The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Unless they would help me take down rogue monsters and villains. Would straitjackets work as a defense?

  “You're making less sense than usual, Ren.” Mike pointed his fork at me. “Will does this when he is stressed.”

  “Stressed? If we are pointing stressed fingers,” I pointed sharply at Will, then Olivia, “how come no one told me that Alexander Dare and Constantine Leandred are roommates?”

  Will blinked. Olivia frowned. Neph waved a gentle hand trying to even the group atmosphere.

  “What do you mean, no one told you?” Olivia asked. “You are over there all the time, or with one or the other of them.”

  “You didn't know they were roommates?” Will's voice came out in an incredulous squeak as he stared at me.

  “Everyone knows,” Olivia said, now frowning in disbelief.

  “No, everyone did not know.”

  Delia's laughter rang out as she sat down. “Oh that just begs the question of how you found out then. Full details.”

  Mike shook his head. “Seriously, Crown? Only you.” He looked at Will. “And maybe Will.”

  “Hey!” Will said.

  Olivia narrowed her eyes at me. “Is that why you look terrible?”

  “I'm just making sure campus is safe.” I waved a wild hand. “I have to do that, you know? I have to watch and make sure nothing weird is happening and that no creature gets in and rampages the grounds. And that the people temporarily guarding us don't keel over while the combat mages are away.” It all came out perhaps a little more maniacally then I meant it to. “And I will do it! I have it under control! I'm fine.”

  Everyone at the table except for Olivia stared at me, mouths opened and food forgotten.

  Olivia nodded briskly, lips tight, as if this entire conversation reinforced something she had been thinking. “I thought this might happen.” She magically took a note on her pad. “We are implementing Plan Fifty-two.”

  Her brisk certainty broke through my spiraling thoughts. “What?”

  “It is the optimal solution for your health and well-being.” She nodded sharply again. “I don't have to like how much you are taking upon yourself, but since there is nothing I can do to make you stop caring, I can do this.”

  “I'm fine. I'm great! Just hurry up and eat, then spell me. Quick. Hup to it.”

  I nudged her roll closer. Though...if she ate it, I calculated that it would cost us at least forty-five more seconds. I grabbed the roll and stuffed it in my mouth.

  Olivia nodded aggressively again. That nod meant that she thought I was behaving irrationally and she wouldn't be convinced otherwise.

  Self-preservation kicked in. I swallowed the roll with difficulty, my throat dry. If Olivia thought I was being irrational, then she might knock me out and take me back to our room.

  A smile pulled painfully on my cheeks. “You are right. There's no hurry.” Hurry! “Take your time. Eat. Then we will go after,” I said, attempting a soothing tone but producing something like “strangled raccoon chatter” instead.

  Mike had a weird little smile hovering around his lips and he was scrutinizing Olivia like he was seeing her for the first time. “Plan Fifty-two?”

  Olivia looked at her list. “Plan Fifty-one isn't enough, and Fifty-three has too much fire power.” She nodded decisively, looking up. “Fifty-two.”

  We all stared at her. Mike was still smiling. Delia's expression was completely unreadable.

  “What plan, Olivia?” Will asked, almost gently, in the way one might address a mental patient.

  Wait. I looked at him suspiciously. That was the tone they had been using on me for the past few minutes.

  “Not here.” Olivia was briskly magicking line items on her pad. “Your assignments will be sent and we will meet in our room tonight at...eight. Yes, eight.” She nodded at her pad. “You are all free at eight.”

  “You have all our schedules in there?” Mike asked.

  Olivia looked at him blankly. “Of course.”

  Mike looked astonished.

  “Oh, please,” I scoffed. “Of course she has them. She has all your transcripts too, don't think she doesn't.” I looked at Olivia. “Now that we have that all settled. Eat?”

  Olivia took a slow bite.

  “You are deliberately messing with me,” I said a little desperately.

  She pressed down on my hand and I could feel her concentrate on the connection between us. She gave a tentative push—it was the first time she had pushed a feeling to me like this since the stomach sickness weeks ago. “Calm down, Ren.” The push became more assured as I accepted it without reserve. “It will be fine.”

  “Yes, that's what I keep repeating.” But for the first time in 6.3 hours, I actually believed it.

  ~*~

  Our room was packed at eight that evening. The game tourney had made spreading the word easy. And the expulsion procedures the Troop had begun implementing made students eager to gather and discuss options. It was rather amazing how many delinquents responded to the call. They hovered in chairs near the ceiling and around the edges of the room, creating an intimate amphitheater effect.

  According to Olivia, we were only waiting for two more.

  “Barbarians,” she muttered.

  I held back my smile with difficulty as Olivia answered the knock on our door.

  Patrick's head popped in a moment later. He immediately brightened as he entered. “Our fellow delinquents,” he greeted, inclining his head to me then to the others in the room. “And the Queen.” He gave Olivia a little bow. Her fingers were gripping the door knob so tightly that I thought she might crush it.

  Patrick turned his head and stage-whispered over his shoulder. “Her Highness answered the door for us, Saf.”

  Asafa pushed him inside, easily following behind. “It is good to see you, Your Highness.”

  Olivia's lips tightened. “It's either Your Majesty to go with Queen or Your Highness to go with the title of Princess. Pick one. Better yet, pick neither.”

  “Never a princess.” Patrick looked horrified. “You are too commanding and worthy of exaltation already.”

  Patrick sounded so serious. My smile broke through along with a giggle. Olivia gave me a look as if my reaction was a betrayal of the deepest kind.

  I poked her with magic.

  She sighed. It tickled me that these two could get to her so well. They liked to buzz around her when we visited them. Setting her feet up on a tuffet, getting her tea in china cups. Visiting was always hilarious.

  On a serious note, they had paused their weekly game tournament for an entire hour so that we could do this. They had glibly cited eating needs, but I'd bet anything that neither took as much as a five-minute break usually. Pizza could be shoved down eighteen-year-old throats in less.

  Olivia reiterated what she had said to everyone who had stepped through the door. “You received your notes and are here, so you accept this assignment and the offered payment for your service?”

  Two mismatched grins greeted her. “Absolutely. We have the most fantastic idea for a campus snare.”

  She nodded and marked something on her list. “Excellent.”

  As it turned out, in a room full of rule breakers and delinquents, a lot of people had fantastic ideas for ways to cause mayhem, especially after Olivia assured them that if the campus were under attack and we implemented the plan, that full responsibility would fall on our shoulders, not theirs. After it became known that Olivia and I would be taking all judicial punishment, we had to rein in the bloodthirsty nature of their campus protection suggestions. But bloodthirsty, or not, we jotted down every single one.

  “We will create five teams—Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon—and split personal and technical skills between the five.” Olivia kept charge of the meeting, moving it right along. “Olivia, Ren, William, Delia, Michael, and Nephthys on Alpha. Saf, Trick, Lifen, Bryant, Kita, and Dagfinn on Beta. On Gamma—”

  I tuned Olivia partially out as she went down th
e long list of mages. My team, the Alpha team, was comprised of the people who knew most of my secrets, and who would protect that knowledge.

  Everyone started talking and throwing out ideas.

  “We can combine a number of our specialties and strengths and create some seriously wicked magic,” Patrick said.

  I thought of the combat qualifier and how each of the individuals in Dare's group had competed against each other using their own specialties, but how their real power increased when they worked together as a unit, as they had when fighting the Bone Beast last term. That's what we needed to do. Create fighting teams for campus protection. Units that combined individual specialties to render maximum destruction.

  “We should set up a separate communication network. Unattached to the Frequency Grid. Never know who is listening,” Dagfinn, a twenty-one year old paranoid communications mage and frequency hacker, said. “We don't want to be hammered by some sketchy ops group or one of those idiots who thinks they are fast tracking to the Department.”

  “We can embed a communication link in something wearable. Keep all communications in the loop. Infinity scarves?” Lifen, a seamstress, nodded to herself, as if the decision was made, and turned to Delia. No one argued, and they started discussing construction, fashion, trickery, and destruction.

  Destruction was definitely a strength of the people in this room.

  I was never going to be the fiercest fighter. However, I could be a tricky one. I could use my strengths to get myself out of a situation and help friends who were in one.

  Using my magic, Raphael could make the earth swallow people whole, and could force space to close around others. Such actions caused immediate backlashes, and Layer tremors that I didn't yet know how to avoid, but they were possibilities in my asset bag.

  And all those around me right now could be just as tricky.

  As the group argued, discussed, and manically suggested ideas and counter recommendations, for the first time since Dare left, I felt if it were attacked, that campus might be okay.

  ~*~

  Constantine had rolled his eyes when I'd told him about Plan Fifty-two and how the team planned to disrupt, disable and neutralize any creature security breach if it occurred, until the combat mages could get back. He called us morons. Olivia hadn't even, at any point, tried to include him in the plan, and she had been against me telling him. But I nudged Constantine into participating anyway—a team of one, reporting directly to me on the Alpha communication loop.

  Dare, on the other hand, was delighted about Plan Fifty-two. I briefed him on every aspect of it via hologram journal that night.

  The magic in the journals echoed the feeling of his absolute satisfaction, and his words to the other combat mages in the library that first day back on campus resounded in the back of my mind.

  Overlooked assets.

  He had deliberately chosen me. He had wanted this group to form.

  Olivia's previous warning came to mind—members of the Dare family always have a plan. The words echoed, along with the feeling that I was doing everything according to Alexander Dare's.

  I waited until Olivia got into the shower, then lunged toward her desk. Everyone had a plan, and I had a contingency.

  Fumbling quickly with the newest chip leech and the cocoon on her desk, I pressed the two magics in my creations together. Closing my eyes and concentrating, focusing and pushing, the magic from the chip seeped out and into the cocoon, making the cocoon glow forest green for a moment.

  The chip was a leech, but the cocoon connected directly back to my magic. I had just leashed myself.

  Tucking the empty chip back into my pocket, I hurried back to my side of the room and grabbed my tablet as Olivia emerged, already magically dressed for bed.

  Trying not to blurt out what I'd done, I fiddled with my tablet and babbled to her about all the traps we had placed and the diabolical nature of some of the minds at our school.

  So many plans—perceived and invisible—were in motion now, and it just remained to be seen who would be left standing in the end.

  “Ren, stop fretting,” Olivia said as she tucked herself in.

  I let my head hit my pillow and stared at the ceiling. “Are you sure about this? Fifty-two? It's a lot of work for one week,” I said.

  “It is helping you.”

  I chewed on my fingernail. “I don't want you to sacrifice your free time just to relieve my anxiety.”

  Olivia didn't say anything for a moment, then I could feel her move magic along the wards that connected to me. “Ren, being your friend is never a sacrifice.”

  I touched the wall, sending magic back. “Good night, Liv.”

  Chapter Thirty-two: Appetizer to Destruction

  Even though Dare was gone and the Troop was in charge, I wasn't free of squad work, and Emrys cornered me for rounds every day.

  Dare despised and distrusted him more than he did the other Troop members, and I knew I should feel the same way. There was no doubt in my mind that Emrys was out to get me in some way—even if it was only to expose me as a feral or rare mage to campus at large. But the odd familiarity and occasional comfort that he exuded, messed with my mind and made me want to trust him.

  As such, I tried to limit my time with him as much as possible. Fifteen more minutes with Emrys and his disorienting presence, then I could check in with the people with whom I really wanted to case campus.

  Asafa, Patrick, Will, and I had been working together to create a hex that when activated would hit any “tagged” creature and suck them inside the nearest arch. Will had created a way to make the tag alert in a particular manner, and a few of the other plan members had contributed jinxes to zap anything registering as “tagged.” Campus was going to be littered with those spells by the end of the day. Hopefully, any beast terrorizing campus that got away from the Troop would just need to be tagged by us, and then be taken care of in a series of blasts—after being sucked from arch to arch.

  Since I couldn't just suck creatures into papers around campus—not if I wanted to continue to breathe free air—this made a wonderful backup plan, in case we had another bone beast type of incident.

  Bless Olivia, for saving my sanity with Plan Fifty-Two.

  Emrys held out a companionable hand to my shoulder. “So, Ren—may I call you Ren?”

  I gave him a quick nod and extricated myself from his touch, trying not to yawn. Doing rounds with Emrys exhausted me.

  “How long have you been at Excelsine?”

  It was a question he had asked before, in a different way. I repeated my cover story about transferring from Four Corners.

  “I have quite a few friends on the faculty of Four Corners.”

  “A lot of people do.” I showed a little bit of tooth with my smile.

  As we checked the strength of the perimeter security, I concentrated on one ward in particular. The ward that sealed off the Eighteenth Circle from the Nineteenth—and all the levels below—was so depleted in strength, that its color was nearly transparent. I marked its location and sent a note through Justice Toad to Mbozi's most advanced warding class. Students in the class rotated as the on-call mage for campus wards, and whoever was on-call would have the Department-initiated ward back to full strength within the hour and would issue an administrative report on what had caused the problem so it could be patched going forward.

  “I must say, that is a truly beautiful scarf you’re wearing again today, Ren.”

  I smiled and touched the scarf automatically. It was beautifully made, and loaded with the communication spells Delia and Lifen had woven in with their quick and dexterous seamstress' hands the night before last. Looping us all together, when needed. A few of the more quirky members of the group had already been using them for small group tricks that wouldn't actually register as campus offenses.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I'm helping out with a friend's fashion project this week.”

  It was our standard line.

  My smile fel
l as I looked at the ward again, and I frowned. It bothered me that it looked so fragile. I had checked it yesterday and it had been fine—and it should have been checked by at least three other patrols already today. I scrolled JT, looking through the checklist program that had been put into place just for this week. All previous Justice Squad patrols had checked it off as “normal.”

  It was possible some magic spike from campus had interfered—or something from the resident and business levels below. My fingers were already itching to grab the administrative report the on-call mage would produce.

  This wasn't a Red Alert problem. Not yet. The Administration Alarms hadn't sounded, and the other campus security measures hadn't kicked in like they would if someone breached the perimeter. The ward was still working. I shouldn't really be as bothered as I was feeling. In order for a threat to get in, someone would have to disable a number of other security measures before tearing through this one. Such events were highly unlikely.

  Still, I sent another more urgent note to the on-call mage to take care of it posthaste.

  “Look at you, taking security so seriously. So devoted,” Emrys said.

  He sauntered next to me as I forced myself to move on to the next checkpoint. Emrys checked nothing, obviously not caring one whit about the safety of campus. Emrys had attended a different school—Dare had read his transcripts and given me the basics—so in addition to having zero professional concern, he also had no personal loyalty to campus. But unlike some of the other Troop members who still got turned around on campus and regularly took the wrong arches, Emrys always seemed to know where he was and where to go. Likely juiced with an Administration spell from one of the staffers he courted.

  He even looked physically brighter than he had a minute ago—like he had ingested a sun spell that made him glow from the inside. I blinked and shook my head. He must have cloaked himself when the last crowd of students had walked by, then poorly removed the cloak. The Troop was so weird sometimes while trying to integrate into the student population. Everyone knew who they were. If they thought they were some secret fighting force, they were seriously bad at their job.