The Protection of Ren Crown (50 page)

The lazy disregard left his gaze completely as it sharpened on me.

Familiar ultramarine magic instantly tightened around me and shattered the increasingly creepy connection. I swallowed and turned a grateful glance to Dare, who was looking between us with a narrowed gaze.

The leader began to introduce each of the men and women in the line. I heard the names, but the only one that mattered was the last. Emrys Norr, who was still staring at me and had begun to smile.

Isaiah, Selmarie, and the Troop leader shook hands, then Selmarie addressed the room. “We have broken the teams into threesomes and fivesomes based on the original Combat and Justice Squad pairings. Either one pair will have a Troop member join them to make a threesome, or two pairs will add a Troop member to make a fivesome. The Troop member will then work with the Justice Squad partner or partners when the combat mages leave for the competition. This is an excellent opportunity to spread good will and help campus security grow stronger. Assignments are on your tablets.”

I looked down, already knowing what I'd see. Magic was a funny thing, and as Dare so often pointed out, it made things connect subconsciously before consciousness was made aware.

Alexander Dare, Ren Crown, Emrys Norr
. The last was highlighted purple, and when I looked up, Emrys was outlined in the same dark lilac. He was still staring at me, a small smile riding his lips.

People were moving around me—rising from their chairs and introducing themselves, according to corresponding outlines—but neither Emrys nor I moved.

“Crown.”

It took another nudge and a repeat of my name for me to stop the staring contest and look up at Dare. His brows were sharply drawn and there was a hint of concern in his expression.

“Yes?” I answered automatically.

“Up.”

I rose mechanically and hooked my bag over my shoulder. Dare's fingers briefly brushed my arm and I felt a small burst of invigoration as well as the echo of a ringing bell, which cleared the haze that had started to gather.

“Thanks.”

“Keep it together,” he said, his voice tight. “And sleep eight hours tonight, or I'll make you run laps—around the Fourth Circle.”

One “lap” on the Fourth was about four miles in length.

“Keep your pants on.” At one time, I would have blushed like mad after saying something like that to him, but Dare and I weren't passing acquaintances anymore. “And you are the one who made me get up today at
dawn
. I'm not running laps,” I muttered. “I already have a drill sergeant.”

“I do hope I'm not interrupting?” A smooth voice said. We both turned to see our new partner approaching. His green eyes flipped to gray then flipped back to green. The purple corona that surrounded the iris remained unchanged. Whether the purple was from the identification spell or naturally occurring, I didn't know. “Mr. Dare, it is a pleasure.”

They exchanged a business-like greeting and handshake.

“And Miss Crown? We haven't met, but it is also a great pleasure.” There was something sharp and familiar in his gaze for a moment, and my heart rate spiked. But then a feeling of ease filled the space, making me relax.

“Likewise,” I murmured.

When his irises were gray, they were similar in color to Will's.

“I look forward to working with the both of you,” Emrys said as we exited the building. His voice was easy to listen to. Masculine, philharmonic tones. Like an oceanic symphony, both crashing and soothing.

Nothing changed on Dare's inscrutable face, but his elbow clipped me and his clear magic spiked through me, ringing me lucid again.

Great. Emrys Norr had been using some form of auditory magic. I was going to seriously have to look into magical cotton balls.

“Where would you like to start, sir?” Dare said, his voice militarily precise and polite, though the lingering magic from his spike made me ultra-aware of him, and there was a deep well of underlying irritation and disgust underneath his polite question.

“Please, call me Emrys.”

“Where would you like to start, sir?” Dare reiterated without a pause.

The mercenary looked at me and gave a theatrical sigh. “Is he always so straight-laced? We'll have to change that.”

I kept my expression neutral, though my heart rate surged waiting for Dare to destroy him. Dare was anything but straight-laced. He was just very careful in
how
he rode roughshod over rules.

“Feel free to give it a try, sir.” Dare's smile was pleasant and oh, so utterly false. No one listening could say that he was impolite, but in the spirit of the exchange, the word “sir” might as well have been swapped for something
far
less civil.

“How about we start in the Midlands?” Emrys said lightly. “Terribly interesting strips of land.”

Still highly attuned to Dare, I could feel the tightening in his magic. I bumped him back as unobtrusively as I could, and some of the tightness dissipated.

There was a speculative look in Emrys's eyes as he looked between the two of us, and his lips took an unpleasant downward turn, before a full smile bloomed in a manic switch of emotion. “Shall we?”

“Actually, sir, there is nothing you need to know about the Midlands other than how to make sure the barrier magic stays intact. We'll start with the perimeter wards,” Dare said, moving in the direction of the nearest henge—a henge full of arches that would send us nowhere near the Midlands.

“Alas,” Emrys said, giving me a smile.

I smiled uneasily back and followed Dare.

Dare led and narrated the path through the perimeter wards in the same order that he had when we had first gone through them, but whereas his comments were still direct and correct, they were even more of a textbook recitation than what he had given to the other members of the Justice Squad.

It was extremely boring, but Emrys Norr was just disconcerting enough to keep me on edge. There was something very familiar, and yet strange about him.

“You meet together each day, correct?” Emrys said to me.

“Yes, we—”

“The three of us will meet once a day,” Dare cut in, finishing the conversation. “In addition, I'll meet with you separately.” He addressed that to Emrys, but I knew, since we'd already discussed it, that he meant me as well.

Emrys was very polite, but I was happy to put his strange eyes in my rearview mirror as he excused himself with a cheerful farewell and a barely visible smirk.

“There's something off about him.” Dare's words were flat as we watched Emrys walk over to speak to a number of the Junior Department students who were always following us.

“You would say that no matter who we got stuck with,” I pointed out. “And you just met him.”

Seeing the charming grin Emrys displayed as the students eagerly chatted with him—while pointing at me—did nothing to make me want to defend him past reasonable argument, however.

“I've seen him before,” Dare said. He motioned for me to walk with him to the henge north of our position. “Along with the rest of the Troop's members. The Troop is well-known, and we did our research.”

“And?”

Dare frowned. “It's just...off. The whole situation. We should have been assigned to someone else. He's mid-level only.”

“Hold on, I'm not sure your head will fit through this arch. Let me go first.”

He rolled his eyes. “There's an order to things. And you felt it too—something strange about him.”

“A little. Yeah,” I admitted as we emerged on the other side of the Eighth Circle. I felt relief course through me almost instantly once Emrys and the Junior Department could no longer see me. “He seemed different from the rest of them. But that could just be your paranoia infecting me.”

“It's not. And Telgent isn't right either.” At my blank expression, Dare stopped his forward movement and crossed his arms. “General Telgent, the Troop's leader who spoke for the last half hour? Observation involves
listening
, Ren.”

I had halfheartedly logged the Troop leader's whole boring speech somewhere in my memory banks. I'd see about dredging up some enthusiasm to remember it later. “You aren't paying me to do that kind of observing. Let's be frank now. That whole spiel when we began working together was rousing, but you just wanted to get your hands on my sweet, feral abilities.”

“I will make you run all over this mountain,” he said, overly enunciating the words.

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved a hand and began walking again. “So, what, you want to put Emrys and Telgent under watch? Set up some paper animals to follow them?”

He tapped his arm, then shook his head. “I'll deal with it. Just say as little as possible and don't do anything fancy when Norr is around, and do
nothing
at the group exchange they are scheduling.”

“I'll be perfectly dull, promise.”

The next few days with Emrys Norr and Dare, though, illustrated the futility of those words.

Emrys tried to bait Dare (unsuccessfully), and to startle me (successfully), into showing unusual magic, as if he was testing us both for rare abilities. He had
lots
of success with me—I had shot all sorts of, thankfully, unidentifiable and weird magic all over the place in the past few days—and Emrys's success with me was driving Dare
spare.
But for some reason, I just couldn't feel Emrys approaching like Dare had taught me to feel with other people.

Emrys stalked us in the Midlands, right alongside the Junior Department, every time we entered. Dare couldn't keep Emrys out of the Midlands—the grounds were free for any authorized student or visitor to wander. However, after the third time Emrys startled me, Dare made Emrys's visits there extremely unpleasant in a variety of untraceable ways.

That didn't stop Emrys from trying to follow us, though, or from gathering data on me.

He was being paid by the Department, just like the rest of the Troop. And the Department was looking for rare mages. All he really needed was a stage to showcase the magical way I responded to things, then he could wrap me up with a big red bow.

~*~

After a few days of rounds, the Troop, Combat Squad, and Justice Squad convened for the group exchange meant to pull together everything we had been learning, and to facilitate sharing across the three squads. Selmarie and the Combat Squad would be showcasing the defensive lines, wards, prevention steps, and offensive strategies. Isaiah and the Justice Squad would be going through all of the campus rules and regulations, as well as performing the various maneuvers we had learned over the past weeks. And the Troop...would be doing whatever they did.

Dare took me aside to repeat his “nothing fancy” warnings.

“But I'm supposed to be doing things we've been practicing, right?”

“Yes, but don't. Don't do anything I've taught you. In fact, just follow Peters.”

I grimaced. Anyone except Peters. “Isaiah?” I asked hopefully, trying to negotiate.

“He's coordinating the exercises with Selmarie and Telgent.” Dare gave me a sharp look. “Follow Peters.”

“Fine,” I said grudgingly. Peters would love that I was watching him for cues.

Dare was looking over my head. “Follow Peters, follow orders, and do nothing more.”

Dare's gaze was tracking the movements on the field as the last members of the squads gathered, and I could feel his magic reaching out, wrapping around one person after another, cataloging them in the space. Telgent and Emrys showed last, and I waited to speak until Dare returned his gaze to me, since I knew he was vigorously keeping watch on those two.

“What about Emrys?” I asked. “We are supposed to be working together in the demo.”

“No. Don't even glance at him while you are demonstrating.”

“That's going to be a little difficult,” I said.

“He wants to be seen, and he wants you to be seen. He'll try and get you to do something showy with him in front of the crowd.” He pinned me with a heated expression. “
Don't do anything showy
.”

“Okay, okay.” I held out my hands in submission.

His lips pressed together and he stared at me.

“I won't, I'll be good,” I said. It was what I had said a number of times over the past few days, right before something Emrys did made me blast magic everywhere.

Dare stared hard at me for a long moment more before flicking his wrist. A strip of t-shirt like material appeared in his hand. With his back to the rest of the group, he paused, holding the strip for a long moment. A shimmer of magic caught the sunlight as it flowed from his hand over the cloth. He held the strip toward me. “Put this in your pocket,” he said, almost reluctantly.

“Are you giving me a token? Are we in a Medieval Tournament?”

“Ren…” But there was a smile hovering reluctantly on his lips.

“I accept your token and will do honor in your name, good sir.” I stuffed the cloth strip deep into my back pocket, trying to extinguish the little thrill that shot through me.

He rolled his eyes and pushed me back toward the gathering group.

Half an hour later, I was appalled at how
awful
the Troop really was. Emrys's file might have him listed at mid-level according to Dare, but when Emrys was with us, he was
clearly
better than these jokers.

Maybe I was just extremely spoiled from spending endless hours watching the best combat mage on a campus filled with great ones, but watching the Troop “demonstrate” was like watching the form competition in the Combat Qualifier. All of the moves were perfect and precise and
lifeless
as they blasted targets that only moved in precise ways, and fought enemies whose moves were already obvious.

Wow.

“Seriously?” I hissed at Dare, who elbowed me in response.

These people put on a dazzling show—better than a Broadway or Cirque spectacle—but they wouldn't last a minute in the simulation rooms with Dare. Dear lord, this group was going to protect campus?

“We are all going to die,” I whispered.

“Yup,” Dare said, tone dark and resigned. “Set Tyrne will probably be sucked onto campus the day after we leave and destroy the whole mountain in a rage. That is your kind of luck.”