by Anne Zoelle
He said it as if he expected me to understand. I stared back at him without response.
“Your belongings are in the closet, which you will be able to access in ten minutes. There is a bathroom and laundry through there as well. You can talk to your parents through the journal, but they can't get to the Second Layer, even should a mage serve magic to them—which they won't. Your police will never believe anything about magic due to the suppression spells, and if the Department hears about them causing a fuss, they may decide to dispose of them, then come after you. Keep those things in mind when you decide what you are going to tell your parents tonight.”
I swallowed down my hatred and just stared at him.
“Yell, if it makes you feel better. Throw something at the door or windows. They are unbreakable. You can see and hear the outside from here, but no one can see or hear in. Think of this as a...vacation. A soothing field will kick in soon—or immediately, if you just accept it. Watch television—that screen has a channel specially hooked to First Layer programs. Teenagers like that kind of thing.”
I continued to stare at him without expression, seeing that it unnerved him.
“I'll check on you after the treaty negotiations are finalized. When the danger won't be as high, and I won't be missed.” He left quickly, and the barred window closed, the wood threads reaching out to entwine and pull themselves together, the iron becoming part of the grain. I heard the front door close.
I touched the stomach of my long-sleeved shirt—the fabric covered my tight camisole beneath, which secured the smooth paper of Will's sketch against the skin of my stomach. A No. 2 penciled copy rested in Marsgrove's document box. The best decision I'd made so far this afternoon.
I wish I had trusted my unease in all other areas. I checked the large black box and found a wrapped sandwich, a carton of vegetables, and a glass bottle full of pink liquid.
There was no need to bang on the window or yell. I believed Marsgrove. And I could feel the magic net already trying to stroke my skin and hair, soothing. I also believed that with the cuff and the room spells and my general lack of magical knowledge that I wouldn't be able to escape by magic. I looked out the window, which had a view into the mountainside. Craning my head, I could only see two circles up, the mountain towering far higher than my view allowed.
Examining the desk supplies, I calmly opened a box of large paperclips and began to unbend two. I wasn't going to let that soothing field turn me into a vegetable. I shoved the comforting touch away, and it backed off. But I could feel it there, waiting.
I inserted my paperclip probe into the keyway and nearly jerked my hand away as the tumblers and pins audibly began to spin independently of each other—at variable speeds and in various directions. The end of my rake touched a pin, then the plate. The lock chomped down and bit my paperclip rake clear through, then spit out the loose part.
Staring at the sheared piece, I was suddenly glad I hadn't waited the ten minutes to get my pick set out of the closet, or my best rake would now be lost to me.
Bending another paperclip, I tried again. Since it took about half a second for the spinning to start, I took a guess that this was a protective measure, and that the correct key would not engage the spin. If I touched a pin without setting it, then touched anything else, the chomp would engage. If I pressed my torque paperclip in the wrong spot, the chomp would engage. It took me ten precious paperclips before I had a reasonable starting schematic drawn in my mind.
I had neither time nor paperclips on my side.
The door lock required me to rethink how a lock might work with magic—or at least with a magical creator—involved. The lock had the standard five pins, but the spinning was variable on each. Sometimes the first one spun clockwise at a rate of one turn per quarter of a second. Sometimes it spun counter-clockwise at a rate of one eighth of a second. Thankfully, there seemed to be a preset of the same six possible speeds on each of the tumblers. In the silent room, I tuned my ear into hearing which one was in play at which distance from me, and focused on figuring out which pin I needed to set first.
Two days later, I opened the door. The force that had been weighing down on me immediately spread out into the hall, the break in the net making it extend, looking for a way to connect its broken edges back together. As the net expanded, the force thinned and grew weaker. Combined with exhaustion and ongoing stress, the relieved pressure left me weak and shaky.
I waited by the front door with a fireplace poker and kitchen knife in my trembling hands for an hour, in case Marsgrove had somehow been alerted by the stretched magic.
Hugging the weapons to me, I started to realize why Will, after feeling vulnerable, might not have wanted to part with the sword I had drawn for him.
“Ren.”
Relief rushed through me, jumbling with all of my heightened, anxious emotions.
“Christian?” I whispered.
“Help.”
“How?” And something that had been bothering me forced its way out, “Did you know about magic before?”
He had seemed as surprised as I was that fateful night when his fingers had started to glow. But how had he known about magic when he yelled at me the night I saved Will? Had he learned it in death?
He didn't answer, but relief spread that whatever freaky things Marsgrove had done to me hadn't blocked out his voice.
I waited a few more tense minutes by the front door, then tiptoed back into the bedroom and grabbed everything from the closet, dragging the items downstairs, where I felt safer. I could feel the bedroom wanting the magic back, and I had the feeling that closing the door would suck all the magic back inside, sealing it again.
The lock on Marsgrove's secretary desk was simple. Ordinary and very similar to the one my parents had on theirs. It was obvious that he was used to using the magic on the house to do his warding. If others weren't allowed to enter the house, then there was no reason to truly lock anything inside of it.
Anything other than me.
The desk was littered with all kinds of Academy seals and papers. The drawers and slots also contained many interesting things—like his sweet storage paper, which was delicately propped in its very own wooden slot.
Smiling, I withdrew the storage paper and started loading it with my bags, setting each one on top and letting the magic of the paper pull them inside. After a moment of consideration, I tossed in the other items on Marsgrove's desk, which included a stack of money, numerous papers, a book on protection fields and one called “Primer on Magical Control.”
I fought the notion of staying at the house while I figured out my plan of attack. I couldn't risk it, and I couldn't go home. Home was the first place Marsgrove would look, and going there wouldn’t provide the answers I need to revive Christian.
I'd go back to the Depot and try another door.
~*~
It took dozens of failed bounce-backs on arches—arches that numerous passing mages swore went off-mountain—before I accepted that one of Marsgrove’s spells prevented me from leaving Excelsine. My eight foot tall prison had grown to six thousand feet. After traveling all over the mountainside through different random arches, and even unsuccessfully attempting the crossing of two bridges across the river circling the base, I finally got a person to point me to a small inn a few circles up. I didn't spend time admiring the view or gloriously mixed architectures anymore.
The man at the inn counter greeted me politely in English. I watched his lips. It seemed like he was actually speaking English.
“You ok, kid?”
I was so tired and strung-out that I didn't think so, but nodded anyway. I fumbled the strange-looking bills I had taken from Marsgrove's desk onto the counter, hoping the amount was enough, and the man looked at me in sympathy as he took a few and pushed the rest back to me. Runaway, that look plainly said.
“You need any help, kid, you just let me know, ok?”
“Yeah, thanks.” No way.
I locked the door
to my hotel room, propped a chair under the knob, just in case, plopped down on the bed, and started a list in the notebook I had packed. I put “Get off this rock” at the top.
“Help me.”
I pinched my lips together and with two dark strokes, crossed off the item I had just written. I dumped out the contents of Marsgrove's magic paper, and started rifling through his things. An unused administration packet was part of it—for me, I thought darkly—along with a missive begging for a solution to the “Olivia Price rooming situation,” and three packets of transfer students who had withdrawn enrollment due to “security concerns.” There was a note on top to “investigate familial ties.”
I looked through the administration papers and the brochures, chewing on my lip, and turning over ideas. One propagandist paper proclaimed—The best libraries and resurrection experts in five layers!
Student population of fifteen thousand, read another.
Marsgrove had said he'd be back to visit me in my prison in a few weeks. Which meant, for those weeks, the one place I knew my jailor would not be was on this mountain. Whereas Will and a bunch of magical knowledge would.
I needed real shelter first. Though the innkeeper had only taken a few bills, I had a feeling that was due more to the pity on his face then the real price of the room. If I was going to stay at an inn or hotel, I was going to need to figure out how to make money, which would mean giving adults information about me.
I had hopped all over the mountain after escaping Marsgrove's house, and estimated that there were at least two hundred thousand people living on Excelsine. The mountain was unevenly divided into three parts. Students were on the generous top portion, the thinner middle section was composed of some weird gray swirly area that caused my wrist cuff to pulse anytime I got close, and adults—professors, shopkeepers, and the like—ruled the bottom levels. I'd stick out far more if I stayed down here, and I wasn't going to find a solution to any of my problems by hiding out.
Hopefully I could find Will on campus.
“Yes, go there.”
I scratched around my wrist cuff and stared at the paper that stated that the Olivia Price rooming situation had been deemed “unstable” and there was a request to revisit a new roommate the following term.
Most of the official papers from Marsgrove's desk were approved by someone named Johnson. I carefully filled out a few documents, traced his signature, then used Marsgrove's seal, which matched up perfectly to the ones on the papers.
I opened the primer on control but exhaustion sealed my eyes closed. That night I dreamed of Christian dying, of my own death, and of ultramarine eyes staring at me from above.
Chapter Nine: Olivia Price
I awakened early and began the arduous climb up the mountain. Alone on the path, I had ample time to think. Equal amounts of apprehension, excitement, and terror flowed through me, and I began to second guess my decision.
A soft, comforting whisper wrapped around me. “You can do this, Ren. You’re strong and capable.”
Hearing Christian spurred me on. The journey suddenly seemed less lonely.
And before I knew it, stretching across the flat grass of the fifth band near the top of the mountain—and encircling the entire mountainside—was the mammoth nine-story structure straight out of Ancient Rome that was referred to in the administration packet as the Magiaduct, or more informally, Dormitory Circle.
A stone columned arcade lined the lower level, providing coverage for students walking from door to door. Symmetrically spaced between the entrance doors were gateways, allowing a tunneled path to the other side of the building. From the second floor skyward, the building was an unbroken wall of ancient multicolored stone and glass. In the morning light the façade glowed and shimmered, alive with color. If I survived the day, I would lovingly admire its classic architectural magnificence tomorrow.
With a cocktail of emotions stirring inside, I walked beneath the nearest arcade arch, passed a group of students laughing together, and approached a door. Apprehension. Excitement. Terror. The number thirty-two was carved into the stone above the wooden door, bright in the rising sun. I continued on to the right—hoping that walking counter-clockwise decreased the number count—past another stone gateway and to the next door. Thirty-one. It was a hike between doorways. The administration packet had mentioned thirty-six nine-story “dorms” each housing four hundred students, solidly ringing this level of the mountain.
People were running on top of the Magiaduct. Some of the workout gear was rather strange-looking, even from this distance. But the evidence of a track indicated you could at least move from one dorm section to the next at the topmost level.
I continued on until I reached the heavy wooden door beneath the stone-carved number twenty-five.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I swallowed hard and opened the door.
I had expected the interior to be stark and medieval, but the lower-level meeting and study area was fresh and bright with white slate floors and cream walls. Rich walnut furniture and comfortable sofas and lounge chairs upholstered in rich burgundy and forest green were scattered about in conversational pods, giving the room a warm and inviting feel. The area was a bustle of activity, with students entering, loitering, and exiting.
I climbed the nearest staircase and found room fifty-two on the second floor. I took a deep breath, hoisting my papers more firmly in the crook of my arm, and knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again, then leaned casually against the wall and inserted one of Marsgrove’s straightened paperclips into the lock to see if a chomper engaged. No answer, no chomp.
Relief nearly unbalanced me. No one was inside and the lock was completely standard, thank God. I could have it scrubbed open in ten seconds. Two students engaged in a hot debate passed me.
“Social theory is important,” the girl said.
The boy shook his head. “Brute force will always win. Magic is might.”
I knocked on the door again, trying to look like I wasn't loitering, and discreetly pulled out my favorite rake and torque wrench from my brother's set, knee pressing my papers against the wall so that I could use both hands.
The door yanked open and a chilly voice said, “Yes?”
My papers spilled to the floor as I jumped away in surprise. I quickly bent my fingers around the pick and wrench, shoving them back along my wrist and up into my shirt sleeve. I cleared my throat nervously.
Potential new roommate Olivia Price was dressed in a tailored black and gray dress that looked very severe on her tall, thin frame. I couldn't help a glance at my own clothing, feeling more than a little out of place. But other students had been dressed in a wide variety of styles, especially the students whose clothing continuously changed form. More than a few people had been informally dressed in First Layer fashion.
I was fine. Normal looking and totally as if I belonged, I tried to assure myself.
I bent to collect my papers, then pasted on a bright smile and held up my forged documents. “I'm your new roommate.”
Her hair was pulled tightly into a bun as severe as her clothing, and rectangular black glasses perched on the bridge of her very straight nose. She smiled down at me, but there was no humor in her eyes. “Are you?”
This now clearly qualified as a complete introduction failure. I tried desperately to keep my face calm and smiling. It had been a stupid plan. Thoughts tumbled through my head on how to nonchalantly extricate myself. I'd figure out something else. I had six thousand vertical feet of space to work with.
“Come in, then.” She stepped back, a clear invitation to enter, despite the cold amusement decorating her features. I hesitated over the threshold, then walked inside.
The feel of a net descended and I lashed out with my arms, thinking that I had once more let myself be captured. But the magic gently pushed my limbs back to my sides. It swirled inside me and pushed against the cuff encircling my wrist. The net stroked me, then gently dissipated.
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I squirmed, feeling suddenly like I was in the right place, then realized the austere girl standing silently in front of me had to think I was certifiable. The skin around her eyes tightened, loosened, then tightened again, as if she was surprised, then displeased by something.
I cleared my throat. “Hi.” I tried to remember my cover story, as well as how I could admit to having gotten the room wrong. “Sorry. I just transferred from—”
“That is your side.” She pointed to the empty bed and desk on the window side of the room.
My thoughts and words all crashed together. “What? Really? I mean, yes, great!” The feeling that I was in the right place intensified, then slowly dissipated.
There was a curiously blank look to her expression, all tightness gone. As if she had no emotional reaction to me at all anymore. “You stay on your side, I'll stay on mine.” And with that, she turned to her desk and an enormous tome that was placed there.
“Oh. Er, thanks.” She hadn't even asked me my name.
I quietly walked to the empty desk on the far side of the room. The energy that had been capped by Marsgrove's cuff was restless now, pushing and leaking, as if it had tasted freedom for a moment and now refused to be denied. The room's magic hummed around me.
Well, that had gone pretty well, actually. Totally antisocially, but having a roommate who didn't care what I did was exactly what I needed.
Loneliness pushed. I shoved it back.
I dropped my papers on the desk, then pulled Marsgrove's storage paper from under my camisole where it had been pressed against my back. Just in case I needed to travel quickly, I wasn't taking any chances. The storage paper was ingenious. There were a number of shelves drawn inside, and I had figured out last night at the inn that I just needed to concentrate on the item I wished to remove in order to have the proper shelf slide forward. From there, I could pinch and remove the desired item.
Putting things in and taking them out provoked a weird feeling inside of me, though. As if the paper knew I wasn't its true owner, and though it was reluctantly willing to let me use it, it issued a vague feeling of chastisement each time.
