The Rise of Ren Crown (46 page)

“Why did you decide to train me?”

“Because your potential outshines my caution.” Her heels clicked closer, in a staccato march. “Because I'm as drawn to brilliance as it is to me.”

She slammed her hands on top of the worktable. “Because I took one look at Rafi's magic on you and
knew
. I knew you would be the end game. The piece that saves or destroys us all.”

She reached forward and gripped my chin. “And because if you don't destroy everything, you will be
great.
Greatness is within you.” She let go abruptly, fingers bruising my chin. “And I won't accept any less from you.”

I stared at her, heart hammering in my chest.

“The Third Layer must be fixed,” she said. “Fixed or destroyed. These dangling, ruined pieces serve nothing but giving people a point on which to fixate, argue, and war. And it just gives Rafi something to use as a playing board in his war on my father.”

She stabbed a finger onto the worktable. “And
you
are the one who will fix or destroy it.”

I tried to form words, and couldn't.

She watched my mouth move soundlessly, and spoke in a detached voice when I didn't, couldn't, answer. “You do not get to have a normal life. You have a service and responsibility to your talents.”

“I
want
a normal life,” I whispered, voice finally free.

“Then
carve
one for yourself. Be
extraordinary.
”

Chapter Thirty-five: Apologies

I found Constantine back in our room.

“Is it still?” I asked, taking a careful step inside. “Our room?”

He was lying back against a pile of pillows on his bed, ribbon pulling repeatedly through his fingers while broodingly staring out the window. It was my first room at Excelsine where I didn't have the window view.

“I'm very angry.”

“I know.”

“With you.”

“I know that too.”

I could feel it—the sharp edges of his emotions and the ragged edges of whatever magic he had done between the vault and the room. He had
ended
something or someone on the way here.

Since no Justice Squad member was in sight, he must have at least appropriately let loose the damaging magic.

I sat carefully on the edge of his bed.

“Did you paint with her?” His voice sounded too dull for the low thrum of anger that accompanied it.

“No. She said she can't be involved.” We'd had a short discussion where Stevens had made that very clear, and, frankly, I was the happier for it. “She said she can't, and doesn't want, to know what we are doing. But she is letting us use the facilities. She'll open them for us at four, if you still want to do it?” I asked tentatively.

“Of course.”

All sorts of conflicting emotions were vibrating through him. Ones he couldn't shut me out of.

I didn't know what I'd done, but part of Constantine's privacy, which he deeply,
deeply
valued, had been stripped away by my paint. Because of that, I chose not to ask him any questions about what Stevens had said.

I curled up next to him, like he was Olivia or Neph. Or Christian, who had always run hot in the emotional category. Eventually, some of his tension released. A few minutes later, the remainder collapsed with a sigh.

He played with a lock of my hair. “I'm not angry with you, not really.”

“It's okay. I didn't know. About a lot of what Stevens said. And...I'm sorry you can't shut me out fully. I don't know exactly what I did to you, with my Awakening paint.”

My ultramarine Awakening paint created for fierce protection and patterned after the eyes of the boy who had saved me.

“Don't you?” he asked, too lightly.

“Do you?” I looked up at him, my head next to his shoulder.

He didn't answer.

Between squad calls and other things, I had been working on lotus flowers, like the one Greyskull had given Axer to help heal him. I had figured that I'd need more than a few healing tokens to take with me to rescue Olivia. Neph had been extremely helpful in the draft of my first two. And as with the roses, which I also continued to create, Greyskull always mysteriously strode by me in the halls of Medical, casually passing items to help me.

I called over the flower that I was most pleased with, letting it land softly in my palm.

I put it on Constantine's chest.

He picked it up and examined it, looking at all the details. “You are getting better. This one should be able to revive you, what, five percent?”

Five percent was a lot in a battle where every bit might count.

“Eight. To be used in special circumstances.”

He handed it back to me carefully. I dropped it on his chest, and immediately pressed the fold in the center. The outer petals dropped down and the magic soaked into him.

He tensed, but said nothing as the magic worked, healing the ragged edges of whatever he had done between the visit to the vault and returning here.

“That was for you to use,” he said. “It was specifically created to work with your magic.”

“And I've given it to you instead,” I said quietly.

We stayed in silence for a long period of time. I let Constantine break it.

“I don't think you fully appreciate the dirty lengths the people around you will go to for you,” he said evenly.

“I don't want anyone to do bad things for me.” I gnawed at my lip. “But I'm trying to rely on others more.”

“That's a horrible plan, darling. You should only rely on yourself, and me.”

Tilting my head up, I gave him a look. “I don't want you to do bad things for me either.”

“I'll do horrible, terrible things in your name,” he murmured, fingertips dragging along my skin.

I sighed. “That doesn't work on me.”

“I know. More's the pity.” He smiled and lifted a lock of my hair against his lips.

It was the closest I'd ever felt Constantine experience contentment.

Chapter Thirty-six: Spells and Plots

Armed with a vial of lavender paint made during my Awakening, we arrived at the vault in time to see the back of Stevens's heels clicking away.

Constantine said nothing as we closed the door. The unnatural lighting illuminated the space, making everything crisp and bright.

We got everything set up like the well-oiled machine we were.

Constantine clipped the last spell card into place. “Excellent. Let's find your old roommate.”

“Constantine...”

He smiled. “I'm kidding, of course.” He rubbed a fingertip across the rune he had just drawn. “Unless, you want to get rid of both of them? I'm confident the Administration would put the two of us together, if they didn't return.”

I grabbed his hand and pulled it toward the silver candle. “Not funny. Come on.”

It was simple really, in the end. One of those Wizard of Oz things where I had the ability in me the whole time. Paint, the connection to Olivia, the remnants of the paper balloon, the ties from the leeches, the leash so lightly stretching between us, even now...

I would have failed at it on Tuesday, though. Without Marsgrove's fancy devices and someone else providing the horsepower, I had been too mangled to construct or find anything. But here, almost back to normal magically, the connection to my roommate popped up glittering and
alive
.

“He knew I'd do it,” I murmured.

It had been a gift, really. A weird,
feral cat leaving a disemboweled bird at your door
kind of gift. These three days to get to Olivia had allowed me to get better and still function—to know that Olivia was still alive.

“What was that?” Constantine asked absently, his focus entirely taken with the arithmetic, the data, and triangulating the location based on the plots we had created before beginning.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, not wanting to bring up Raphael and see the darkness curl in Constantine's eyes. Because gift or no gift, Raphael
would
kill Olivia at midnight tomorrow. It was part of the rules in this tick-tocking game.

Constantine dragged his fingertip over the map, then tapped it on a small dot in a large surrounding area of brown. Brown meant Outlaw Territory.

“They are in Corpus Sun. A tiny Third Layer settlement with little value.”

“Maybe it's a terrorist base of operations?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it is a very convenient spot on which to stage a production. Either way, we will be seeing it very soon.”

I nodded grimly.

Constantine pulled his finger across the brown expanse. The very
large
brown expanse. “However, we can't have you blasting through layers and porting across surfaces to get there, not if we actually plan to return and not be on the run for the rest of
your
life. Which means, unfortunately, that we are going to need a little help getting there.”

~*~

Which meant it was time to tell the team what I had been up to.

“I'm leaving. At dawn. To rescue Olivia.”

No looks were exchanged. They all simply stared back at me.

“Yeah, Crown. We know,” Loudon said finally.

I hesitated. “You do?”

“Well, not about the timing, but from the moment you started assigning us tasks yesterday, it became pretty clear what your goal was,” Lifen said dryly. “You hooked us all together, you and Price. We talk now. We're a
group
.” The last was delivered deliberately.

I slumped. “I didn't want anyone to—”

“We're a
group.
And all of the devices are going to have our marks on and in them.”

“You're right,” I said quietly.

“We are onboard, Crown. Chin up.” Lifen smiled. “The Delinquents' Club doesn't do interventions.”

“Thanks, Lifen,” I said with a small smile. “Outlaw Territory is the thing that—”

“Wait, what? I thought we were leaving Price's rescue to Dean Marsgrove,” Warden Wakes, a member of the Epsilon team, who wasn't quite as interconnected, said. His brows were furrowed. “I thought Jordan was joking about Crown's insanity the past two days.”

I rubbed my sweating palms against my jeans. Time to lay it out there. “The, uh, the situation became worse Wednesday night.”

Lifen looked dubious. “What could be worse?”

And I told them. About Raphael Verisetti having Olivia, about Kaine dogging their trail. About my plan to go after them.

I very carefully kept the knowledge of my own involvement with Raphael a secret between the few people who already knew.

“Verisetti wants something,” I said, using his last name. “Maybe just to leash me up, I don't know. But this is a trade. He gets me showing up in person, I get Olivia. He lets us go.”

They exchanged looks. “He's just going to let you go?”

“He will kill her, if I don't go,” I said woodenly.

“It's a trap.”

“Yes. Undoubtedly. I just don't know what kind. But Ra—Verisetti doesn't lie. If I go, if I show, he
will
release her.” I held up my left hand and put it down on the tabletop. “That doesn't mean we'll make it
out.
Or even past whatever artificial boundary he has set in his mind. But we'll have a
chance.
We'll have
something.
Verisetti doesn't lie. He will kill her, if I don't go.”

“Crown—”

“You don't get it. He
will
kill her. And he's...excited about something.”

“Excited?” More than one look was exchanged.

“With him, that could mean that they are going to blow up the planet, or that they are being chased by demons who plan to eat them alive. I don't know. His reactions aren't normal. I'm not an expert,” I said, trying to hide how much I
did
know.

“It isn't just that we are talking about
Raphael Verisetti
, which, hello? But the Department is going to be after you, full stop, Crown,” someone said.

“Yeah, if Verisetti doesn't get you, the Department will,” another agreed.

“I know. I have really cheerful options. Still, I'll take the
chance
over the alternative, which is certain.”

Looks were exchanged around the table.

“We can't let it happen,” Warden Wakes said, his voice full of regret.

Wakes was an older mage, months from graduating, who specialized in container magic and instrumentation. He was a voice of reason, and what he said was very reasonable. We couldn't let Olivia die.

“We can't let you go,” Wakes said.

Warden Wakes was full of shit, and not in the least capable of reason.

“What?” I asked, sure that I heard him wrong.

“We can't let Verisetti control an Origin Mage, Crown. And, let's be honest here about what you are.” He gave me a look. “We all want to rescue Price, but, the cost?” He shook his head. “We can't let you go.”

“What do you mean,
can't
let me?”

“I mean—” He looked very apologetic as his hand filled with green light. “That we have to keep you awa—”

His head hit the tabletop with a very loud thump.

Patrick smiled. “Anyone else?” He looked around the room. “No?”

I stared at him, then at the back of Wakes' unconscious head, then back to Patrick.

“You want me to get rid of him?” Patrick tipped his head to the side—a sure sign he was calling someone via frequency. “Right, then.”

“No, that's not what—” I tried to say.

A knock on the door interrupted my protest. Patrick snapped his fingers, the door opened and two burly mages walked inside. They hefted Warden up, nodded at Patrick, and exited the room.

“We'll wipe Wakes and let him back in on the campus-only instrumentation section. Anyone else?” The last was asked in an extremely pleasant tone of voice.

No one responded. Utter silence permeated the room.

“Excellent. Now, back to what we were discussing. I thought I heard you say that the situation had changed and they would kill Olivia,” Patrick prompted me.

He never referred to Olivia by name. It was always “the Queen” or “Her Majesty” or some other grandiose reference.

I stared at Patrick, pieces connecting sluggishly together.

Olivia had never wanted me to meet Patrick and Asafa alone. She had gone with me deliberately and specifically at the beginning. I hadn't thought anything more of it—I had just thought she was being protective.