The Awakening of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  “Cadet, we need to work on your fear,” he said pointedly.

  “I just threw ice cubes at snakes and dodged vipers for hours because I don't know how to do a—” I waved my hands “—material collection spell, or whatever.”

  “Turtle socks! Relying on magic to fix your problems is not a good long term strategy. Some good ducking and diving never hurt anyone. Let's go!”

  Draeger observed me for an hour, tapping his lip even when I exploded an entire wing of the complex. I winced to hear the screams. All a simulation, all a simulation...

  “Your limiter has been slightly loosened. Strange. But it's not at dangerous levels. If you ever find yourself out of control and in trouble, Cadet, sink into the earth. Bury the part of you that is overflowing or connected, and let the earth take care of things. Got it? All of the layers are part of an intricate network, and even in the First Layer, the earth is filled with life magic.”

  We practiced in a dirt pit I had exploded into existence during an earlier exercise. We worked for four hours, which partially removed the shaking, jittery feel I had been experiencing since returning from Ganymede.

  Afterward, as I clutched my successfully returned bag to my chest in relief, I didn't think my fear of failure would be so easily removed.

  The visualization technique of paint spreading wasn't working as well as it had previously—my control was far poorer than it had been before my limiter had been loosened. I suspected whatever Mr. Verisetti had done to me was the reason for the alteration.

  I exited the battle building and my gaze strayed momentarily to the Midlands. I withdrew my reader, and after checking the time and class schedules, I headed to the engineering compound. Slipping into the designated classroom, I took a seat in the back of the large lecture hall and chomped an energy bar.

  Alexander Dare sat in front.

  Class was awesome. Professor Mbozi, a man with very dark skin and a very muscular frame, was an excellent speaker and made every concept sound exciting. I remembered Will talking about how much he loved his classes.

  Everything the professor did was magnified so that even from my seat at the rear of the lecture hall I could see as well as if I was sitting up front. I watched Dare scroll the air in front of him. I'd have to figure that out later. I just sat and absorbed and watched the holograms—and Dare.

  Mbozi suddenly frowned and put a finger under his ear, then motioned to Dare, who gathered his things and strode from the room. Strange.

  But his absence made paying attention far easier.

  Mbozi told everyone to construct a simple ward box that we would use for the exercises. Even though the other students' boxes were far more grandiose—and it was obvious that I was in some upper level class instead of the beginner class I needed—I was ridiculously pleased with my miniature result as I pulled the last line of it crookedly like a beginning weaver interlacing her last thread.

  My box wouldn't hold anything bigger than a fly—and wouldn't keep out anything but a fly—but it was functional all the same. All of that studying was paying off. A few more ten hour sessions and I'd have the equivalent of Persian rugs on the sides.

  Energy zipped along the lines of Mbozi's box hologram, keeping the image sharp, as he explained the exercise in further detail. Frowning at the zipping energy, I opened my reader and pulled up a magic primer.

  Focus, concentration, knowledge, confidence. The cornerstones of bending magic to my will.

  Something Draeger had said was brought to mind—“Some mages persist in thinking two of those concepts are the same and never try to rectify that mistake, relying on their cuffs to compensate. Squirrel brains! Concentration encompasses measurement as well as the tightness of one's control.”

  Maybe in order to gain better control I needed a different way of mentally channeling my magic.

  I tapped my fingers on my desk watching the changing holograms that had roses, animals, and objects encased in each box. The boxes were examples of warding designs, but I might be able to use something similar mentally. Four sides for four cornerstones...no not quite...four parts building one construct...maybe...

  I pulled a pyramid to mind, letting it rotate—considering how I could use it.

  The apex would be focus. The point of the pyramid rotated and became prominent in my mind's eye. My focus could be blunt or razor sharp. I made the apex of my pyramid as pointy as the tip of a needle. Ultra focused.

  Something very blunt, on the other hand...I let the tip dull, rounding it. Uncontrolled detonation and destruction. I might need to use that someday too. I practiced working with the point.

  The edges extending from the focal point...they would embody concentration. Measurement and control. I widened the pyramid, then stretched it and made it taller. If I could make the magic travel farther or shorter, in greater quantity or smaller than maybe...

  I made the pyramid thinner than thicker, trying to imagine the amount twenty milliliters would require.

  The base of the pyramid...well, that would be knowledge. The foundation that everything rested upon.

  Confidence was my non-static element. Movement. Zipping magic. Confidence would be what sent the lines of concentration flowing down the rays to my focus. And the rays...I could abrade them to coarse sand or polish them to smooth, slippery marble.

  Confidence promoted movement in all aspects of life.

  I projected the vision of the pyramid in my mind into the air. Magic flowed unchecked toward it and I had to forcibly hold my confidence and concentration. I forced sand along the rays.

  Intuition and instinct supplied innate confidence. Made things easier, faster, more effortless. Excitement built within me as the concepts drew together and the construct pulsed.

  I rotated the pyramid in my head, assembling pieces one at a time, and tested a zip of movement. Magic wanted to be quick. The visual representation mirrored my mental one. I watched the movement, then shot my magic at the focus.

  A rose bloomed from my desk, bright fuchsia and perfect.

  I smiled and without thinking, blunted the point of the pyramid. The magic detonated. Half the mages in the class jumped to their feet. Roses started blooming on every desk—twining, fat buds that were flowering ever larger. Students exclaimed. Mages began casting. One boy gamely plucked one and gave it to the girl on his left as his other wrist was entwined.

  The blooms reached the ceiling. The professor's eyebrows rose toward his hairline, but he did nothing to stop the magic. A number of students started fielding blasts and setting up small containment areas. The professor crossed his arms and watched, calling out praise or chastisement.

  Blooms broke through the ceiling as roses that hadn't been contained banded together—Jack and the Rosestalks stretching to the sky. Professor Mbozi tapped a pointer against his beefy arm as he watched the chaos. “I'm growing irritated, mages. There is no reason I should be reminding you to try one of the mass containment spells I lectured about two weeks ago. They require four people as corners, so make friends with your neighbors, quickly. I'm going to leave all of you here to be suffocated, if I don't see some results soon.”

  I gathered my supplies and ducked out of the room before anyone could peg me.

  But...my magic had worked. I smiled fiercely. I had found the image I needed. I headed back to Draeger to do some practicing. I'd have Christian out in no time.

  ~*~

  Professor Stevens watched me with pinched lips and a raised brow as I grinned at her the next morning.

  I was still riding high from my new way of controlling magic. Last night I had practiced until I'd dropped, then giddily made my way past my disapproving roommate and flopped into bed. I had put in another two hours of practice this morning.

  “Good morning, Professor!”

  I just needed to remember that my natural desire to master a skill was not always an asset. I needed to learn just enough to be able to raise Christian in a timely manner. Then I could delve subjects to my heart's content.r />
  “Be content now, Ren.”

  “Raise, raise, raise! Danger, danger, danger!”

  Stevens briskly magicked a set of supplies, sending everything in the room dancing. “Have you ever made charcoal?”

  “Only accidentally.” Christian had been fond of fire.

  She handed me a blank research journal and a light wooden tool case with slots. “If you are a serious student, you will record every result. Let's begin with vine charcoal first.”

  I gripped the journal to my butterfly-filled chest and nodded.

  We hand-cut and burned different types of woods over different types of fires, and I watched through a pair of clunky, magic-enhanced goggles as a thin tendril of spring green wrapped around the wood and over the fire in tight, perfectly spaced loops. Stevens's magic settled like a clinging vine, then the green seeped into the burning wood. A very faint shimmer of green caught the light when the charcoal cooled.

  “You can cover your charcoal with paper, wood, or other coatings, but unless you specifically create those too, coverings will separate your internal magic—that which is in your skin—from the instrument. You will get more powerful results the closer you are to the weapons you wield.”

  I blinked at the wording, but nodded.

  The next three hours were filled with experiments. We used different methods of burning and magic infusion. In some attempts she had me infuse the natural wood with magic, on some I had to manipulate the time and space of the spirals, and in others I injected the magic as the wood cooled. I furiously scribbled down the process and results in my journal and carefully labeled each product in the slots in my new tool research case. I made a column to record the results of my drawing attempts with each piece.

  All in all, my creations ranged from poor to adequate, but I ended up with thirteen knobbly charcoal sticks. I was rather stupidly thrilled, and my sloppy grin had to convey such.

  Stevens rolled her eyes. “We will be working with graphite, clay, and wax tomorrow. Research firing techniques and come prepared.”

  She held up the last piece of charcoal she had created and looked at it critically under the light. It was coal black, but it shimmered, as if something white was trapped inside. She handed it to me. “Use this one for the next week as a control sample.”

  I twisted her charcoal pencil between my fingertips, and it caught the light, sparkling, as if it contained fairy dust. I could feel her magic in the filaments of the charcoal. Zipping along, then soothing down. I couldn't wait to try it. I imagined holding a Stradivarius would feel like this to a violinist.

  “It's beautiful,” I said.

  There was something strange about the expression on Stevens's face as she studied the pencil. “I had a lot of practice many years ago making those.”

  “Oh.” The tone of her voice made the atmosphere suddenly uncomfortable. “Do you have an artist in your family?”

  “No.” She turned abruptly and strode to the sink and began washing her hands.

  “Do you draw, Professor Stevens?”

  “No.”

  It made me wonder for whom she used to make charcoal.

  ~*~

  Olivia entered our dorm room soon after I returned with my newly crafted supplies. Her steps slowed, and she looked around suspiciously, delicately sniffing the air for a moment, before giving my sloppy grin an expressionless look in return and sitting at her desk.

  I had hoped that the charcoal pencils would work well. They were performing beyond my expectations.

  Gophers were leaping and shaking their tails all through my sketchbook.

  But though they could skirt around each individual page to the backside, I couldn't get them to port from one page to the next. The urge to make it work pressed, but I reined it in. Christian first. Creative curiosity gratification later.

  I turned the page and examined a clean sheet. If materials were so important...I should probably look into making my own sketchpad paper too. I put it on my mental list, then set about drawing the three-dimensional box I had designed. It started rotating beautifully minutes later, the charcoal channeling my intention with ease. A three-dimensionally envisioned and shaded box sketched on a two-dimensional paper space.

  But a hundred jabs later, and the paper was still two-dimensional. I still couldn't stick anything inside. I could make the things I drew inside of the sketch use the boxes—like gophers nesting within—but I couldn't insert anything from my physical realm or withdraw anything from the sketch realm.

  The book I had purchased from Ganymede Circus said that making storage spaces had been accomplished in the past, but that it necessitated particular talents for manipulating universe space—far outside the knowledge and talents of the regular mage. The descriptions were shady on that account.

  Whatever. I had seen the magic in action and wasn't one for accepting defeat because someone told me something was impossible. Will, the Department's hunter, the gophers, the butterfly, Marsgrove's storage paper. Not impossible.

  And impossibility is what those books said about necromancy too. That spirits were at peaceful rest. I could clearly hear Christian's pain, nullifying their words.

  I was sensing a government conspiracy against knowledge and personal advancement. Marsgrove was surely in on that.

  I chewed my lip, then grabbed a plastic cap and happily stuck it on the end of a newly made knobbly charcoal stick. I started gnawing the cap, comforted by the familiar action. The freed butterfly in the First Layer had been drawn with pencil, but I had used paint to activate it. And the gophers had only come out of the sketch—and the hunter had only been sucked inside—after the drop of paint had absorbed. Same with Guard Rock and the Christian paper-doll. I had no idea about Marsgrove's storage paper, but it seemed likely an infused propellant had been used there as well. Something that gave life or bound space, or both.

  I could hear Guard Rock pacing under my bed, defending the premises with a new pencil. I wasn't sure what I was going to do when Olivia discovered him. I had told him to remain under there and be inconspicuous, and he had saluted with his stick. But he was a...rock. An animated one, but still, I was pretty sure I hadn't willed him either an advanced brain or personal survival instincts in my uncontrolled thought about guarding.

  “Save me.”

  “Free me.”

  I needed to try a drop of paint. The good stuff. But I couldn't risk losing the tube. What I needed was a way to try the drop. I needed a chaos field like the one around the vault in order to paint for real, but if I could just get a drop onto a paper, I could do smaller item tests in the comfort of my room.

  I dug out all the class notes I could find on the server for Professor Mbozi's classes, and containment fields in general.

  Three hours later, Olivia looked like she might start posting reminder notes titled “Murder Roommate, Hide Body,” if I stayed in the room any longer trying to figure out how to set up a small containment field then put a drop of paint on a paper without using my hands, magic, or intentions. I had used up the non-magical paint tubes I had brought from home for the tests—each had been taken in turn—and I had racked up five more offenses.

  My sixth was awarded when I attempted to turn my desk into an unbreakable barrier box around the paint and my hands.

  The sixth law enforcement student aimed his tablet at me and the tube of crimson whizzed to him. He looked at it in consternation, just like all the other officers had. He held the tube as if it must be filled with flesh-eating bacteria instead of paint.

  “Your items will stop being confiscating as soon as you are clean for two weeks straight.”

  Well, that was unlikely to happen.

  “Ren, I think I want you to stop.”

  “Ren, you need to free me!”

  I looked at my roommate, who was making a career out of pretending I didn't exist. I wished I could ask her for advice. On things like hiding my illegal status while still gaining all the knowledge I lacked. On things like making a contain
ment field to hide my prohibited projects. On things like hearing my dead brother's fractured soul calling out to me, discrediting every text that said he was somewhere peaceful.

  But I just was not born for interpersonal relationships. That was why I had a twin.

  One more test...

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I spent the rest of my Saturday and much of Sunday morning working off the punishments I had earned.

  Sunday afternoon, as I was coming back from soul studying at the library, I suddenly found myself pushing through a Jell-O force field as all hell broke loose freely on campus around me. Two people near me pressed their fingers underneath their ears and screamed in loss.

  A second town in the Second Layer had been destroyed.

  I mechanically watched the news reels in my room. An event that happened only on my reader—black-and-white swirls in the smoke prefacing the destruction in the replayed reels. The black-and-white swirls were intimately familiar, and I didn't know how to process it. The sudden force field that had taken me during those few seconds had been the same as the one in Ganymede. And no one around me had seemed affected before or during the chaos.

  I stared at my device long past the last news reel, rolling my charcoal pencil between my palms.

  When Will's emergency message came through, I was expecting it.

  Chapter Eighteen: Marsgrove Redux

  I had asked Will if he could somehow hack into Marsgrove's mage frequency—a sort of internal cell phone everyone but I seemed to possess—to determine when the man might return to campus. Will, bless him, hadn't asked too many questions and had just said, “I know someone who can do it, I'll take care of it.”

  Since I didn't have my own frequency established—and frankly, after knowing about this whole hack thing, wasn't sure I wanted one—Will and I relied on old school communication. My bracelet would ping me with incoming messages.

  Meet at library as soon as possible. Person of interest on the move.

  I gathered the emergency bag I had put together for just such an occurrence and sprinted back to the library as dusk drew its dark curtains across the Sunday night sky.