The Rise of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  I examined him, suddenly tense. “You seemed pretty confident that Marsgrove was going to prevail. What are you saying?”

  “I'm leaving in thirty minutes. You will be under Leandred's influence for days. I know him. And I know you. He's a viper you choose to pet like a stray cat.”

  “Why don't you just stick trackers on us. Everyone else has.”

  “I can already track him. And you too,” he said, with a pointed look in my direction. “With both of you in one place, it's child's play.”

  “That's...weird.”

  “No weirder than those animated rocks in your workshop that carry pencils as weapons while they case the premises.”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it. “Fair enough.”

  The door opened.

  Constantine strode into the room, expression still that combination of smug self-satisfaction that he had exited with.

  “Sacrifices were made, and dear Daddy is over-the-moon at being able to grant a request. All systems go.”

  I frowned. “You went to see your father?” I checked the magic on him, probing the connections that were still vibrantly displayed. He looked fine.

  “Here.” Axer threw something to Constantine.

  Constantine caught the band in the air, and turned it over in his fingers. “Astrophene. How modern.”

  “Too complicated for you, Leandred?”

  “Only in the way that it doesn't allow me to choke you with it. Such a limiting material,” Constantine mused.

  Axer ignored him and walked into the bedroom. “This one's mine.” He looked at me and pointed at the bed closest to the door.

  “Er, okay. Looks great?”

  “The charade will require multiple parts, if implemented.” He looked as if he'd swallowed a lemon. He pulled a shirt from atop the comforter. “And you'll both heal faster with you jacked into them.”

  I stared at his bed, then back at him. “What?” What charade?

  He looked impatient. “Tell me immediately, if you leave.”

  “Yes?”

  “It's not a question, Ren.”

  “Yes.”

  He reached out and palmed the back of my neck, pulling me closer and making me miss a heartbeat. “If you let Leandred leech you in order to untangle your magic completely, I will destroy him.”

  Heart thumping, I examined his expression. He was entirely serious. Smart of him. To threaten Constantine's welfare instead of mine.

  “That goes for anyone, do you understand?”

  I nodded, reluctantly. It would have been a pretty good plan.

  “Do not listen to him, darling. There is little he can do to—”

  Axer's hand dropped from me, and Constantine abruptly stopped speaking. I turned to see him standing in place, throat working as if someone was slowly cutting off his air. His hand made an aborted motion toward his throat, then curled, as if he wouldn't give his opponent the satisfaction.

  Dare's expression was entirely forbidding as he looked at his roommate.

  “Make it easy,” Dare said to him, voice coaxing.

  “Axer?” I said, putting a hand on his arm.

  Freed of the hold, Constantine took a large breath and smiled dangerously at Dare. “Scurry on, now. You have a competition to win.”

  I thought Constantine might die, in that moment.

  I stepped quickly between them. “Wow, okay. That promise on limiting bloodshed, it's still in effect, right?”

  Tall as they were, I didn't provide much interference for their lines of sight. But after a moment, Axer looked down at me. The death promised in his eyes lessened.

  I patted him. “Yay. Okay.” Then pulled him toward the side of the room.

  With one hand on him—worried he'd obliterate Constantine, if I let go—I dug out the last paper rose. I'd kept a single one. Infused with fond memory.

  I handed it to him, sending a burst of affection and continued health through our connection threads.

  His mouth quirked and his lethal look fled completely. “I accept your token,” he said, in a parody of what I'd said to him weeks ago when we'd been testing with the Troop.

  “Thanks, again, for...” My hands automatically formed like they were holding a sphere, then nervously clasped together.

  “You are welcome, Ren,” he said, voice soft.

  A bell dinged and he shouldered his bag and walked to the door. He gave us each very separate—and loaded—looks, then disappeared into the hall.

  I let out a breath, and ran a shaky hand through my hair, refocusing on Constantine.

  “You.” I pointed at him.

  His expression was still dark, but he quirked a brow. “Is now when my promised beating occurs?”

  “Ugh.” I rubbed my temples, then threw out a hand. “What were you thinking?”

  “Shall I be scared of Alexander Dare too, just like you? Darling, don't give him the power,” he said derisively.

  “I'm not scared of him. But you don't go poking wild animals,” I hissed. “The two of you are more feral than I am. Metaphorically!”

  He picked imaginary lint from his shirtsleeve. “You don't like it when wild dogs fight over you?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That isn't what this is. Why do you hate each other? When did you stop being best friends?”

  The flinch told me all I needed to know.

  “I'm right,” I said, horrified.

  He showed his teeth under a slashing smile. I knew what was going to happen next. He was going to unload everything, all cannons firing. And it wasn't going to be pretty.

  Quickly, I reached out and put my hand on the bend in his arm. “No. I'm sorry.” I closed my eyes and focused on the connection threads, pushing friendship and regret across them.

  When I opened my eyes, his expression was completely different.

  He looked worse, completely like someone who had been on the edge of death twenty-four hours ago—and less like someone magically reconstructed to nearly full strength. “I will break you, Ren,” he said, voice heavy. “You need to understand that.”

  “It's okay,” I said, soothingly, like how I used to coax Christian back into form after a game loss. “We'll be fine.”

  Constantine rubbed a lock of my hair between his thumb and forefinger. “You think people want to be friends with you, Ren.”

  “We are friends.”

  “Old magic users don't make friends with powerful game pieces, Ren. Families like the Dares have allies. They see your potential and what they can do with it. All without planning to make you an equal in the process.”

  I smiled, a tight smile. I could read between the lines of what he was saying. “We are friends. That is predicated on the assumption that you enjoy my company, like I enjoy yours. If your definition of friendship differs, that is fine. I can still use mine.”

  His fingertips pressed together tightly, the tips whitening. “I'll ruin you. If Alexander doesn't do it first.”

  “Of course. You are my friend,” I said gently. “I've given you that power.”

  ~*~

  I slumped against the closed door fifteen minutes later.

  My magic was still tangled. I was no closer to reaching Olivia. Alexander Dare and Constantine Leandred were the bane of my existence. And Dare was right, with what he had said earlier.

  I put my head in my hands and massaged my temples.

  I trusted people, and then did whatever they wanted me to do. I liked doing things for my friends. It made me happy.

  But it wasn't necessarily conducive to good long term decision making.

  I'd really enjoyed having Olivia field everything last term. Having Axer do it.

  I just needed to question things a little more. And do risk assessments.

  I shuddered.

  And Constantine...I didn't know how to help him. He was like my magic—twisted and burned and explosive.

  I shared all those thoughts with Neph as I sat in a chair in the middle of her room. Her roommate was off with her boyfri
end, leaving us blessedly alone.

  She tilted her head. “You do trust rather easily. But you have good instincts.” She danced in a circle around me, arms swaying, magic lighting the edges of her room and helping to shore up the wards around me that she had been placing for months. Each turn eased some of the broken bits in me. “I don't think you make those trust decisions without basis.”

  I hugged her pillow to my chest and watched her dance. She swooped around me, then swooped back into view. “Do you think I can trust my own decisions?”

  She twirled again, and extended a leg upward. Magic shot from her pointed toes to the ceiling wards, bouncing down in a direct line toward me. “Yes. But I suppose this is what your Mr. Dare was referencing when he said you rely on others to make decisions for you sometimes. What do you think?”

  I pulled my viewer into position and set it to tune in to the three most popular feeds, then to triangulate them. Living with Bellacia had taught me a few things about news spells.

  As expected, the combat mages leaving the Magiaduct were on display. An arch had been set up on top of the Magiaduct, to cleanly and quickly escort the combat mages to Top Campus. The Magiaduct would be opening ten minutes after the combat mages were through, so most of the students had queued in the ground floor common areas, shifting on both feet, waiting to be released.

  I watched the combat mages file through the arch. Cheers were blaring in the background of the feed, but something told me that it was an overlaid sound. The people in view were entirely too white-lipped—their eyes only on escape from the prison of our dorm.

  “I think, I need to manage some of my stress,” I said, finally, taking in all the faces shifting across the viewer. “And take back some control. What about you?”

  Neph looked at me in question. “Me?”

  “Will was worried. And I know you are keeping things from me,” I said as lightly as I could. There was an insistent feeling in the back of my mind that I kept forgetting something, in regards to this, but I couldn't remember what. “I want to help.”

  “You already are.” She gracefully sat on a padded stool. “I was sanctioned officially months ago. It's a light death sentence for many muses. We rely heavily on community. When I was...released...from Sakkara, it was due to family politics. A trickle down.” She shrugged at my enraged expression. “We are influenced by our communities, and it is assumed that we are one with them.”

  “That's unfair.”

  “To someone used to doing her own thing, it would seem the most grievous of unfairness. Most muses are not used to being on their own.” She looked out the window, into the distance. “I was sanctioned again yesterday.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It matters little.” A small smile worked over her lips. “They can do little to me now that would matter to me. It's a perk of being your muse.”

  “Because of the Origin Mage thing?”

  “More because of how you are than what you are. You've given me freedom.”

  I sat up straighter and pushed the news feeds closed. “What happens, if I get caught or taken? What happens to you?”

  “It depends. It is one of the reasons the elders give for not becoming attached to a specific mage. Certain authorities can use a connection as an in to the community. We already have heavy restrictions placed against us.”

  A knock on the door captured both of our attention, and answering it produced a harried looking mage who had two dozen long stemmed black roses in a hand vise—not a vase—held at arm’s length away from his body.

  It almost looked like he was afraid of them.

  No, he was definitely afraid of them—it was how people in the movies held plutonium with tongs.

  “I was told to deliver these here? To Ren?” He said nervously, his gaze traveling from Neph to me. His eyes widened. “Wow, it is you. I thought—I mean, I was paid a lot—but I thought, maybe, and—”

  “Thank you,” Neph said softly, taking the hand vise from him, and touching his skin as she did. The boy's gaze turned dreamy—like he was having the best dream—and he nodded, then turned and nearly skipped down the hall.

  “You are handing out those whammies left, right, and center,” I said, carefully taking the hand vise from her to complete the magic transaction. Both ends of the heavy metal rod held vises—one that was holding the flowers, and the other currently unused. I peered at the flowers. There was something weird about the stems.

  “Those are Guillotine Roses.” Neph sighed and walked to her desk. “Don't touch them. I have something that can either dispose of them or strip them.”

  I looked more closely at the stems. Each one was covered with wickedly barbed thorns, and as I drew them closer to me, they started to rotate around each stem in opposing spirals like small saw blades.

  I could feel my lips lift. “No, it's okay. I think I know who they are from. Do the flowers do anything dangerous?” I clamped the unused end of the rod on the edge of her desk.

  “The petal edges are blade sharp. But if you can navigate the thorns and petals, they are one of the sweetest smelling flowers.”

  They were raven black, but the petals glowed with an iridescent shine as they collected together in the center. Indigo and purpled black.

  “Who sent them?” Neph asked.

  I smiled and leaned down to carefully inhale the core of one rose, keeping my hands behind my back. The thorns rotated around the stems in spirals as I breathed them in. It was very Constantine, this apology.

  “A friend.”

  Maybe...maybe we'd all be okay.

  ~*~

  The campus clock ticked over to the Cancer sign at the western position of the twenty-four hour clock and a ding rang through the room.

  Patrick whooped over our shared group communication.

  Neph and I walked to the window. Outside, the magic shimmered once again, then the invisible louvers of air flipped, one after another, unlocking from their neighboring louvers—letting us out.

  Immediately, mages streamed out from the building and up the hill. I had to assume that mages were doing the same on the other side of the Magiaduct, streaming down the hill as well. The top seven circles of the mountain were now habitable again.

  Mages dressed in green streamed out of a dorm to the west, then broke off in multiple directions. The formation looked like a large snake slithering out into many heads. A hydra being born.

  The green mages were going off to fix campus. To piece everything back together.

  The combat mages were gone, but the rest of the student body was a tight, focused unit.

  I put my fingers on the glass. I hoped it was enough.

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Cafeteria Blunders

  We joined the mass exodus from the Magiaduct at the tail end of the rush.

  A shimmer of magic swept over me as we exited, like a layer of lotion washed away.

  The mountain air was fresh and vibrant, and the weather spells were currently set at a pleasant seventy-five degrees outside the Magiaduct. The spells usually differed from level to level, depending on the geography of the area and what they contained. The firesnake grove, for instance, was always unbearably balmy, and the ski runs were cool enough to keep the snow fresh.

  I expected far more Department mages clocking my every move. And while there were quite a few fulfilling that requirement, there was only one praetorian. Tarei.

  When Kaine had gone after Raphael, the other praetorians had gone with him.

  Tarei, however, stood like a figure in the mist. Watching—purple eyes glinting at us from the shadows.

  I could still feel the echoes of the nullifying cuff he had placed around my wrist. Different than the one that Godfrey had clamped around my throat, but no less terrifying.

  As if he could read my thoughts, something gold, round, heavy, and glittering appeared in his hand. He twirled the cuff around steady fingers, never breaking eye contact with me.

  Neph's eyes narrowed on him. Tarei's gaze slid to h
er, and his smile turned more threatening. A second cuff appeared in his fingers, singing through the air along with the first. That response answered the question of whether he could see Neph.

  I had a feeling that the Department made sure that each employee could see muses and any other group they sought to regulate.

  “Cockroach,” Mike muttered.

  “Why is he still here?” I asked, keeping him in sight.

  “He's Stavros' eyes on campus,” Delia answered mentally through the armbands. “Say nothing more.”

  The arches that connected to other arches on the top seven circles had all been reactivated. We took the nearest one that would take us to Top Campus and the cafeteria, and away from Tarei and his threats.

  Shadows shifted along our path across Top Campus, though, and adult gazes—the warriors and security mages from other countries along with Legion members—followed our trek. The cafeteria was only accessible by students, which made it a huge relief to enter.

  But I had never seen so many people in the cafeteria all at once—campus tended to work in shifts due to classes and student life. Today, though, the lockdown had poured most of us here at once. People were packed around tables, barely a single seat to spare.

  And, yet, our table stood completely empty in the midst of the mayhem. It stood out very obviously in the middle of a packed populace.

  It was obviously deliberate. Whether people had tried to sit there and been dissuaded by something, or someone, whether the tables around were packed with mages specifically seeking to listen in on us, or whether people thought there might be something contagious where I'd previously sat, I wasn't immediately sure.

  Caniopidas in hand, and trying not to make eye contact as the crowd shifted around me in the way I was becoming increasingly used to—some people wildly jumping to the side, and others deliberately trying to brush against me—I headed toward our table. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Sitting at a random table and making small talk with gaping, terrified, or angry people negatively affected the appetite.

  The floor to ceiling windows showed the same magnificent view down the mountain and out over the river and valley that it always did. But the Department stooges staring into the windows at us and tapping code against their legs was new and unwanted.