How did you stop ours?”

  He didn't respond for a moment. Something told me that he was seriously unused to hearing himself included as part of an “ours.”

  “Your naïve openness is part of your charm. Why would you want to be dead like the rest of us?” Amusement laced his voice. Only a darkening in the connection let me know that it was forced.

  I touched his back as I passed him, and pushed comforting vibes down the completed connection circuit. He was so like Olivia sometimes.

  He didn't move for a moment. “Gathering us all together like lambs?” he asked lightly.

  “Friends,” I said, putting my bag down, very used to him somehow reading my mind even without a known connection. “I'd never mistake you for a lamb.”

  “It would be a deadly error,” he said, just as lightly.

  “Did you come to the First Layer with the intention of using that leech?”

  His gaze met mine as he pushed aside some of the papers on his workspace. “No.”

  “With the hope?” I knew better than most that phrasing was important in the magic world.

  “Hope is a diabolical and stupid emotion,” he said. “And yet it continues to exist.”

  “You wanted to use it.”

  “Of course I did. I knew it would be magnificent—viewing the world and magic in the way only you can see it.” He hesitated a moment, then gathered a few books together, and stacked them on the table in front of the chair I had yet to sit in. “What did you do with the button?”

  “I hid it.” In the small secret hollow in the bricks of the basement that Christian and I had used for things we didn't want our parents to find. Olivia and I had hidden all of the things taken from the terrorists there too.

  “You didn't destroy it?”

  “No.” I had thought about it. Briefly.

  Something pained, hungry, and desperate slipped through his shield, and an unreadable smile curved the edges of his lips. “I am unaccustomed to being forgiven. But then I'm never sorry.” He leaned over the table and curved a finger under my chin. “I'd do it again,” he whispered.

  “I know,” I said, not allowing the charged silence following that statement to settle.

  He smiled and sat in his work chair, tapping the top book on the stack in front of him. The scholarly attention he usually hid was on full display now that we were in his work room, and his eyes narrowed in academic focus, flirtation gone. This was the Constantine who was easy to be friends with––the Constantine who never appeared outside of this inner room. I sat.

  “With that particular leech, in order to use it, I had to receive permission from you—that is true with any of the lesser forms of leeches. All forms are hard to create, but as with anything, there are rising levels of difficulty. Leeches that do not require a mage's permission are true works of magical art.”

  He laughed lightly at my grimace. “Fortunately for you, they are extremely rare, and using one will get a mage a life sentence in prison. Which neatly brings us to law enforcement.”

  He flipped a few pages in the book and tapped on a picture.

  “The cuffs used by law enforcement remove casting ability completely, and require no permission, but they don't allow the enforcer to use the magic therein either. You can think of law enforcement cuffs more like inhibitors—they do leech small amounts of magic in order to keep the mage alive, but they don't give magic to someone else. Of course, the legislators continuously toy with the idea of taking and using the magic of imprisoned mages in some productive way for society, but they haven't yet won over public opinion and personal fear. So, as it stands, law enforcement cuffs are the least compelling of the leech forms.”

  He leaned back and I started flipping through the book he had opened—titled Leeches, Leashes, Collars, Cuffs, and Control.

  “Leashes and the internal collars they connect to...” He stretched his ribbon. “Combine the properties of both a cuff and a remote leech. They are truly the thing to fear and to learn to guard against. Like law enforcement cuffs, debate continuously rages over them. Currently, leashes are banned, except in extreme circumstances, and deep within hidden facilities that the government doesn't discuss.” His gaze met mine pointedly.

  “Can I take these?” I touched the stack of books, thankful they were simply made of paper. This was one of the rare cases where I wouldn't want to experience the Library of Alexandria's books or halls on a topic.

  “Of course. They should fit in one of your storage papers for safe transport.” I heard his implicit warning not to be caught with anything written on the subject matter.

  I did as he suggested, letting the books sink into one of the storage papers visible on his rectangular work table. As I folded the paper, my gaze took in a mathematical sketch on a paper beneath it. I touched the sketch, then moved it so I could study the one stacked beneath. A complicated pattern of pentagons interconnected in a two-dimensional rendering of a far more complex structure. “A dodecaplex?”

  He smiled through the
strands of hair that fell into his face as he leaned forward on his elbows. He looked down at the sketches as well.

  “A project I'm considering roping you into. Courtesy of your storage papers and the delightful firsthand peek into the way you can manipulate dimensions greater than three. Visualizations I can only grasp like a lost dream or drug-fueled haze—that showed me the secrets of the universe for a single moment in time. So tantalizing and frustrating. So perfectly you.”

  I shook my head, amused, and shuffled through more papers, then stilled.

  “That is exactly what you think it is,” he whispered, our bent heads nearly touching. He was far too close for such a diabolical revelation.

  Rudimentary plans for creating both a leech and a leash were laid out in fine detail on the papers touching my fingertips.

  “You knew I would come to ask you about the leech.”

  “Such is the stupidity of hope,” he said, sounding too amused for the emotion to be real. “But I felt it there when I was controlling your magic. Something...else...with a claim on you. That is what you truly seek, is it not? A way out from someone's leash?”

  There was something very off in his voice. He usually kept things close to his chest, but there was an intensity, a need he wasn't able to hide.

  “Yes,” I said, somewhat numb, my mind already going down the path he had laid forth on the paper—easily following the path because it had already been fluttering around my thoughts. It was one of the reasons I was here.

  Constantine knew my working mind well. I usually sought to build or create in order to understand a concept before I flipped it on end.

  He leaned back, his hair sweeping to the side, a smug smile muting the anxiety that still trickled beneath his facade. “Then I'm at your disposal.”

  Olivia...was going to be furious with me.

  Chapter Fourteen: We're Doing What?

  “Hey, Olivia?” I asked as I shut the door to our room and batted at the calming spell trying to attach to me.

  She inclined her chin to show me she was listening. Best to lead with something besides 'I visited Constantine and we are going to make a leech that will rob me of magic! Yay!’