The Awakening of Ren Crown (30 page)

It wasn't empty. I was sure of that. The cretin just didn't know how to access it. I quietly examined the paint tubes without really seeing them. Marsgrove's storage space, the painted woman's paper, Will's body...could I store Christian's soul in a painting? Was that what was missing? The reason I had been unable to retrieve him, even though I had felt him before?

My eyes skimmed the cover of a book on creating 3-D spaces. A discordant note rang in my head, but I couldn't connect the warning to anything tangible. Maybe those bold block warning letters in the textbooks were affecting me.

The customer shook her head, muttering about leashing teenagers too, and handed over some sort of credit card.

“A villain is in for a nasty shock if she touches that painting without the owner's permission. A nasty, nasty shock.” The man projected his voice in my direction.

The lady and her leash left, and on the other side of the street, Marsgrove was moving away. I grabbed the “multidimensional” tube of paint and the book and hurried to the counter. As long as Marsgrove continued in his current direction, I could slip out and go the opposite way back to the antique shop. Better to get out of here while I had a chance.

The owner looked at me through narrowed eyes, peering at my pockets, obviously trying to deduce how many things I had stolen.

The sign over his head said the establishment took First through Fourth Layer currencies. I put the items on the counter. “I would like to purchase these please.”

“They are not for sale.”

I stared at him hard. “Then why were they on the wall of supplies?” I wasn't playing this game.

His lips thinned and he snatched the items and rang them up. I had just enough for the purchase. Magical paint wasn't cheap.

Marsgrove shoved his device into his pocket and disappeared into a portal pad across the street. Relief swept through me in a painful way.

The street was becoming packed with people again, as if it had never been anything but.

“So, this will make my paintings three dimensional?” I asked, as the owner put the tube and book in a bag, then thumped the bag down on the counter.

He snorted. “I'm sure your parents will be pleased by your
attempts
.”

I nodded and stuffed the bag into my pack. They would be pleased when I brought back their son. And when I became a famous artist, I was going to make sure this guy never got any of my pieces.

As I pushed through the door, my eyes strayed to the Kinsky. The woman was watching me again.

The bells chimed behind me as the door closed, and I stood for a moment on the walk, undecided. No. Nothing good would come of me re-entering. The owner would never let me near the piece in his customer-free store.

I took a quick view of my surroundings and joined a pocket of foot traffic. I tried to keep my pace to those around me, not wanting to attract attention.

I was a dozen steps from the store when I realized the pocket had dispersed, and only one person was striding along in step beside me. And that that someone was Mr. Verisetti. I stopped dead. People moved around us, but my heart had stopped with me.

He turned smoothly and smiled. “But why have we stopped, Butterfly? You haven't yet reached your destination.”

I tried to get my heart to restart—surely it wouldn't survive this day—as I quickly checked to make sure I still had the light glow of gold on my skin. Picturing paint and liquid gold, I chanted
channel, focus, channel
in my mind. The gold grew brighter. “How did you know I was here?” I asked aloud.

His smile turned Cheshire. “You wouldn't ask a mage to give up his tricks, would you?”

“Oh my Magic! Terrorist!” Someone screamed two storefronts beyond us, but she was pointing to the opposite side of the street, away from us.

Mr. Verisetti's left hand reached into his pocket. He shook his head and sighed as the identified man across the street starting shooting beams. “They simply do not make minions like they used to. But a little birdie did mention that he would like a favor. This town will make a good demonstration.”

He pulled out a handful of marbles and a familiar ornate box, and I started sprinting. I wasn't going to let him dust me a second time or do whatever he had done to make me forget those lost minutes in the classroom. Better to take my chances being blown up.

A bomb exploded in the middle of the street, blowing me into a wall. I crumpled to the walk, ears ringing, vision wavering.

“Now, now,” his voice sounded odd through the hollow ringing. “Wait for me, Butterfly, or you might be hurt.” He crouched down and easily lifted me, setting me back on my feet. Magic coursed from where his fingers touched and with the sudden sound of a ringing bell, my vision completely cleared. With a sideways flick of his wrist, he tossed a marble into the street and the pavement blew high enough to touch the top of the dome. Two more flicks cleared the street in front of us. I saw other men throwing spells and causing mayhem. Some of them had marbles too.

The thought that Will would like those marbles registered oddly in my dull haze.

A swirling black-and-white patterned circle appeared suddenly in the middle of the air, then burst open. Animals burst from it—hybrid animals, like the sweeper—but these hybrids were tumbling out in rage as if they'd been forcefully rounded up, then ejected. Two sweepers flew out, their single wings unfurling and holding them in the air only one foot from their heavy half-elephant bodies impacting the ground. Their beak-trunks opened, and a horrible sound filled the air. A tiger-crocodile snapped its terrible jaws and leaped. The hybrids ran, jumped, and flew in every direction, mowing down people—or doing worse—as they went.

“Beautiful,” Mr. Verisetti said, tossing the box in the air, then stroking it.

People fled, and street chunks fell around us. And the screaming...

I tried to run too, but I was the lone being in the nightmare who couldn't run no matter how hard I tried. I pushed forward, foot by agonizingly slow foot—forcing my way through air too dense for me to move, with muscles that barely responded to my commands.

Everyone else's panic and motion...the sounds...the screams...was a fast and terrible juxtaposition.

Then someone pushed mute. I could see people's open mouths screaming, but nothing emerged. As I moved at an agonizing pace, I kept my eyes forward, too unsettled and terrified to watch their silent screams.

“Mages are so loud and unseemly these days.” Mr. Verisetti strolled casually beside me, stroking the top of the box. Every few moments he would stop stroking and wave his hand, effortlessly blocking an incoming strike.

“What do you
want
?” I gritted out the question, pushing my body harder. A tear leaked out as I saw another mage go down silently beneath a rampaging animal. “Why are you doing this to these people?”

“All in the job description, Butterfly. But let's speak about you. Interesting visit to the...art store?”

How long had he been following me? I didn't respond, painfully pressing my lips together.

“The owner and his customer need a bit of a mind tweak, I think.” His mouth curved pleasantly, but there was something very unpleasant about the feel of it. “Perhaps I will send one, should they survive. But you exited too quickly—before more interesting matters could take place.”

How had no one noticed him in the store? The owner? The customer with her leash? I hadn't, but I wasn't even a week old in this world. I would be dead on the pavement right now, no doubt, if the source of the carnage wasn't strolling next to me.

I looked around for Marsgrove as I continued to gain nightmarish ground, foot by foot, slowly rounding the corner to the circus. Focus. Goal. Endpoint.

Beams were flying everywhere, but whereas the tremor beams had been chaotic and avoidable, these were designed to attack specifically. People ducked and dodged—or not—but nothing touched within a foot of air on all sides of us. Soundless. A vacuum in space.

He tilted his head. “Didn't you wonder at the woman in the painting? Who she is? What she had for you?” He leaned toward me. “I wonder at it.”

I inched slowly toward the antique shop and tried to pretend everything around me was a staged Hollywood production.

“I have your best interests at heart. Far more than dear dogged Phillip Marsgrove, who right now is trying to find me instead of helping you.”

“It is hard to say which of you I trust less,” I said grimly, not looking at him, concentrating on my goal.

I could feel his amusement. “Wise of you. Now, what did the woman have, Butterfly?”

“Nothing. She had nothing.”

If anything, his amusement grew. I could feel it as if it were a living thing coiling around me. “Perhaps one day she will have something then. Always good to revisit old haunts. If they are still standing, of course.”

“What do you want?” I was so close. I could see the antique shop and the people streaming inside.

Inside my bubble of unnatural silence, I tried not to watch the panicked people who were stepping on their portal pads, their faces filling with horror when nothing happened. Nor the people who were running smack into the sealed walls of the dome. Would the arch still work? I had to try.

I felt Mr. Verisetti poking absently through my bag. Clenching my teeth together, I kept my slow movement going.

“You need true paint, Butterfly, not this drivel.”

“I likely won't even be able to use that drivel.”

Unfortunately, while my feet were dragging metaphorical cement blocks behind them, my mouth was working just fine. I should say
nothing
.

Suddenly, my feet were leaden, welded to the spot, and Mr. Verisetti was standing in front of me with narrowed eyes. Things silently exploded behind him, like the strange Hollywood set I wanted to pretend this was. He rubbed his finger in the air slowly, then his eyes focused on the cuff at my wrist. “Phillip still remembers how to play dirty, does he?”

He suddenly smiled—his charming smile. It put me more on edge. “Good. But this just won't do, you not painting. I can do nothing about an administrative spell, but I can tell you that all areas of the Academy are not created equally, and some magic can be completely hidden by the truly powerful. Juleston's warding text goes on and on about it for four thousand boring pages.”

I tried not to take his bait, but my brain put the reference securely into a memory slot.

“And some professors will be able to halt the restriction, if you can worm into their good graces. I wonder...” He tapped his lip. “What would you do, if I gave you real paint?”

My heart sped up.

He drew his finger down the air in front of me again, then brought it to his mouth, licking it. “Phillip outdid himself on your shields. If anyone other than I had thrown that first bomb, you wouldn't have been touched. I see his fondness for me will never die. But let's improve this set, give a kick back to him, should he try to tweak.”

Something rippled over me, hooking in.

“Stop doing magic on me!” I crossed my arms then thrust them out instinctively. Mr. Verisetti's Italian leather shoes pushed back on the concrete, chunks of concrete forming behind as the magic moved against an impenetrable force.

The force of his shielding around us stretched.

He laughed. “Look at you, trying to flee your cocoon. Perhaps you will be ready to fly free soon after all. Though I can't deny you the opportunity to attend school and make...allies. But only allies, Butterfly. Friends get in the way. Easy choices become harder. Then they take all you've worked for and crush it. Betray you with a knife in the back or by drowning you in paint.”

“
You
betrayed
me
.” The emotion was still there, only a week old. He had helped me get through four horrible weeks of school. Had given me an outlet in art and a mentor who always seemed to know what I needed. All so he could use me when the time was right.

“I'm crushed, Butterfly. I didn't betray you. I just subverted your will. Here, let me make it up to you, you are delighting me.” He put his free hand into his pocket and removed a small plastic packet containing what looked like gray sand. He held the packet flat on top of his palm.

I edged away from it—and from the very familiar ornate box that he still carried in his other hand—and realized I could move normally again. Whatever magic I had done to push him away had freed me, at least temporarily, from the slow, nightmarish motions.

I kept my magic and attention on highest alert, waiting for an opportunity to flee. “More Docile Dust?”

He smiled. “Your new ally is a smart one. Though don't become too attached. No, this is an antidote.” He gave a lazy shrug. “Now, if
I
want to use something on you, I still will be able to, of course. But no one else will...I'm a little possessive of my acquisitions, Butterfly. I am thinking of adopting you as the dark daughter I will never have.” He made a theatrical little gesture around his heart with the ornate box clenched in his palm. “You are so useful to have around.”

What is in the box?
I stared at the ornate box that had allowed the hybrid animals entrance into the circus. Hazy memories drifted by without an anchor.

I looked back up at him. “Antidote? I don't
trust
you.”

“Of course not. I'm entirely untrustworthy. But then I do not claim to be a friend. Friends only provide opportunities for betrayal. Look at those silly children at your high school, afraid of the dark.” He glanced at the street, shadows overtaking his countenance. “Allies, Butterfly. We are allies, though you do not accept it yet. Have your school chum—Will, was it?—examine the powder.”

It was extremely unnerving that he knew about Will. “So, you are giving me a packet of anti-dust to protect me? Because you are possessive? No.”

“You wound me terribly. Delightful. Perhaps I am just protecting my interests knowing what you will do with the item of mine you truly desire.” He hummed and a tube of paint, in the same kind of plain white tube as the ultramarine blue had been, suddenly joined the packet in his hand. “A tube of our paint.
True
paint. All for a bargain of a price.”