The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  If that made them more lenient with his roommate, that leniency probably pissed Con off just as much as his father's influence.

  “So...you've never answered the door before,” I said, somewhat lamely.

  “Everyone knows not to look for me here. I wouldn't have answered it now, but I felt you on the other side.”

  I blinked, flustered. “Is there something set up in the room that allows that?” I really needed to read that how-to document for our room.

  “No.” His face was unreadable again. “Leandred knows when you are here?”

  “He always answers the door before I arrive.”

  His expression tightened, and he tapped his fingers against the door. “Are you going to wait for him or do you want to leave a message?”

  “Uh...”

  He watched me for a long moment, before coming to some decision. “Come in.” He held the door open. “I'm not sleeping anyway, and he usually drags himself in early, between midnight and two, when he has a Sunday session with Stevens.”

  I didn't want to sit around and wait for Constantine by making small talk with Dare—especially if it might take two hours—but my body didn't listen and my feet took me across the threshold. They then moved me toward the antique chair that was my favorite—the one that looked like the least comfortable option in the room. Initially, it had seemed like the best non-seduction chair in the area—straight-backed and armless. The chair was extremely uncomfortable looking, and I'd bet anything that I was the only one who ever sat in it.

  But looks were deceiving when it came to Constantine and his furniture choices, and he found petty delight in small things like making chairs that looked comfortable impossible to sit in for a long period of time, and vice versa. After a minute, the hard chair always conformed perfectly to my shape.

  “I'll just wait fifteen minutes,” I said, cursing whatever urge had made me enter. “You should sleep.”

  “You should get a frequency.”

  I sighed. “I know.” I started to sit.

  “Wait.”

  Dare waved his hand, and furniture I had never seen before appeared in the living room, replacing all of Constantine's pieces as if they didn't exist in Dare's world. Four leather club chairs appeared in a center circle instead of Constantine's large, imposing armchair that usually lorded over his visitors' far less comfortable ones. But their furniture choices had the same classic style. I found it oddly hilarious that instead of old and traditional versus sleek and modern or some such thing, both men showed similar taste.

  I completed my movement and sat in the deep, cozy chair. The magical leather instantly warmed.

  Dare paused and I could see something dark flit over his expression, then he waved a hand toward the door. I didn't try to track the clear magic. Dare's magic was hard to follow when I was at the best of my abilities. And after thirty hours of work, I wasn't even going to put in a token effort.

  I dropped my bag on the floor and tucked up into the club chair, leaning my head against the arm. Whatever mad urge had possessed me to enter the room had deserted me fully. This was going to be awkwardly epic, I could already tell.

  “So...you don't get involved in...?” I was trying to ask how he dealt with Constantine's many offenses. Constantine so often misbehaved that an entire Justice Tablet could be devoted to him. And Dare's rooms being raided because of his “living situation” made complete sense now.

  “I have nothing to do with student prosecution. Combat mages are responsible for defense and protection only. And I made it clear a long time ago that I would not be responsible for him in any way. It was just my luck first year to walk in here and see him.” He grimaced, leaning back in his chair.

  That seemed to indicate that they had known each other before coming to Excelsine. Maybe in one of the prep schools that most mages attended.

  “I deliberately bi-ward against anyone who is visiting him. I don't want to know who is here or why, and I make it so that they gain nothing about me. Not even a scent.” He tapped a finger on the arm of his chair and splayed back a little more, his gaze upon me. “The hallway, however, doesn't factor into that.”

  Warding against visitors or not, my magic must have known he was the roommate walking through the common areas. It had tried to reach out toward the person too many times.

  Great.

  I pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose and harshly smoothed them outward over my eyebrows, pushing against the gathering headache there.

  “Don't let him take advantage of your grief rebound,” he said, a little too rapidly.

  I blinked at him through my fingers. The expression on his face revealed that he hadn't meant to say that. It was a weird sort of role reversal—him blurting something out.

  “What?” I asked, confused, letting my hands drop. We had spent a lot of time together by this point, but I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He grimaced. “It's none of my business. That is exceptionally true. And you aren't Leandred's normal type of visitor. He never, and I do mean never, lets anyone into his workroom, but he's...” He waved a hand, grimacing again. “Let's just say that he's a really shitty roommate.”

  “What do you mean by grief rebound?”

  “Your boyfriend died.”

  “My what?” But my thoughts outpaced my mouth, like usual. He remembered.

  “Your...” His eyes narrowed, constricting with the same knowledge that forced my heart to feel as if it was being squeezed into a chest suddenly far too small. “Not your boyfriend then. Who was it?”

  “You remember,” I said, my voice far away. “When?” When had he realized? My mind tried to sort through memories looking for differences.

  “The search spell. As soon as you thrust your magic through mine, I knew. There's a difference between feeling and experiencing someone's magic. You felt familiar before, but the actual touch was the same as the essence of the broken, ordinary girl who fought on a street in the First Layer to get to her fallen companion.”

  “I hadn't Awakened then,” I murmured.

  He said nothing.

  “You heard me talking to the book in the library about not letting anyone else die,” I said just as absently, stitching past events together in my mind. “I received the firework the next morning. You sent the firework to me.”

  Even irritated with me for hitting him with the search spell, and for using an avoidance spell against him, he'd sent something anonymously to offer help. I stared into ultramarine eyes and swallowed heavily. This boy was always giving me a last, priceless moment, patching me up, unaware that the wounds he was healing went deeper than skin.

  He didn't acknowledge the gifting of the firework verbally, but I could see my guess was right.

  “Who was he?” he asked.

  “My brother. My twin.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  I nodded, and had to clear my throat. “I tried to bring him back to life all last term. That was all me. Everything on campus. It was unintentional, but still my fault.”

  I numbly met his gaze. There was nothing worse that I could admit to, except being leashed by Raphael. But...the firework. One more emotional piece that had mended something inside of me. He had anonymously given me that healing. I clasped my hands together to stop them from shaking.

  “I know,” he said quietly. Leaning back, he watched me through half-open eyes. “Not that you were trying to resurrect anyone, but that you were somehow responsible for the magic imbalance. It wasn't hard to put two and two together after our first few outings.”

  Which is why making friends was the most dangerous thing I could do in this world. Everyone always guessed. I practically served myself up on a platter. Raphael had told me months ago to seek out allies, not friends. But I couldn't regret my choices when they had brought me what I had now.

  “Why haven't you done anything?” I asked.

  “About what?”

  “About me. I'm a threat to the school.”

/>   He laughed. It was not a happy sound. “So is everyone enrolled here, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.”

  I looked into his eyes. The same cautiousness they always contained was present.

  He looked away, then pulled himself up. “Since you are here, I have something for you.”

  He walked toward his warded room, passing close to my chair. I leaned over and caught his forearm before I could lose the courage. His muscles rippled under my fingers. He turned and I looked him in the eye. The color of his eyes swallowed me in Last Judgment blue, and redemption mixed together with the touch of skin.

  “Thank you.” My fingers pressed slightly, echoing the sentiment non-verbally. “You don't know what it meant to me to...” Have that last moment with Christian, to feel that last meeting of warm skin. And at the festival, to launch that firework.

  “You wouldn't have been trying to get to him so forcefully and brokenly, if it didn't mean so much. Your actions prompted mine. Determination and loyalty.” He leaned toward me, and the action forced my fingers to move around the band of his arm. “Why do you think I wanted you working on my team so much?”

  I swallowed. “To keep an eye on me?”

  He stepped back and I released my grip. “Trouble follows you, Ren Crown. But so do other things.”

  The front door opened and I looked over my shoulder. Constantine strolled in wearing a fitted, charcoal, full-length wool coat. The tall collar wrapped around his throat and buttoned up to his chin. His lip curled unpleasantly as he saw the changes wrought to the living room. He tossed the hair from his eyes and moved toward the bedroom, his long stride unhurried. He ignored Dare and his gaze sped over me with little interest.

  Then he stopped cold, his gaze backtracking and freezing on me. He tried to cover his surprise by looking down and flicking his fingers over his frame. His long coat unbuttoned, slipped from under his bag, and peeled off his arms, disappearing completely as it rolled into itself.

  In the quarter of a moment that the removal took, his gaze rose and his expression was completely under control again. He posed, unmoving, his bag still slung over the shoulder of his gray shirt, looking at Dare, who now had his back to me. Constantine's eyes were iced caramel. “Well, well. Whatever do we have here?”

  “Hey,” I said, a little lamely in the tense atmosphere. And seriously...why had no one told me they were roommates?

  Constantine tipped his head to me, but his gaze was completely fastened on Dare. And as Dare backed up and casually dropped back into his chair—delaying whatever he had been planning to retrieve for me—Dare's expression was dark and anticipatory.

  Constantine swung his bag toward his workroom. The door opened to accept it, then slammed shut after it was through. The casual use of magic and the crackling in the air indicated damage was about to occur. Constantine flicked his hand toward the chairs and I could feel the fight in the very fabric of the air as he tried to change Dare's enchantment. The magic tugged back and forth, nearly screeching, then with a crack, the two extra chairs disappeared and Constantine's chair appeared, forming a closed triangle.

  Constantine folded into his seat, but there was an energy vibrating under his skin. He kept his hands on the arms of the chair, but the fingers of his left hand twitched ever so slightly as if he wanted his black ribbon in them. It was nowhere to be seen, though, and for some reason that seemed purposeful.

  He lazed back in his seat, crossing his long legs. “Well, I didn't anticipate such fun this evening. And just when I thought I was almost rid of you.” He looked at Dare, his gaze far too casual, his fingers drumming against the chair's arm. “Casting a suppression spell on the door? Devious. Do your handlers know their uptight wonder boy has such a slick side?”

  There was a tight tension underlying the lines of Dare's body too, but he kept his words just as casual. “Does Daddy know you have taken an interest?”

  Rage flashed across Constantine's face, then was chased into studied insouciance. “And here I thought you had all of those lovely little spells in place to ignore whatever I did. If I had known you were so interested, I would have spun you a lovely tale of poison.”

  “You two sleep in the same room?” I blurted out, unable to hold it in. “And are still alive?”

  “Amazing isn't it, my level of saintly patience?” Constantine said, still not looking away from his roommate.

  This then completely and definitively explained Olivia's acceptance of me as a roommate in the first place, and old magic users' “means to an end” philosophy in strengthening their magic.

  I pressed a hand to my forehead. “Okay. I came to talk about—” No, I couldn't say anything about that in front of Dare. “Then I had a thought on—” No, I couldn't say anything about that in front of Constantine.

  Train wreck. That was the only description that sufficed.

  I waved my hand around. “Both of your projects are progressing. I should go.” I put a hand on the strap of my bag.

  “Darling, no. Stay. This is about to become most interesting.”

  “Interesting, like, hey, we have common interests, let's discuss them? Or interesting in the multiple ways that blood can splatter?” I asked weakly.

  Constantine tilted his head as if contemplating the matter. “More of the latter, I think.”

  Dare didn't respond, but he was far too still. The kind of stillness that preceded explosive destruction.

  “Oh, my God,” I said feebly. “Could you two be any more of a Superhero/Supervillain cliché?”

  “Alexander prefers 'villain' for his own designation. I, however, will retain my super status, thank you, Ren.”

  “Con...why...what...how...? I'm going to kill you,” I said.

  “You will not. You indulge far too many of my games. More than is good for you.”

  “Kill.”

  “Well, if you really must, it will be my preferred method of death, coming from your hand.”

  “Feel free to begin at any time,” Dare said in a far too casual manner, leaning back nonchalantly.

  Dorm One was not going to survive the night. I was about to watch an explosion of gorgeous body parts. I mean...it was a wonder their room hadn't already imploded due to the sheer level of hotness it contained. It seemed like a room should have an attractiveness quotient.

  I realized that I might have said that out loud at the same time that I registered that they were both staring at me.

  “Oh, would you look at the time?” I said, and bolted from my chair. “Good luck on the bloodshed. Gotta go!”

  Strategic retreat? No. Wise course of action? Most definitely, yes.

  Chapter Thirty-one: Plan Fifty-Two

  I tried to maintain an air of nonchalance the next morning as I followed Dare on our last round together. He wisely said nothing about the awkwardness that was our three-way meeting the previous evening, but he seemed cheerful in a way that made me think maybe I'd check on Constantine later and bring bandages.

  Having an actual conversation about the previous night would have induced a small panic attack on its own, but worse than that, Dare was leaving campus in three hours. Leaving campus and expecting me to have everything completely in hand. He was leaving me here alone in three hours and I was freaking out.

  “So, what if I just wear a camera and do rounds and then you can watch those?” I was proud of the well-modulated sarcasm I had included to hide my terror.

  “You are going to journal me each night with your observations? Good thinking.” He turned and started walking toward the exit point.

  “What?” I hurried to catch up. “I was being sarcastic and I didn't say anything about writing to you.”

  “It's a good idea.”

  “I don't want to journal you every night!”

  “Why not? Am I so distasteful?”

  “What? No, that's not what I—” I saw his smirk and let out a sigh. “Just...fine. I'll do it. Don't expect Shakespeare.”

  He cast me an askance glance
. “It will be fine. You won't let anything happen to campus.”

  I flung my hands into the air in a complicated gesture meant to show my complete incompetence and terror. “I am the antichrist of this campus. What were you thinking?”

  He laughed and watched his dragon and phoenix swoop together overhead.

  “Everything will work out just fine. And when I get back, we'll have a very interesting discussion,” he murmured. There was something very unsettling in the way the edges of his eyes crinkled.

  ~*~

  “Ren, you look terrible,” Olivia said at dinner, 6.2 hours after Dare and the rest of the combat mages abandoned campus. “You should go to bed early. Gaming is unnecessary, I already told you.” She looked a little too eager to avoid going to Asafa and Patrick's.

  “What? No. We have been practicing. We are totally going to do battle with my creations and take Trick to the cleaners. Saf's going to help. And I'm fine.” I bit the end of a fraying fingernail nearly in half. “Fine. Hurry up and finish.”

  Olivia had promised that she would do a focus spell on me after lunch. I needed that spell. Dare's energizing spell had worn off two hours ago and I had to get back out on the grounds.

  A quick circuit around campus, then I'd do some quick, quick gaming for Olivia's sake, then I'd get back out there again for another circuit.

  “That salad looks really delicious,” I said, pushing it closer to her.

  Will slowly put down his hoagie. “You do look a little green around the skirk gills, Ren.”

  “I'm fine.” I stared at Olivia's bowl, willing the leaves to launch into her mouth so we could leave. I pushed her bread roll closer. “Eat.” Maybe the water would do it. I pushed her glass closer. “Drink.”

  “Is this where we call the men with the white coats?” Mike asked. “Isn't that what the non-magical world does?”

  “Yes. I mean, no,” I said. Olivia hated olives, but always ate a few in her salads because of their nutritional value. They always took the longest for her to eat. While she was looking at Mike, I lifted the three black spheres from her bowl with magic and wrapped the olives in my napkin. “I mean, yes, that is what they do. No, I don't need the men with the white coats.”