The Protection of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  As Godfrey turned back to face the active holograms, Mike and I focused harder on our enchantments. We weren't going to be in time for whatever Godfrey was about to do, but we were close, and we had to keep going.

  “An appetizer for you,” Godfrey said, his voice ringing out. “As your children, in this nice, fattened crowd we have collected here, experience what the Third Layer deals with daily—a loss of air and magic.”

  The dome rippled, and thousands of gasps and shouts resounded, then abruptly silenced. The silence was horrible. The scarves horrifyingly went silent with them. I felt the ripple of magic over my skin as the magic of the dome pressed down. I shuddered and concentrated.

  “Oh, already some casualties,” Godfrey mused aloud. “Dropping like flies in there. You aren't a very hardy lot in the Second Layer, are you? Hmmm...and the dwindling magic inside is making resurrections taxing for your best and brightest.”

  “Stop this, Vincent,” Constantine's father said, his voice steady even as the expression in his eyes was not. “This will not end well for you. This is a battle that can only be won politically, not through violence.”

  “Unlike the rest of the Alliance, you do practice what you preach, Stuart Leandred. Sacrificing your own revenge on the altar of politics has bought these students eighty seconds more. Ten seconds for each of your eight years of lost vengeance. What will you do with those eighty seconds? Will you save them?”

  He released the spell and air and magic filtered back into the dome.

  “Mike,” I said. There was no more time.

  Mike nodded jerkily and a thin breeze drifted between his fingers as the papers lifted.

  “Will, I need you to—” I pointed between the three of us, trying to convey my need. Will snapped forward and activated a lesser form of our magic share ritual. It would guide Mike to where the papers needed to go by using the intentions in my magic. And once the papers were locked in place, the dome would sustain itself.

  Olivia crouched at my side, legs in position, ready to run. “You do this, then we jump back to the Fifteenth Circle immediately,” she said grimly. She closed her eyes, and without waiting for our response, touched her scarf, activating it again. “Alpha is implementing on the Seventeenth. Ten seconds. We can wait no longer. Everyone get ready...and may Magic be our ally.”

  “What say you, Madam Price?” Godfrey taunted. “What is eighty seconds—seventy now—in the scale of our negotiations?”

  “You, and every Third Layer citizen will be held accountable for each death that happens today,” Helen Price said. “And we will find out who helped you.”

  Godfrey smiled at the eight faces. “That might prove an unpleasant surprise for some of you.”

  With Will's direction forming a conduit between the two of us, Mike lightly placed the first three papers.

  The gaze of the dangerous looking man—Stavros—who stood next to Helen Price abruptly shifted to look at the paper that had just settled into the north position. His posture stilled, making his projection static, then he immediately started scanning the grounds in a very dissecting and disquieting way. He didn't even pretend interest in the proceedings any more. He was trying to track the magic back to a source. A shiver of unease ran over me.

  The fourth paper hovered in place.

  “Shall we try our negotiations again, Council members of the Alliance?”

  Mike settled the fifth paper on top. I shut my eyes and activated the mental pyramid that would connect them.

  I wanted this. This would happen.

  And just like that, the magic of Kinsky's papers clicked into place, blazing gold. A smooth rumble of thunder sounded overhead, shuddering through me in response. Unlike the one beneath it, my protection dome felt right.

  “Go, go, let's go!” Olivia hissed and grabbed my arm. Delia, Neph, Will, and Mike were already up and running.

  Godfrey's gaze snapped to the dome and one of his minions sent a line of copper magic toward it. As soon as the line touched, the man dropped like a stone—like Marsgrove's secretary, cut from her strings.

  Fierce, primitive satisfaction made my knees shake as I sprinted toward the stump with my friends. The ten thousand students at the battle field were secured. I could hear voices shouting and cheering in my head via my scarf. It was only three small jumps back up and a sprint to the Administration Building. We could make it. We could save everyone.

  The stump—our exit out—exploded. And Delia, who had been vaulting toward it, flew backward into Mike.

  Chapter Thirty-four: Demons from a Checkered Past

  The grove burst around us. Rose, silver, and gold leaves rained upon our skin. The sunlight reflected the shimmers and the leaves fell almost in slow motion. It would have been beautiful in any other event.

  I pulled all magic back into my shield set. Voices in the scarves stuttered.

  A force hooked around my waist and violently tugged. I went flying back through the air, my friends along with me. Mike cut his hand downward through the unnatural wind current and we abruptly dropped fifteen yards from Godfrey's feet. It was only the barest bit better than at Godfrey's feet.

  “What do we have here.”

  The six of us drew together and rose, all shields active.

  “The Dare scion's pet,” Godfrey said, voice still magnified, eyes narrowed at me. “I was shown your face, but you were supposed to be taken care of.” He turned to four soldiers at his side. “One by one to four,” he said cryptically.

  Then he motioned abruptly to the minion who had gotten the communications up.

  Helen Price's virtual eyes narrowed briefly on her daughter, then the feeds to the outside world went abruptly dark—the eight holograms and all of the hijacked feeds vanished.

  “Don't worry,” Godfrey said, smiling unpleasantly at us. “We'll get them back online after you've been dealt with and after whatever miserably small magic you just put in place is removed. Then we'll make a proper example out of you. Until then, five units, go to Plan B. Verisetti may want to coddle whatever pets he has here, but I've wanted to obliterate this mountain for the longest time.”

  A hundred soldiers headed for the stairs to Sixteen.

  “Track them, Saf. Everyone, head to wherever they are going.” Olivia's mouth didn't move, but her voice echoed thinly through my scarf, dominating the panic that had taken hold through our communications.

  We really were all going to die.

  The trapped—now secured—students started emptying the stands, freed from whatever magic had kept them in their seats beneath the dome. Would they survive the destruction of the mountain? Droves of them ran to stand at the edges of the now-doubled dome. Some wore mystified expressions, many looked fiercely determined, and five in the front had distinctive scarves wrapped around their throats. They stared at us.

  There was no port—natural or mage activated—for us to run to.

  Bellacia and Inessa pushed forward to stand with our scarf-wearing members under the dome. Bellacia's narrowed gaze connected with mine.

  “Now why don't you start by telling me where you got that magic?” Godfrey said, striding our way, and forcing all attention back to him. Soldiers numbering in the hundreds spread out behind him, and two dozen were already moving to surround the six of us.

  “No,” Olivia said, and activated every “security” measure we had put into place on the Seventeenth—hoping to hinder the five units going to Plan B, hoping to give us time to get the hell out of our current predicament.

  Snares, compulsions, and nightmares burst upward. Music to ensnare the senses, dreams to trap the unwary, personal storms that hit and battered, impulses to sleep for a thousand years, false games that played against whoever tripped the magic, desires and unrequited needs forced up and demanding completion.

  We turned and ran, dodging through the illusions and traps. The nearest soldiers to us were immediately snared. Dozens more followed the first wave into nightmares. A hologram replaying the Freespar competitio
n was doing the best job, as a number of the soldiers thought the combat mages had suddenly appeared.

  But it was a fleeting win, and we had nowhere to go. We ran alongside the front face of the dome, hoping to move around it enough to put a curve between us and the enemy. Solemn faces watched us as we sprinted past. With the grove gone, the nearest natural port was now miles away. A shouted command from Olivia caused us to veer left as fire and lightning rained down on the troops. Our teams at the Magiaduct and Top Circle were working together to form the magic.

  But the soldiers were battle hardened fighters. They raised a stronger shield. And each fallen soldier was quickly revived and released by comrades. Five hundred soldiers accustomed to working and fighting together.

  And for all our planning, we had barely touched the Seventeenth Circle. Everyone lived and played on the top of the mountain, above the Midlands, most of the time. We had booby-trapped the hell out of the first six levels, expecting any huge monster fight to be held there. Hindsight was cruel.

  Mike went down first—was cut down in a long red arc—his shield like warmed butter to whatever knife had been cast. His thread snapped directly from my chest, leaving ice in its place. I touched my chest, trying to weave it back.

  Delia dropped to his side and immediately started resuscitation procedures.

  We surrounded them and put all energy into our shields.

  A spell bounced off mine, but Neph winced as something hit her arm. I stepped out front and pushed more magic into my shields, spreading them larger. A flurry of spells flew all at once, battering, testing, and threatening the mixed shield set gifted to me by enemies. Raphael and Marsgrove did excellent work. But even their magic would eventually fail.

  Godfrey threw none of the magic aimed our way. He simply stood in the midst of the barrage directing his forces.

  Voices shouted through the spells in the scarves, silent to Godfrey’s ears, but a cacophony in mine. Our allies fighting up top, those watching remotely through the brooch on Olivia's scarf, and the ones under the dome with a firsthand view were all yelling—directions, expletives, enchantments—punctuating the jarring barrage of magic hitting us.

  Godfrey cut a hand through the air and the onslaught stopped along with the steps of the soldiers.

  “Aren't you the little Excelsine spitfires, ready to join your comrades bathing in Third Layer blood. But that was merely a taste. A promise. Let's try my question again,” Godfrey said, gaze never leaving me, even though Olivia had been the one to answer in the negative the first time.

  Answer or die—his unvoiced message was clear.

  “No,” I said.

  In a slash of almond brown, a pinpointed slice of magic curved around my shield and Delia fell across Mike's chest. Her thread to me snapped too. Neph and Will immediately began resurrections on both as I tried to curve my shields around all of us.

  “Olivia, Ren, those units are heading to the Midlands. Do you copy?” Asafa yelled. “The processor in the—”

  “You won't be able to save them,” Godfrey said, smiling. “No matter what you do.”

  I blinked at the sudden white spots in my vision—born from fury at his confident words. The spots tunneled into a vortex and a too-crisp picture replaced my view. Emotion ceased.

  A cold smile rose in me, and from under my leather bracelet, I casually withdrew the stamp Constantine had given me for my birthday. I held it between my fingertips and rolled onto the balls of my feet. Equations and diagrams coldly snapped together with doodled schematics and intention.

  Throw magic my way, Vincent Godfrey, so that I may end you.

  “Ren,” Olivia said under her breath. “Your shields will hold for the time needed to reach Sixteen. You can run and make it. Go.” Abandon us and release the Administration Building, Olivia's voice urged silently through my scarf.

  I held still, poised and emotionless, my magic on the pinpoint of my mental pyramid. The twelve pictures I had drawn on the stamp material two nights ago, while Constantine had watched, were awaiting activation, depending on what I chose to do. And the single drop of paint I had placed inside swirled, waiting as well.

  Godfrey's gaze narrowed on Olivia, as if drawn there by her whisper. “Do my eyes deceive me? Is this the Price spawn standing before us? What a truly glorious day. We'll deal with you publicly.”

  Magic flashed from one of Godfrey's minions. Will fell, and the thread between us started to unravel. Seconds were ticking a cold, dead beat in my head, approaching one minute for Mike, thirty seconds for Delia, and ten for Will. Nine minutes remained on the ten minute resurrection clock.

  They would never make it if I ran to Top Circle. And there were plenty of public ways for Godfrey to make sure they could never be resurrected, no matter how much time remained for them.

  “Bring them back, Neph,” I said mechanically. “No matter what.”

  “Run!” Olivia's mental voice shouted.

  “I'm tired of waiting,” Godfrey warned. “I will give you a choice for how you die.”

  I had a choice. All I needed was a piece of the enemy's magic. Godfrey's magic. A key. And a personal taunt to get it. I activated the two wards I needed while pulling my fingers against my chest.

  “We don't deal with losers who can't even keep their Layer safe,” I said harshly.

  Godfrey threw the bolt instantly. A sweet citrus hue. I didn't care what horrible thing it was going to do. It was mine now.

  Fifteen other bolts flew with Godfrey's. The shifting chessboard settled into a single move.

  “Ren—!”

  I mentally released Kinsky's papers and the protective covering over the dome fell, leaving only Godfrey's dome behind.

  I whipped my hand to the left, then right and the stamp extended in both directions in front of us like liquid mercury soaring through the air before snapping into an eight-foot banner. The sixteen combined beams of magic were sucked inside, activating the first ward. I twirled like Neph had taught me to do in order to keep magic active and constant, and the banner snapped and recoiled into a ball that I immediately threw at the dome containing ten thousand of our classmates. Just like tossing footballs with Christian in the backyard.

  The second ward activated in the balled stamp and the mutable material grabbed Godfrey's magic—the magic that had been used to erect the dome, no matter if it was through a device—and thrust it to the surface of the ball alongside my drop of paint. The ball of magic hit the Origin Dome with a splat.

  Cracks immediately formed a spiderweb on its surface.

  Olivia shouted into her scarf and Neph pressed hands against Will's chest.

  The dome shattered. The mountain shook. Something split within me, sucking magic free as the magic in the dome mushroomed out. The enemy troops shouted. Shouted about Plan B. The Midlands.

  I made the magic mushrooming outward swirl upward, up, up, the mountain, then down into all of the Junior Department's boxes that Dare and I had tagged over the weeks—I twisted the magic, and flipped the box spells into projecting a barrier instead.

  “Holy shivittrails!” Trick's scarf voice yelled. “The Midlands have been shut! I repeat, nothing is getting in, and that includes magic. Backlashes already gathering around the edges, watch yourselves!”

  Someone yelled my name.

  Students were spilling out around us. Some started fighting. Some ran.

  The ones left behind simply stood, frozen in place.

  Olivia was screaming at them to move.

  And Godfrey...Godfrey looked as if he was being physically shattered as well with the dome's backlash. But through the pain—and as his soldiers started cutting through my classmates—he stared at me with an incomprehensible look on his face that slowly morphed into painful glee.

  “Grab her! Grab whatever device she is using!”

  He was swallowed from view and Olivia yanked me backward. I held out my hand and called Kinsky's papers to me.

  I felt Will's thread trying to snap back into pl
ace under Neph's sure hand. I saw Delia and Mike crawl—alive—into the surging crowd, leaving a trail of red behind.

  Emotion rushed back into me, abrupt, soaring...horrific.

  Students streamed around us, and everywhere, classmates fell.

  Parchment crinkled in my fist. Parchment which had been put in place to save every one of these people, but that now resided in my palm.

  Two girls fell to a flash of sapphire.

  A swirl of meringue blew a group of five off their feet. A slice of gunmetal cut across another. Slaughter. The colors shot around me in a dizzying and sick array of light and intent. Lime green cut off a boy's arm. Coconut burst into a dozen milky shards that pierced flesh.

  We were in the middle of Freespar, but this wasn't a war game people had signed up to play. It was a nightmare that shouldn't be happening. Not on campus.

  Sheer student numbers were winning in a few places—a group of soldiers went down in one particularly violent charge. But like Dare and the other top-flight combat mages had been able to do, the soldiers took out massive amounts of lesser opponents all at one time. Freespar had taken less than ten minutes, and this...

  I rejected the images, thoughts spiraling out and away from the carnage—and especially away from seeing the clear magic pulses that sliced through the air without warning. Magic hit my shields repeatedly, battering against them.

  The papers in my hand dropped to the ground as a bolt made it through and three of my fingers sliced free. A man ran toward me, hand raised to finish the deed. I drew back my foot and kicked a paper at him, sending magic through my toes to direct its path. It curled around his face and sucked him inside.

  The world tilted. Everything grew cold.

  A man beside me gutted a tiny blonde girl. She dropped like an unwanted doll cast aside. I scooped up a paper with my intact hand and screamed incoherently as I thrust my hand through the air and against his neck. I heard the crack as he was bent in two and ingested by the parchment. It fell from my hand.

  I stared down at the splayed girl, a crimson angel on the grass. I should have protected her.