The Awakening of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  Everyone else's panic and motion...the sounds...the screams...was a fast and terrible juxtaposition.

  Then someone pushed mute. I could see people's open mouths screaming, but nothing emerged. As I moved at an agonizing pace, I kept my eyes forward, too unsettled and terrified to watch their silent screams.

  “Mages are so loud and unseemly these days.” Mr. Verisetti strolled casually beside me, stroking the top of the box. Every few moments he would stop stroking and wave his hand, effortlessly blocking an incoming strike.

  “What do you want?” I gritted out the question, pushing my body harder. A tear leaked out as I saw another mage go down silently beneath a rampaging animal. “Why are you doing this to these people?”

  “All in the job description, Butterfly. But let's speak about you. Interesting visit to the...art store?”

  How long had he been following me? I didn't respond, painfully pressing my lips together.

  “The owner and his customer need a bit of a mind tweak, I think.” His mouth curved pleasantly, but there was something very unpleasant about the feel of it. “Perhaps I will send one, should they survive. But you exited too quickly—before more interesting matters could take place.”

  How had no one noticed him in the store? The owner? The customer with her leash? I hadn't, but I wasn't even a week old in this world. I would be dead on the pavement right now, no doubt, if the source of the carnage wasn't strolling next to me.

  I looked around for Marsgrove as I continued to gain nightmarish ground, foot by foot, slowly rounding the corner to the circus. Focus. Goal. Endpoint.

  Beams were flying everywhere, but whereas the tremor beams had been chaotic and avoidable, these were designed to attack specifically. People ducked and dodged—or not—but nothing touched within a foot of air on all sides of us. Soundless. A vacuum in space.

  He tilted his head. “Didn't you wonder at the woman in the painting? Who she is? What she had for you?” He leaned toward me. “I wonder at it.”

  I inched slowly toward the antique shop and tried to pretend everything around me was a staged Hollywood production.

  “I have your best interests at heart. Far more than dear dogged Phillip Marsgrove, who right now is trying to find me instead of helping you.”

  “It is hard to say which of you I trust less,” I said grimly, not looking at him, concentrating on my goal.

  I could feel his amusement. “Wise of you. Now, what did the woman have, Butterfly?”

  “Nothing. She had nothing.”

  If anything, his amusement grew. I could feel it as if it were a living thing coiling around me. “Perhaps one day she will have something then. Always good to revisit old haunts. If they are still standing, of course.”

  “What do you want?” I was so close. I could see the antique shop and the people streaming inside.

  Inside my bubble of unnatural silence, I tried not to watch the panicked people who were stepping on their portal pads, their faces filling with horror when nothing happened. Nor the people who were running smack into the sealed walls of the dome. Would the arch still work? I had to try.

  I felt Mr. Verisetti poking absently through my bag. Clenching my teeth together, I kept my slow movement going.

  “You need true paint, Butterfly, not this drivel.”

  “I likely won't even be able to use that drivel.”

  Unfortunately, while my feet were dragging metaphorical cement blocks behind them, my mouth was working just fine. I should say nothing.

  Suddenly, my feet were leaden, welded to the spot, and Mr. Verisetti was standing in front of me with narrowed eyes. Things silently exploded behind him, like the strange Hollywood set I wanted to pretend this was. He rubbed his finger in the air slowly, then his eyes focused on the cuff at my wrist. “Phillip still remembers how to play dirty, does he?”

  He suddenly smiled—his charming smile. It put me more on edge. “Good. But this just won't do, you not painting. I can do nothing about an administrative spell, but I can tell you that all areas of the Academy are not created equally, and some magic can be completely hidden by the truly powerful. Juleston's warding text goes on and on about it for four thousand boring pages.”

  I tried not to take his bait, but my brain put the reference securely into a memory slot.

  “And some professors will be able to halt the restriction, if you can worm into their good graces. I wonder...” He tapped his lip. “What would you do, if I gave you real paint?”

  My heart sped up.

  He drew his finger down the air in front of me again, then brought it to his mouth, licking it. “Phillip outdid himself on your shields. If anyone other than I had thrown that first bomb, you wouldn't have been touched. I see his fondness for me will never die. But let's improve this set, give a kick back to him, should he try to tweak.”

  Something rippled over me, hooking in.

  “Stop doing magic on me!” I crossed my arms then thrust them out instinctively. Mr. Verisetti's Italian leather shoes pushed back on the concrete, chunks of concrete forming behind as the magic moved against an impenetrable force.

  The force of his shielding around us stretched.

  He laughed. “Look at you, trying to flee your cocoon. Perhaps you will be ready to fly free soon after all. Though I can't deny you the opportunity to attend school and make...allies. But only allies, Butterfly. Friends get in the way. Easy choices become harder. Then they take all you've worked for and crush it. Betray you with a knife in the back or by drowning you in paint.”

  “You betrayed me.” The emotion was still there, only a week old. He had helped me get through four horrible weeks of school. Had given me an outlet in art and a mentor who always seemed to know what I needed. All so he could use me when the time was right.

  “I'm crushed, Butterfly. I didn't betray you. I just subverted your will. Here, let me make it up to you, you are delighting me.” He put his free hand into his pocket and removed a small plastic packet containing what looked like gray sand. He held the packet flat on top of his palm.

  I edged away from it—and from the very familiar ornate box that he still carried in his other hand—and realized I could move normally again. Whatever magic I had done to push him away had freed me, at least temporarily, from the slow, nightmarish motions.

  I kept my magic and attention on highest alert, waiting for an opportunity to flee. “More Docile Dust?”

  He smiled. “Your new ally is a smart one. Though don't become too attached. No, this is an antidote.” He gave a lazy shrug. “Now, if I want to use something on you, I still will be able to, of course. But no one else will...I'm a little possessive of my acquisitions, Butterfly. I am thinking of adopting you as the dark daughter I will never have.” He made a theatrical little gesture around his heart with the ornate box clenched in his palm. “You are so useful to have around.”

  What is in the box? I stared at the ornate box that had allowed the hybrid animals entrance into the circus. Hazy memories drifted by without an anchor.

  I looked back up at him. “Antidote? I don't trust you.”

  “Of course not. I'm entirely untrustworthy. But then I do not claim to be a friend. Friends only provide opportunities for betrayal. Look at those silly children at your high school, afraid of the dark.” He glanced at the street, shadows overtaking his countenance. “Allies, Butterfly. We are allies, though you do not accept it yet. Have your school chum—Will, was it?—examine the powder.”

  It was extremely unnerving that he knew about Will. “So, you are giving me a packet of anti-dust to protect me? Because you are possessive? No.”

  “You wound me terribly. Delightful. Perhaps I am just protecting my interests knowing what you will do with the item of mine you truly desire.” He hummed and a tube of paint, in the same kind of plain white tube as the ultramarine blue had been, suddenly joined the packet in his hand. “A tube of our paint. True paint. All for a bargain of a price.”

  My stomach tightened painfull
y, and I had to stop myself from reaching for it. I wanted that paint. Christian paint. Freedom paint. “What price?”

  He smiled. “An unspecified task in the future. Something small. Inconsequential. A Level Two magic.”

  I wanted that paint. An acrid smell filled my nose, and silenced screams filled my head. Christian needed that paint. “A bargain with the Devil?” I smiled thinly. “Swear on your magic as to what you are holding in your left hand and that you are giving me the paint I mixed during my Awakening.”

  “You flatter me with your comparison and you are learning so well, Butterfly. Already in trouble, I see. Very well, the substance in the packet will protect you against Docile Dust and mid-level controlling magics, but will do nothing more, and the tube in my hand contains paint mixed by you during your Awakening, by my magic I so do vow.”

  I felt the familiar feel of magic wrapping around us and settling.

  “I was so very specific too, Butterfly, aren't you pleased? Now it's your turn,” he said, his voice very nearly singsong.

  I touched Will's bracelet and quickly scrolled a list of what a Level Two magic was. The scale went to ten. Twos were normal, everyday magics.

  I repeated the necessary vow and the magic settled again. Shaking, I held out my hand.

  He extended his forth and I plucked both the tube and anti-dust packet, then clutched them to my chest. The vibrations of magic in the tube connected with my magic, humming happily.

  I tried not to think about the stark vision of black-and-white chaos and destruction I had seen during the brief touch of our skin.

  I had paint. Real paint.

  Christian's less sane voice crowed exultantly in my head. His real voice remained silent.

  Paint that would release me from the prison of Excelsine whenever I wanted to be free. I could study, have a base, then go anywhere. Hop through an arch, paint Christian out of a painting somewhere else, then we'd be together again. I hugged it harder to my chest. We could be free from thinking that the nightmare happening around us was real.

  Mr. Verisetti leaned in, looking closely. “You look thinner. And stressed.” He drew a finger down again, then made a face. “Magi Mart? No. There is a reason there is only one cafeteria on campus with a student population that size. Going is good for your magic. And hiding out is not the way to make allies. You need to be celebrated. You—”

  A strange man came running toward us, and the panicked crowd split around him. His eyes and posture were completely on the offensive, and he looked far more threatening than any other man on the street. He looked eerily similar to the men who had exited the black SUV in front of my high school—and to the man who had been gophered. It wasn't their features or body types, but something about the way they moved that brooked the comparison.

  I looked back to the man at my side and revised my statement—far more threatening than any other man except Raphael Verisetti. He looked as if he had stepped off his yacht, wearing his expensive shoes, slacks, and loose collared shirt, a relaxed, almost lazy posture, exceptionally handsome golden features...and sporting a smile so cold and evil as he observed the man running toward us that I took an automatic step away.

  His dark gold shield—with veins of black—pulsed, then peeled back to rest behind us. He pushed a hand down toward the sidewalk tiles, and the cement rolled in an explosive wave toward the other man, then opened into a mouth that closed over the top of him. The ground and concrete gave a sort of belch, as it shifted back into place.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing emerged as my jaw worked. The silent screams around me increased.

  “How rude, interrupting our time together,” Mr. Verisetti said.

  Two other men ran toward us, lights shooting from their hands in deadly arcs. Mr. Verisetti's shield walled me in from behind. I had no way to run.

  And I had no knowledge of how to repel the beams. I channeled all of my focus into powering the gold of my own shield, but instinct told me I was about to join Christian.

  I just wished I could have made us a family again first.

  Mr. Verisetti flipped open the ornate box and it hovered in the air between the spread fingers of both of his hands. There was a tearing sound in my ears as black-and-white swirling holes ripped open a mere two feet in front of us and swallowed the jets into...nothing. My magic pulsed and throbbed, and terrifyingly reached for the hole nearest to me.

  He pulled his fingers together beneath the hovering box, waved his wrists, and flung them forward. The power of the energy he thrust was tangible. The holes flipped, zipping shut as if they had never existed as a tear in the very fabric of the air, then ripped open directly in front of the men. Lights shot out from them, striking their targets.

  “And the rude shall be punished.” He caught the floating box as it fell easily in his left hand.

  Bile rose in my throat, and I automatically covered my mouth at the sight of the carnage fifty feet in the distance. The magic from the blasts swirled, then shot upward into the sky. A horrible crack sounded as the dome splintered, spider-webbing out in long, thin lines.

  “But I do think I am getting proficient at that maneuver, wouldn't you say, Butterfly?” An opaque chunk of the dome crashed to the pavement across the circus. All of the shop doors blew open, as if their magic had somehow released all at once. “You should move along, Butterfly. There are hunters everywhere, and I wouldn't want them to capture you. That would quite ruin my game.”

  I could see people running, their mouths open, screaming, but for some reason I could hear nothing past the pounding in my ears and Raphael Verisetti's words. Black swirling smoke, like ink ejected into water, dispersed around us.

  “And try not to forget, Butterfly, that when it comes to pigments, there is no true black in nature.” He winked and opened a space in the smoke by circling a golden finger as one would cut a hole in glass, then pushing the resulting hole inward with an audible pop. He put the finger to his lips in a “shh” motion, then disappeared in a violent swirl of black-and-white smoky dust—the echo of my black-and-white patterned drawings. A moaning sound echoed, as if my magic, and the universe itself, were groaning in displeasure.

  Sounds grew in volume, screams echoing loudly and violently in my ears. The notion that Mr. Verisetti could disappear that way...

  The memory of sketched drapes flashed.

  Crack. Crack, crack, crack.

  I lunged for the open door of the antique store and dove through as the dome fell. The lingering traces of the heavy smoke clung to my clothes and swirled behind me. Bang. I could feel the shocks in the ground as the explosion grew closer. I hugged the packet and paint tube to my chest and ran to the mountain arch and plunged through, tumbling into a somersault in Ellery Square. I gained my feet and sprinted. I could hear the arch crack and explode behind me.

  People were yelling and screaming.

  They were so loud, the shouts.

  Everywhere I was, people were screaming.

  Sirens were blasting. “Campus lockdown, repeat, lock all off-campus portals!” echoed from every direction.

  I ran like my life depended on it, uncapping the paint tube—haunting lavender staring up from its jaws—as I sprinted toward the base of the mountain. I squeezed a drop onto my finger, then jammed it against an off-campus arch whose interior had turned a sudden, milky white.

  CRACK.

  It blew me back and my hand automatically gripped the tube of paint as I fell. Paint squirted to the ground. The ground shook, a fissure cracked downward under the paint trail, the arch vibrated violently, and a milky rock painted with a drop of lavender exploded outward. I caught the rock against my chest.

  Screams grew as the fissure in the mountain opened, splitting violently down toward the water.

  I lunged to my feet with the ejected rock and sprinted up through every inner-campus arch I came across. I didn't look back.

  Chapter Sixteen: On the Edge

  As I ran toward Dormitory Circle, the paper trapped betwe
en my stomach and shirt gave a sharp tug. Marsgrove's paper. I slammed a hand over it and entered the dorm. Groups of students were talking loudly and gesturing wildly.

  “—Ganymede Circus destroyed!”

  “—sweepers, gambits, lockeys, and moonglows ported right into the center of town.”

  “—the terrorists have a new weapon! The port mages must be in league with them!”

  “—trapped here!”

  “—fifty officials are trying to hold the twentieth circle together! The arch to Lolinet was destroyed too! We are under attack!”

  Marsgrove’s paper tugged harder and something told me that losing skin contact with it would be a bad idea. I sprinted up the stairs.

  Holding the paper firmly against my stomach with one elbow and the painted rock firmly in the other, I clumsily picked the door lock. Thankfully, Olivia wasn't inside to hear my fumbling.

  I slammed the door shut with my hip, dumped the painted arch chunk on my bed, and yanked Marsgrove's paper out from under my shirt. It tugged and pulled wildly, trying to rip itself out of my hands. God. Nearly everything I owned was still in there. I slapped my hand down on top of it and willed my things out. Trash bags and boxes immediately started ejecting. The corner of a cardboard box hit me in the temple and I lost my grip on the paper. The freed paper shot toward the floor grate and dove inside.

  Breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably, I stared at the mess strewn around me. Hadn't there been another trash bag? I put my head into my hands and tried to will myself to calm down.

  I was no longer a flight-risk. Not even the paint worked now.

  And Mr. Verisetti had found me so easily off campus. I activated the live news feed and saw fleeting images of Marsgrove, tight-lipped in the background.

  “Negotiations are trying to be salvaged in the wake of today’s unprecedented attacks in Ganymede Circus. Diplomats will work through the night to push negotiations forward. Salvatori Lorenzo has issued a statement expressing sorrow over the loss of life claimed by the terrorists, but an unnamed source in his camp hinted that they expect better terms for the Third Layer in light of today's incident and show of force.”