The Rise of Ren Crown (16 page)

“Hmmm... I think I will.”

I wanted to see that. I'd pay for a lifetime subscription to her stupid newspaper.

“I need the full story after all.”

“There is no story.”

“No? Not in how you are able to wield and collapse Origin Magic?”

“I found a device on the ground,” I said flatly.

“No. You pulled a device out from under your bracelet. Constantine Leandred wields a similar one, and he seems...enamored of you. Perhaps he made you one? Illegal, I'm sure,” she mused. “Where is it?”

“You are the one who saw something,” I said to the wall. “You tell me.”

“So very interesting. But the evidence of it is unimportant. You were recorded by nearly a thousand memories.”

I closed my eyes and tried to do deep breathing exercises.

“And those papers? The ones Praetorian Kaine was so very interested in. You used them, but no one else touched them. And while Delia and that boy—Michael Givens, isn't it?—looked shocked, two of your other little friends seemed unsurprised by your display.”

Bellacia had gathered a
lot
of information. And she was stitching things together at an incredible rate.

It was obvious what she was implying with her name dropping. The underlying threat to my friends.

She should be thanking her
lucky stars
that I couldn't eke out any magic at present, and that my control cuff was completely intact. Subconsciously, I would have already tried to destroy her for such threats.

“What do you want?” I asked.

We wouldn't be talking if she were planning on simply outing me and making Constantine, Neph, and Will into my accomplices, with a side of Mike and Delia. I recognized this opening gambit from debate practice with Olivia. This was the beginning of a negotiation. Or blackmail, to be less euphemistic.

“Why, dear, I want you to rest and recuperate.” She clucked her tongue, her voice still melodic around it. “You saved campus. Such actions deserve a grace period.”

A grace period.
Right
.

“The information that you willingly share will extend such a period, of course,” she added.

“Why not simply tell your little story—what you
think
you saw happen?”

“You don't understand the news at all,” she said patronizingly. “Why have one delicious story, when I can have
three
?”

“There is more information out there right now than can be quantified.”

The events of the day were all over the feeds. They were all over the Baileys' papers.

At the end of the battle, the student magical community had been freed to use frequencies again, and had “live updated” the crud out of everything. Conflicting information abounded, but much of it was damaging. Students had seen crazy stuff without being able to record it, but they could still describe their experiences.

“But that information is not
real,
” she said.

Images of people dying flashed in my mind. Phantom sense memories of explosions rocking the world around me. “Seemed pretty real.”

I rubbed my arms and wished Neph had been able to accompany me—but, no, I needed to keep her safe from Bellacia. Overcoming the muse block on the room seemed less desirable now.

“The reports. The accuracy. The truth. It needs to be told.”

“I thought you were a Second Layer Magicist, first and foremost.”

“I am. And accurate information will benefit the cause. However, I'm also a capitalist. With subscribers and quotas to fill. And you, you are a story that I will have on my front page whenever I need to put you there.”

“I don't think so.”

“Oh, you will.” I could
hear
the smile in her voice. “Be happy with your grace time, Miss Crown. It is all downhill from here.”

Knock, knock.

I was so startled that my eyes shot open to look at Bellacia. I figured she wouldn't allow anything as pedestrian as someone knocking on her door. Hooked into all of her social and political media, it seemed like she'd find physical statement distasteful.

But that was my bias showing itself. An early lesson in the magical world had taught me that competent mages tended to practice many things without magic, so that if they drained themselves, they weren't completely helpless. It was like using my right hand sometimes to do tasks that were better suited to my left.

Still, when not being attacked, Excelsine tended to be a limitless zone, magically, and many mages took advantage of that fact.

There had been a dearth of “knocking” in our household growing up, but it was all the more important here in a world where information could be gleaned so quickly, and where a probe of magic could be taken as an offensive maneuver.

Bellacia's expression pinched, then grew wide and gleeful. She knew who was on the other side.

She leaped from the bed and gracefully disappeared from view.

“Axer,” she said, voice charming, as I heard her open the door.

I scrambled upright and flew to the bedroom's doorway.

“Bellacia.” Dare was looking past her, his gaze on me.

“What can we do for you?” she said sweetly.

“I am borrowing Ren.” He looked at Bellacia as he said it, and didn't look away again, waiting for her answer. There was a challenge here that I wasn't privy to.

“Of course,” she said finally. “Are you returning to the competition tonight or first thing in the morning?”

“Ren?” he looked at me, pointedly ignoring the question.

Even though I was still angry with him, a stupid thrill of vindictive glee ran through me at him ignoring her. “Yup. Coming.”

I grabbed my bag from the bed, grabbed Christian's picture, and ran out after him.

Chapter Eleven: Words We Dare

Their door was only five down, and on the other side of the hall, from Bellacia's suite.

“Convenient, at least,” I muttered, as he did something complicated over me, stripping magics from me. Whatever they were—probably listening or tracking enchantments courtesy of Bellacia—I didn't care at the moment.

I trooped in after him and he shut the door behind me. It was nearing eight, and the adrenaline highs from the day and my overextended magic use were taking their toll at an increasing rate.

“They assigned you Bellacia Bailey?” Darkness underlay his tone.

“Yup.” I let the 'p' pop. “Great, isn't it?”

“Ren—”

“Constantine back yet?” I dumped my bag onto the round table that had suddenly appeared in their living room. I more carefully placed Christian's picture on top. I had a feeling that I was going to be carrying a lot of things around with me until I got Olivia back.

Dare eyed me, leaning back against the door, perfectly proportioned features taking me in. “He will be released in the morning. Something happened to the healing dynamics of his room that sped up his recovery.”

“Hmmm. Imagine that.” I collapsed into an armchair. “What do you want?”

He sighed and padded toward me.

“
No
.” I leaned forward in the chair. “You do not get to sigh like I'm the unreasonable one.”

Exhaustion was starting to affect me, obviously, because I could feel tears threaten.

He squatted in front of me, balanced on the balls of his feet, forearms on his thighs, fingers crossed, and held my gaze. “What, exactly, did you think Helen Price was going to do when you refused to hand over that scarf?”

I pressed my lips together. Nothing intelligent was going to emerge from my mouth.

“Kaine was on his way, Ren. It was all Phillip could do to keep the barrier in place that keeps Kaine out of the Magiaduct. Marsgrove did the only thing he could. And so did I.”

“That scarf was the only way to track Olivia,” I said, voice hitching.

His hands unclenched as if he was going to reach toward me, but he crossed his arms over his knees.

“And Phillip still has it on campus, Ren.” He kept his gaze locked on mine. “Marsgrove burned a lot of favors to do that. And, even so, the Department
will
have all the scarves in their possession within the next twenty-four hours.”

That was even worse news. But— “Marsgrove won't return the scarf to me.”

“No, he won't. He knows what you'd try to do with it.”

I closed my eyes again and leaned my head back. “You are full of good news.” I could take a small nap. Right here. With their wards humming around me. Surely something would look better afterward?

One of my knees bumped against his, and too tired to be twitchy, I left it there. I searched the connection to Olivia that sprang from my chest. She was still alive. I could feel that. I just didn't know
where
.

“You have to go to the Midlands.”

I parted an eye. “What?” Dare was all laser-focus like usual, but there was an unusual edge of unease. It seemed to jump straight from his eyes into my belly, where it curled, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I
very
much wanted to go to the Midlands. To check on Guard Rock and Friend. To hide some of the more illegal things we had in our room. However...

I tentatively touched the Administration Magic that was layered all over me, making sure that it was as intact as I thought it was. I did the same to him.

“I can't get out of the Magiaduct,” I said slowly. “No less sneak four circles down campus and into the Midlands.”

“Not easily, no.”

I poked at the magic again, and analyzed the way my own was stuttering its way through me, then stared blankly at him from the cocoon of my chair.

“People keep telling me I have unrealistic expectations. And then my magic gets drained so that I
truly
have unrealistic expectations, and now you’re feeding into my mad delusions?”

“We can do it.”

“Okay. Great. Let's do it.” I threw a fist into the air. I was so tired. “Should we go now? Is now good for you? With your superpowers tricking out everything, we'll be back in time for tea.”

“Ren.”

I blinked blearily at him, head unable to move from its position against the back of the club chair. “Listen, I'm all for this brand of insanity. But I don't think you are getting it, which is really strange.” I looked at my hands, clenching and unclenching my fingers as if it would take away my magical arthritis. “I can't portal you a hole from this Tower of Babel to Eden tonight, then tunnel us to Hades.”

And I was stuck with Bellacia for twelve of the next twenty-four hours, and I didn't think she'd just let me out of the room with an, “illegal things to do, magic to skirt!” reply.

“I can get you access to your roommate's scarf in the Midlands. For two minutes.”

My eyes shot fully open and I leaned forward, face no more than a foot from his as I examined his expression for truth. Everything on his face said it was not a lie.

“Marsgrove is probably keeping the scarf at his house,” I said slowly. Which was down on the lower levels of the mountain, far past the enforced school barrier. “And I know he has proximity alerts for me now.”

Dare's eyes narrowed.

I didn't wait for him to ask a question. “He held me there, hostage, before I broke out and moved into the Magiaduct. Tricked me into enrolling here so he could keep me in a vegetative state locked away in his house. I'm
only
a real student here because of Olivia.”

His expression darkened, then smoothed. “It doesn't matter where the scarf is right now. Only that I can get you access to it for two minutes in the Midlands.”

I leaned back.

Two minutes? I tapped my fingers on the arm of my chair. With time to plan, I could figure out how to transfer Olivia's location from the scarf's threads without needing active magic. Disregarding the lunacy that the scarf would be in the Midlands—because, what?—Dare believed that he could get me those two minutes. And it was in my nature to always believe Alexander Dare.

“Okay.” I put both hands against his chest and pushed. I couldn't concentrate fully with him so close. He rose and dropped into a chair that magically appeared across from me. He sprawled out in a mirrored pose to mine, one brow rising in challenge

“But how do I leave the Magiaduct? My magic sucks right now.”

“Someone else creates the hole in the spells, and duplicates our presence here.”

I cocked my head, mind working even if the rest of me was waving a white flag. “You want me to use the others,” I said finally. “Plan Fifty-two.”

“During the memorial at midnight, the entire Excelsine community will be on the Top Track lighting memory fireworks and holding a vigil for those still in Medical.”

I drummed my fingers while going over probable repercussions and deterrents. I already had consensus with at least some of the club members, but there was a difference between searching for Olivia using magical means and ingenuity, and actively baiting the Department on our front lawn.

“I don't want to put anyone else in danger,” I said finally. “I can't. Not tonight.” I swallowed heavily.

“Just you and me.” He spread his hands. “We only need their trickery, and the guarantee that it won't be either of our magic focused upon in the diversion. Nothing will happen to them, my team will make sure of it.”

“
You
also count. I'm not putting
you
in danger either. I will go to the Midlands on my own,” I decided. I lifted a finger. “Stop looking at me like that. You are the one who just said—”

“There is no option that has you going there without me. And you have to go, unfortunately. Your building won't open for me.” Implied in his statement was a strangely distinct
yet
.

I tapped my leg. “Then it won't open for the Department.” When had
I
become the rational one? Maybe it was the exhaustion.

“The main directive Stavros gave his people was to find those papers. They gathered a magical trace on the battle field stands that will lead his men to them eventually. His men have been combing the grounds since lockdown—they are out there right now. Julian is doing all he can to be the nuisance only he can be, and he said that they haven't seen the building I described to him, yet—your building—but the praetorians are better than good. And they
will
find it. They will not stop until those papers are found, or until the trace of them disappears. And you
know
where the papers are.”