The Protection of Ren Crown (20 page)

I needed to know more about the world around me, and Neph and Will had said they would take politics too, so it would hopefully be a solid combination of time, course requirements, and interest.

Engineering Concepts in Warding, taught by the ever-awesome Professor Mbozi, would provide me with the extra tools I needed to ward my dreams, increase my protections, and keep the people around me safe.

Since Marsgrove hadn't removed my art restrictions, I couldn't get into any of the regular art buildings. So I had to take art classes remotely—hence the individualized study.

Someday, maybe I would be able to take the art classes I wanted, like a normal student.

“What about you, Mike?” I asked, breathing in more calming magic.

“Cloud Formation and Placement, Ice Manipulation, and Rain Dancing.”

Neph looked at him in interest. “Rain Dancing is a difficult field of study.”

Mike grimaced. “I suck at rain. My adviser demanded I take at least two courses in it this year.”

He brightened. “But my snow manipulation has undergone a recent dramatic increase and I should pass out of it after this term. Will told me you three were thinking about taking Layer Politics, so I took it as an elective. Should be an interesting class with the current worldwide mess.”

“I'm happy you're taking it with us,” I said, relieved. I could easily hide my ignorance in the midst of a bigger group.

Delia pressed her tray down and lightly dropped into the seat next to Mike, her black bob swaying as she did. “Add one more to the tally. I signed up for politics too. They increased the cap and brought in more assistants because of the overwhelming student interest.”

Olivia violently poked her tiny, blue asparagus stalks, and Delia ignored her as if she wasn't present.

Mike shook his head as he looked between them. “What are the rest of you taking?”

Neph lifted her hand gracefully, and the every-spice shaker lifted into the air. “Dancing in Teams of Five. Movement with Ten. Spectacles and Spectaculars. Layer Politics with you four, and Medical Field Magic.”

Olivia glanced up sharply at Neph. Intensity I didn't understand still simmered between them, but Olivia's gaze was less harsh. “Medical Magic? Good.”

Suspicion rose in me. Was Neph taking the class because I had temporarily lost body parts and been repeatedly maimed last term? She had patched me up more than once.

“Do you have lab hours with the class?” Mike asked Neph.

She nodded. “Two a week in the field.”

“Great! You'll probably be working Winter Wonderland as a lifeguard then.” He pulled up a holographic image of the Seventh Circle runs that ran the circumference of the mountain level. Arches at the bottom of the level seamlessly ported the skiers back to different arches at the top, making the runs infinite and varied. In the image, a lifeguard exited a chair and used a red rod to tap the leg of one downed skier and the wrist of another.

“On campus anything short of death is taken care of by students studying Medical Magic,” Mike informed me. “They rotate weather mages daily to keep the snow and conditions fresh, so we might be on duty together, Nephthys.”

Delia tapped a holographic skier with her fork. “The runs are excellent this year. And the snow is perfect. I did the runs yesterday and today—no complaints.”

Mike's chest puffed out and I felt fierce warmth in mine at the normal nature of the conversation.

“Glad to hear it. Spent half my holiday doing credit work for the snow hours. There were twenty of us working on the weather, five working the ports, and two on the controls,” Mike said, ticking off the numbers on his fingers. “We were supposed to be working this week too—lots of stuff still left to do—but they activated the system anyway to get things 'back to normal.' Glad you are enjoying the runs, D. The challenge course on January twentieth is my design. As is the one on February seventh. Thought the Department was going to close the campus-port system permanently there for a bit, like they did with off-campus arches.”

Uneasiness spiked around the table. The table threads that connected to Neph suddenly pulsed harder, lessening the disquiet.

Mike cleared his throat and carried on the conversation. “So, what are you taking, D?” As far as I knew, Mike was the only one allowed to call Delia that.

“Politics with you ruffians, Stitch-by-Stitch Magic, Threading 220, and Medieval Fashions through the Layers.”

The middle two sounded unbearably interesting. And timely. I made a mental note to talk to Delia about interlaced clothing wards. Sleeping in warded pajamas seemed like a fantastic idea.

Mike looked at Olivia. “What about you, Price?”

“Legal Matters between Layers One and Two, Legal Matters between Layers Two and Three, Defense Defensibles, Corruption and Gain, Punishment and Guilt, Sacrifice and Glory, and Magical Lie Detection.”

The entire table blinked.

“You going to sleep this term, Price?” Mike asked.

“I sleep as needed. William?” Olivia asked in her clipped way.

Will rallied quickly. “Devices in the Age of Mysticism, Magical Engineering Mechanics 310, Architecture with Ren, and politics with nearly the lot of you.”

“Architecture?” Delia asked. “Not quite explode-y enough for you, is it?” Delia had known Will casually from the delinquent circuit before we'd become a united table.

Will pulled out a sheet of paper I had created with pulp and magic under Professor Stevens' guidance, and a magical pencil, also of my design. He sketched a device on the page. The sketched device exploded into a starburst on the paper, burning to the edges in flames that strained against containment.

“Architecture and
Design
. Model sketching and animation. Stupidly useful for advanced models and pre-testing, but the Engineering Department doesn't utilize it the way they should.
Yet
.” He grinned. “But I'm sure Ren and I can blow up all sorts of things in the project portion.”

More than one person rolled their eyes, but Delia smirked and stroked her alert bracelet. The bracelet automatically shut down the suggestion enchantments she loved to abuse so much.

Funny, that. Other types of mages were allowed free reign to use such skills, but try and stitch them into clothing and people panicked. Something about wearing a rogue enchantment in one's favorite sweater terrified people in a way that government-issued control cuffs didn't.

Will was grinning madly. “
And
, maybe we can get the professor to buy future class supplies from 'Renwill Enterprises' when she sees how awesome our completed assignments are.”

Mike flicked his empty spoon at Will.

I opened my mouth to add something, but the hair on the back of my neck lifted. I immediately rubbed the area, freaked out that I could feel each hair extended. The most concentrated batch of hair was stretching in one particular direction. I waited thirty seconds, then as casually as I could, let my gaze sweep that way.

The girl with the emerald eyes met my gaze head-on, not even bothering to look away. She cocked her head in a contemplative way, while next to her Inessa Norrissing angrily jabbed her finger against the table top. Little darts of crimson magic sparked from the contact.

Not good.

~*~

After dinner, I trudged back to the library alone. Will had his Mechanics United club meeting, Mike was on snow patrol, Delia had Fashion Guild, and Neph was on muse duty. Olivia had another debate meeting, but she had assured me with a fierce, concerning look, that the outcome of this meeting would be different from her last. That could mean one of two things—that she wouldn't get in a fight again, or that she wouldn't get caught, if she did.

The minute I entered the fourth floor, the black-and-white book's cover tilted toward me. The spell from
Enhancing
had worn off, but my ability to see my own connections remained. A long thin dollar-green cord ran from my chest to the book. A debt to be repaid.

Great.

I painstakingly cleared my mind of random desires, in case the book read and acted on another of my thoughts, then got to work.

It took fifteen minutes, but I finally succeeded in calling
Vivid Dreams in Transition
to me using its card catalog spell. It certainly would have saved me a lot of time last term, if I had known these tricks from the start, instead of having to stubbornly figure out everything from scratch.

The book flew toward me in a haphazard flight path of swirling colors. As opposed to the more dour tomes, the books that found joy in their own existence were glorious to watch. Unfortunately, dealing with them directly was usually aggravating. They tended to be prone to mercurial fits of emotion and theatricality.

Helmet in place, I let the book nuzzle my shoulder before I activated the cooperation spell. It gave an audible papered sigh as it plopped on its back cover and opened to page one.

As I leafed through, its blue bookmark tongue waved in the air like a cobra, repeatedly trying to lick my hand.

I transferred data quickly between the book, Justice Toad, and my reader, using my fingers as bridges. Justice Toad ticked another two community service hours onto my total as the tablet disapprovingly did the work I asked of it.

Getting punished for misusing the tablet's magic was well worth the amount of time I saved, though. Adding Olivia's hours to my tab was kind of a blow, but these two extra hours would be easily offset. Frankly, I was a little immune to adding one or two hours here or there after racking up two hundred plus community service hours last term.

Exhausted, but relieved that I had some actual tactics to try before going to sleep again, I released my finger bridge and shut the book.

Approaching its designated shelf space, I thrust the book toward the open slot between two other tomes. But
Vivid
opened its covers and pushed against the spines of the two books—like a cat refusing to get into its carrier.

“Come on, just go in there.” I wiggled its spine and pushed harder, exhaustion starting to overtake my higher brain functions. The streaming room visit earlier had taken a lot out of me.

“You'll be released from the card catalog spell.” I tried coaxing. “Doesn't that sound great?”

Lick.

Ack
. I rubbed the back of my hand against my jeans again. Who knew what else that bookmark had licked today? I was going to need some magical disinfectant.

“Pardon me,” a husky voice said.

I shivered. Every time a lick made contact, it caused vivid hallucinations. Such a dangerous book, dealing in dreams and fevered imaginings. It had been whispering things to me post-licks for the past half hour. And
Vivid's
dream-induced whispers were getting downright eerie. My mind was even substituting Alexander Dare's voice now.

A stringed light of pure ultramarine pulsed from my chest in response.

A
dangerous
book. Especially when I was running on fumes.

Vivid
pushed back against my hand, hard.

“Come on, buddy, just go in.” I tried to clasp
Vivid's
covers together and shove it into place. I got hit with another blue-bookmark-tongued lick.

“I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'll help you with something,” I said in a dark tone, suddenly irritated with the book's taunting and the blue string's pulsing.

I gave an extra-firm shove, and finally,
finally
, the book seated into place, tongue firmly wedged in too. It wiggled a bit, so I pushed against the spine with a finger. If I was quick, I’d be able to make it to the stairs before it tracked me down for another taste.

“You make it sound painful.”

I realized that someone was standing next to me at the same time that I realized that a real, live person—and not the mischievous book—had been the one talking.

“What did you say?” My voice went weirdly high pitched as I looked up into unnaturally blue eyes. He was leaning one shoulder against the bookshelf, so close to me that we were nearly touching.

Alexander Dare and I hadn't had much to say to each other since I had died for him. Well that wasn’t entirely true; he had tried to talk to me, but I was stupidly incoherent around him and conflicted––wanting him to recognize me from the night of Christian's Awakening and subsequent death, yet not wanting him to recognize me from the same.

His eyes were still the color of ultramarine paint straight from Michelangelo's brush.

My hand dropped and
Vivid
thrust itself backward, licked the side of my face in one long blue bookmarked pass—whispering dirty thoughts as it did—then ruffled its pages in supreme amusement and self-satisfaction as it flew away in a triple-looped pattern.

Dare gave the fleeing book an unreadable glance, then gazed at my ink-slobbered cheek.

Nothing brilliant or witty lit in my head. I stared blankly at him, wiped my cheek, and wished I had a portal to Hell.

The skin around his blue eyes creased under the windswept, dark hair brushing his brow. Irritation was a pretty normal expression for me to see on his face.

Still hot.

“I saw you exiting the streaming room earlier,” he said in a horribly casual voice, as if he was trying—and failing—to be anything other than irritated with me
.
“The librarian said you are in there frequently.”

I swallowed. I really needed to be more careful. “It's a useful room.”

He tilted his head. “And yet I pulled you out of a regular reading room when you got lost to the information, what, three months ago? The first time you stepped into one.”

I gave a queasy laugh at the thought of what he
wasn't
saying. “They made me nervous before, so I had never tried one. I got over it.” Olivia had hated the rooms before I helped her through the process. Surely he'd buy that excuse from me.

Lies! Feral alert! Right in front of you!

“You must use an indexing spell in the streaming room, if you emerge without looking like total death.”

I didn't respond, keeping my lips clearly shut on the urge to ask,
“How
do
I look?”