The Protection of Ren Crown (24 page)

Just as the sun's rays dripped the last bit of red onto the horizon, bursts of blue and white lightning split the sky. Fireworks lit the air, one boom after another. Every color and shape was alive, breathing around me. The blooms lit the landscape for miles around as the bangs echoed over the countryside, and reverberated around the circumference of the mountain, enveloping all of us within the bursts of light.

The opening fanfare released one last burst. A pause. Then a single flare lit the air. Emotion seared through the communal connection—fear, beauty, acceptance...and for a moment I saw a face and the intense love that the person who released the firework held for that person. The light twinkled out, and another took to the air—regret, surprise, denial. This one held no image and was tinged with undiminished sorrow. Another was of pure joy. An embrace of having had their person in their life for even a moment.

Each blast held personal significance, making every eruption different as we shared the emotions. Sadness, affection, despondence, hopefulness. It choked me. Being a mage—when it wasn't terrifying—was wonderful.

The maker and enchanter of each firework left their mark on the crowd in an all-encompassing net of beauty, celebration, and memorial. A slight pressure pushed upon me, an indicator that it was my turn.

I released my sphere and it lifted. Lifted with my sadness and longing, my love for my twin and my devastation at his passing. Connected to my magic, the firework dipped at each of my internal sorrows and lifted at the loving memories that passed through my mind. The communal connection would only experience the color, flavor, and spirit of my remembrance, but the memories played like a movie montage for me, ending with Christian throwing a football to me in the backyard, laughing as I tumbled into the garden plants, then cheering as I held the ball high, flat on my back. Always catching what the other threw, always supporting each other, always pushing each other to greater heights.

At that moment it didn't matter who had sent me the core, or for what purpose it had been sent. It was my firework, my remembrances, and I ached as I watched.

It bloomed white, then gold. Then burst in a thousand points of beautiful glitter and dust.

~*~

After returning to our room, I picked up the journal that connected to one my parents had in the First Layer. The journal was filled with careful observations and anecdotes of magical life and humorous bits and stories I picked up. Nothing emotional or revealing.

I had needed to hide so many things last term. And still, this term I had secrets I couldn't share with them, but I
could
share my emotions. My fears and hopes.

Tonight...tonight had reminded me that even when things were strained or painful...I was not alone.

I picked up my pen.

Dear Mom and Dad, tonight the magical world held a celebration called The Lightning Festival. A celebration of the coming year and a reflection of the year past. A time to remember those we love and those who have passed. It was both lightning and lightening.

I took a deep breath.

I miss Christian. I sometimes wake up with a dream to tell him on my lips. And a little piece of me dies each time I realize the emptiness of that reality. And yet I continue to awaken. I continue to dream. And I try each day to fill my new reality. Not to fill my emptiness randomly and meaninglessly, but to choose a positive, meaningful path.

I thought of Christian's parting words to me. That we would see each other again. And after tonight I believed them once more. The feeling strengthened within me, healing another piece of my broken soul.

And it reinforced my resolve.

It took me awhile to fall asleep with my thoughts and emotions running rampant. But when I woke, I felt clearheaded for the first time since being back on campus, and I knew what I needed to do.

Chapter Thirteen: Friends and Foes

Dorm One was not my favorite place, but it was past time I paid it a visit.

I stood in front of the door, debating what I was going to do and say. He might not even be awake yet, but I could almost
feel
a presence on the other side of the solid barrier, waiting to see what I decided.

Down the hall, a dark-haired girl exited a room and pretty emerald eyes immediately zeroed in on me, narrowing. I had sketched her face into my mind many times—the girl who had watched me the other day, the girl to whom Inessa Norrissing had been ranting, the girl with the lilting voice who I had attempted to sit with on my first visit to the cafeteria.

Dorm One was fraught with old-money magic users. Dare probably lived around here somewhere. But I couldn't let that matter.

The girl continued her narrow stare, raking me over from head to toe. I turned my attention away, uneasily deciding to ignore her and focus on my task.

It would be stupid not to be leery of the man on the other side of the door. Constantine was very, very dangerous. I had known that from the beginning. But I fingered the expandable stamp he had given to me for my birthday, and thought of all the time he must have spent creating it. Of all the late nights we had spent on different experiments. Of the serious, concentrated look that overtook his features when no one else was there to witness it, the delight when one of his experiments worked, and the helpful hand he automatically extended in the workroom. That was the Constantine I was friends with. And the one I sought.

I gave three raps in quick succession.

I was not alone, and my friends wouldn't be either.

The door opened as my knuckles hit the third time and the movement pulled my hand forward.

“Crown.” His customary seductive smile was in place, but the confidence that usually underscored his direct gaze was tempered, as if he thought he needed to monitor what he said to me. The expressions in his eyes and smiles rarely matched, but the caution I sensed in him, was something new. “Something you need?” he asked smoothly.

For someone as narcissistic as Constantine, even a slight deviation toward a normal emotional response was worrying. I knew the concern showed on my face, so I discarded the verbal script I had prepared. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?” he asked in a lazy voice.

This was my fifth day back on campus and even though I hadn't seen him, he assuredly knew I had been on campus this whole time—he always seemed to know what I was up to.

I wondered if he really had been standing on the other side of the door for the past two minutes, wondering if I would knock. With all of the other indications, that was entirely possible.

I looked down. The violet and bronze threads that spanned the space between our elbows pulsed with guarded, yet hungry, bursts. The feeling in them was so similar to Olivia’s.

My shoulders drooped with remorse. “I'm sorry it took me so long to visit. Can we talk?”

His expression grew less readable, but the threads gave a jolt and he opened the door fully.

I swallowed. “I wanted—”

“Stop.” He tapped the jamb in a pointed manner, indicating caution, and his eyes narrowed as the change in his position allowed him to see down the hall.

I cast a quick glance that way and saw the girl was still there. The concentrated look on her face said she was talking to someone internally via frequency, but her gaze was still locked on me.

Constantine's hand gently wrapped around my back and he pulled me past him. I quickly stepped with the motion, almost missing the look of physical agony that suddenly overcame the green-eyed girl's features as she buckled over, clutching her stomach. And then she was out of view completely and Constantine was locking the door behind me.

Smirking, he slipped something into his back pocket. “Now, what did you wish to discuss?” he asked, as he sat in his favorite wing-backed chair.

I blinked. “What just happened?”

“I invited you inside,” he said blandly.

“No, with that girl.”

“What girl?”

I shook my head, still standing. “Fine. I want to talk about the leech.”

The violet and bronze connections twanged, but he laughed and pulled his fingers along the black ribbon that he always kept near. It had been strangely absent when he was in the First Layer. “You are too direct, darling. You've been living with Price for too long. Evasiveness and prevarication make good allies. The longer and more diabolical the truths, the better. You need to try to trick me into a revelation. Now, what did you wish to speak about?”

“Can we just talk about the button?”

“No,” he said.

“There once was a mage from Old Crow, who had a leech used on her elbow. Her friend said, here try this! It's something easy to dismiss. Oh, that too-trusting mage from Old Crow.”

“Limericks aren't evasive, darling.”

“You waited for Olivia to be taken down, knowing I would give you permission to use that leech on me to save her,” I said.

He hadn't counted on being hit with the horribly damaging purple spell, though, and I wondered if he would have fought differently had he known it was coming.

He gazed at me with hooded eyes. “Of course.”

There were many questions that could follow that statement.
Why
, being the topmost of them.

“Did you accomplish what you set out to do?” I asked instead.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me your plans?”

“No.”

“Are you going to do it again?”

His ribbon stilled. “Will you let me?”

I sighed and sat on the seat across from him, pulling my legs beneath me.

The black silk remained motionless. “You trust too easily.”

I met his gaze without break. “Only the first time.”

He smiled, and the lines of his body and face relaxed into their normal positions—or at least the ones I only saw when we were alone. Palpable relief pulsed both ways along the connection threads.

“Thanks for the stamp. It's brilliant.” I held it up, shaking it into a palm-sized sheet. “It must have taken you days to make it.”

“Weeks,” he said, with false humility.

“The envelope spell to allow this to travel between the layers is extraordinary. Good thing, as no one could help me bring it back here.” I looked at him pointedly, referencing the protection spells that had shocked Olivia and Will.

Even if he usually used it for evil, Constantine knew a lot about mind and protection magic, which was another thing I was eager to discuss.

“The material is only for you, Ren,” he said, his voice lazy. “Why would I want anyone else to have something—or know about something—so brilliant?”

“And here I figured that you would want everyone to know how magnificent you are. To be the most renowned materials maker in the land.”

Constantine's smile was casually superior, but his eyes told a different story. “Fame makes fools of us all.”

Fame, notoriety, Raphael... Those were things that I could do without. Just thinking about Raphael made me take a deep breath and reach for calm, but as I did so I was not gripped by any of the eager spells laced through campus. It was as if the calming magic was thwarted here.

Constantine's ribbon moved more quickly between his fingers. “That explains the thin, jagged layer of peace overlaying your horrible mass of anxiety. You aren't drinking in any of that rot with the calming spells are you? Don't you listen to the conspiracy mages?”

His tone was teasing and derisive, but his gaze was not.

“Er...no?”

He raised a brow.

I looked at the connection threads. They now hummed with dark fondness and light derision. A checkered pattern wove between us. “But that's not important right now,” I said.

Later, everything else later.

“Con, I—” I swallowed, suddenly unable to get the words out. His black ribbon went as still as his body. “I need to know about the leech.”

His ribbon stayed still. “A trick-worthy line of questioning finally, even if the trick is emotional extortion.” His tone was considering, but his body positioning was not. “Didn't you ask Price about the device? I'm surprised she even let you visit me.”

“She doesn't know.”

“Slipped your metaphorical leash, darling?”

“Con…”

“
I
can't control who you befriend either, more's the pity.”

“Constantine.”

“Didn't you look up the information in the dark library? I'm surprised at you,” he said.

“I looked up four-dozen books in Main. It was all rot—ethical concerns and arguments. Nothing about construction.”

Just like information on Origin Magic; either I had to register myself on a list somewhere in order to access the good stuff—something I couldn't afford to do at present—or I had to figure it out through long, intricate, devious study.

“And you are stalling,” I said, giving him a look I hoped expressed that I was unimpressed. “You said you've been studying up on...
things
. Where did you get the leech? How do you make one?”

Heavy pulses waved along the threads connecting us. Desire and anger, anticipation and fear. I tried to examine the emotions individually, but just as they separated, they were brutally crushed, stilling and suddenly empty. I blinked before looking up at him in astonishment. How had he done that?

His gaze was narrowed on mine, tension crinkling the edges of his eyes. “You are so full of surprises. How did you tether an enhancement spell?” he asked.

“Death? And a strange book?”

A bark of laughter issued. He released whatever knot he had created in the threads connecting us, but there was an absence of something in them now, something
Constantine
. His gaze remained piercing. “You can see a connection between us.”

I looked down automatically. “Yes.”

“Colors?” he asked tightly.

I looked at the waving lines. My parents' deep, strong shades of rose coupled together, and the ones that connected me to Olivia, Will, Neph, and Dare were all vibrant. Each of them had engaged in powerful, personal magic shares with me. Some threads defied characterization, comprised of my own magic—to Rock Guard, Guard Friend, Okai. Others existed in various degrees of brightness that had yet to be labeled. Raphael's, unfortunately, shone brightest, like sunlit gold.