The Awakening of Ren Crown (15 page)

I turned to see Marsgrove looking grim. He was tucking items into his pockets. A hat, a bracelet, a handkerchief—none of them had been on him in the coffeehouse. I looked behind him and saw a stand labeled “Checkpoint.” People were swapping things over the counter with a harried, bald-headed man who looked like he should be wearing a visor and taking bets. There was a large liquid pump behind him.

“No, I wasn't thinking of that at all.”

“Come on. Let's get this over with.” He walked under a sign saying “School Transport,” and I quickly followed. Inside the room were nearly fifty doorways. The one labeled Excelsine was an interesting combination of classical Corinthian columns wrapped in vines twisting toward Gothic. Marsgrove used a skeleton key in the lock.

A gorgeous atrium of modern architecture spread before us and a woman in a crisp business suit nodded at Marsgrove as she walked by, heels clicking. Unexpected. I looked behind me at the busy depot station, then stepped through to the new world.

The atrium was wide and open, and a long ramp spiraled upward along the rectangular edges of the walls. Doorways dotted the sides of the wall to my right. Groups of students were gathered in front of dozens of the doors. Others passed by carrying bags and packs, and their clothing occasionally, remarkably, changed from one outfit to the next, rippling like waves.

Hanging in the middle of the atrium was a giant compass surrounded by five concentric silver rings, each rotating in various directions around the ones inside it. The edges of the rings were rippling in an asynchronous, nonuniform pattern as well. The inmost ring lay mostly flat, with just a bit of a slow ripple. The outermost one was wildly changing, even in its thickness.

A smile started to unwillingly spread my lips.

On the floor, directly beneath the enchanted gyroscope, was a large stone with Rosetta styled carved markings. The view through the windows showed the building edged a large circular grassy space. Hundreds of students lounged on the grass. Endless sky appeared through spaces between the buildings across the grass circle. Were we at the top of the mountain?

“Turquoise.” Marsgrove motioned with his hand.

I blinked, then dug the turquoise nugget from my pocket. As soon as it left my fingers, words on signs grew hazy and people started speaking in languages and tongues that I had never encountered. I hadn't noticed it before now, but had everyone in the depot been speaking English?...or I had been
hearing
English?

“Give me your finger.”

I held out my hand, and quicker than I could react, Marsgrove punctured the tip of my pointer finger with a small knife that was glowing blue. I tried to pull my hand back, but he held firm.

“Hug the Shinar Stone and press your blood against it.” He pointed to the large engraved rock in the middle of the atrium floor.

People were passing us, and the only second glances were appreciative ones toward Marsgrove.

Unnerved, I walked awkwardly over and wrapped my arms around the rock, bloody finger pressing into its surface. I held the position for a few seconds, then decided that I had provided a good enough sideshow. As I let go, the writing on the stone grew brighter, shimmering, and a nearly invisible layer of something pulled away with my movement, then snapped from the rock and settled on me. The writing dulled to stone-cut gray again. I walked quickly back to Marsgrove.

A girl passing said, “Toot oreet wamput,” to her companion. Something in my brain shifted. Then shifted again, like tumblers slotting into place.

“It is my favorite parufferie,” the other one answered, her shirt changing from red to blue, then back again.

I blinked. I could understand her. Though, what was a parufferie?

Another tumbler scraped and slotted.

“They sell the best perfume,” the first girl said in clear English.

I almost stopped walking. I
had
hugged the Rosetta Stone.

Marsgrove was doing something complicated with his tablet.

“I can understand everyone,” I blurted out.

“Of course you can.” He seemed preoccupied.

He didn't seem as elated as I was at the suggestion that magic truly might be able to do
anything
.

“
This is a good thing.”
Christian sounded relieved.

I could see students throwing balls of colored light where I hadn't been able to before.

“I can see magic.”

“You'll have to renew the enchantment again in a few months, or learn how to see magic without aid.” He didn't sound as if he cared which I chose.

I looked around me in awe and anticipation. As soon as I raised Christian, I was going to do some serious learning. I watched as a woman walking across the atrium cast a jet of red at her feet. Immediately, she started moving at least forty miles an hour across the floor, disappearing down a hall.

Magic could do
anything
.

“Good. You are now enrolled as a student.” Marsgrove made a sweeping motion with his hand. Something settled on top of me like a liquid shell, then absorbed. He repeated the motion three more times with lips pressed firmly together. “This will have to do so you can't paint, just in case.”

The man was a lunatic. I was totally going to paint.

He turned on his heel. “Follow me.”

We entered a room containing seven arches, strode through the one second to the left, and emerged onto a section of flat grassland about three football fields long.

A grassland that then dropped sharply about twenty feet to lay flat for the next three football fields of land, then dropped again—giant terraces continuously spreading and descending thousands of feet, buildings of all varieties, styles, and sizes clumped together in places, open fields in others.

And the view...

The mountain was awe-inspiringly huge.

If the Tower of Babel existed, surely this was it. Or an anti-Tower—a strange enchanted fortress where people spoke in thousands of tongues yet still understood each other.

I breathed in a deep gulp of air. A fortress without altitude sickness. Boys played a football-like sport one terraced level—no, what had Will called them? Circles?—one circle down from us. A perfect sport for Christian. Euphoria bloomed. Soon.
Soon
.

The mountain was surrounded by expansive flat plains and towns stretching out for miles. I could see clouds surrounding mountain tops in the distance, but none lingered here, making the view utterly unspoiled and fantastic.

My feet had slowed, trying to take in the visual thrill. Marsgrove motioned impatiently in front of another arch. “Hurry.”

I kept waiting for him to say, “I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.”

That arch led us into a cozy Midwestern street. I blinked. It was almost too normal after seeing such a wondrous place earlier, but the mountain still stretched high above. A look down showed more mountain below, so we were still on Excelsine, just nearer to the bottom. Maybe this residential area was where students lived?

Everyone walking by was a businessperson, a parent, or a small child, though. Maybe this is where professors lived?

We eventually turned onto a slate path leading to a lovely two-story brick house.

“Through here.”

I followed him inside and was surprised by the warm tones and stylish decor. The man obviously had money, although he was in need of a housekeeper. The house was immaculately clean in some places, irreparably cluttered in others. Marsgrove unlocked, then poked through a large wooden secretary. He grabbed a few items, then started climbing the stairs.

When I didn't immediately follow, he turned and said, “Come on, then,” with a harried wave.

He walked into a bedroom, opened the closet door, and stepped inside.

I stepped over the threshold of the room, wondering where the closet might lead. The thought fled as a weight pressed down upon my cuffed wrist, then spread over me, constricting—like a fish caught in a net then hauled to land. I bent over, trying to catch my breath. The closet door slammed closed, as well as the door behind me, and I could hear a lock engage.

I closed my eyes, betrayal quickly pressing upon me again, as I breathed heavily in the pinched air. I was so stupid. If Marsgrove hadn't been acting so much like the White Rabbit with a tablet instead of a pocket watch...

The weight of the air lifted and I backed myself against the wall across from the door, eyes searching for weapons. There was a bed, a desk, an armoire, a black box attached to the wall, a wall screen, and some full bookshelves.

No scissors.

“It is the best I could do on such short notice.”

I looked up to see Marsgrove's face, peering through a little barred window in the door that had not been there previously.

“Let me out, now,” I said. I would even forgive him the joke, if he did it right away.

“It is for the best, really. For you.” His face was almost sympathetic. “I can't let you loose on the world, but I also didn't take you to the Department. The man in charge makes Raphael look like a gregarious border collie. And my cousin...she would dissect you in an instant. Raphael runs free with whatever tool of mass destruction you gifted him with—in the midst of the treaty negotiations. I'm darkly tempted to circumvent Raphael's spell and yank the information from you, but he would have put in protections against me. Better for you not to be in the world at all, but matters have gone beyond that.”

I swallowed my emotion with difficulty. Crying hadn't yet helped me deal with Christian's loss, and it wasn't going to help me now. “You told my parents you were taking me to school. I felt the magic of the oath. You told Will you wouldn't harm me.”

“And I fulfilled my pledge, all of it. You are here. You are not hurt. You have extremely enviable shields, as promised, you just won't need them. You are enrolled as a student. Your class transcript, however, is blank until you have a start date, which you never will.”

Will had stressed the idea of intentions mattering in magic, but Marsgrove had just taught me that words held power.

“Food will be delivered through the black box. Read, watch television, look out the window. Draw with the ordinary pencils in the desk. Magic cannot be performed inside this room, but too, no one can feel you here. Nullified.” I could feel the net of the energy—magic—around me. “There are suppression and encapsulation fields on the room. It will protect you from yourself and also from anyone else. No one but the two of us can be in this house.”

“I don't need protection, I need
out
. Now.” I thought of Will's comment on time thresholds existing with black magic. “You can't keep me prisoner.”

“You have no idea what is happening in our world.” His expression was dark. “And I have no time for explanations. I'll check on you in a few weeks. And maybe I will teach you magic someday. When you will be useful, and I can control the risk.”

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.