The Awakening of Ren Crown (31 page)

My stomach tightened painfully, and I had to stop myself from reaching for it. I wanted that paint.
Christian
paint. Freedom paint. “What price?”

He smiled. “An unspecified task in the future. Something small. Inconsequential. A Level Two magic.”

I
wanted
that paint. An acrid smell filled my nose, and silenced screams filled my head. Christian needed that paint. “A bargain with the Devil?” I smiled thinly. “Swear on your magic as to what you are holding in your left hand and that you are giving me the paint I mixed during my Awakening.”

“You flatter me with your comparison and you are learning so well, Butterfly. Already in trouble, I see. Very well, the substance in the packet will protect you against Docile Dust and mid-level controlling magics, but will do nothing more, and the tube in my hand contains paint mixed by you during your Awakening, by my magic I so do vow.”

I felt the familiar feel of magic wrapping around us and settling.

“I was so very specific too, Butterfly, aren't you pleased? Now it's your turn,” he said, his voice very nearly singsong.

I touched Will's bracelet and quickly scrolled a list of what a Level Two magic was. The scale went to ten. Twos were normal, everyday magics.

I repeated the necessary vow and the magic settled again. Shaking, I held out my hand.

He extended his forth and I plucked both the tube and anti-dust packet, then clutched them to my chest. The vibrations of magic in the tube connected with my magic, humming happily.

I tried not to think about the stark vision of black-and-white chaos and destruction I had seen during the brief touch of our skin.

I had
paint
. Real paint.

Christian's less sane voice crowed exultantly in my head. His real voice remained silent.

Paint that would release me from the prison of Excelsine whenever I wanted to be free. I could study, have a base, then go anywhere. Hop through an arch, paint Christian out of a painting somewhere else, then we'd be together again. I hugged it harder to my chest. We could be free from thinking that the nightmare happening around us was real.

Mr. Verisetti leaned in, looking closely. “You look thinner. And stressed.” He drew a finger down again, then made a face. “Magi Mart? No. There is a reason there is only one cafeteria on campus with a student population that size. Going is good for your magic. And hiding out is not the way to make allies. You need to be celebrated. You—”

A strange man came running toward us, and the panicked crowd split around him. His eyes and posture were completely on the offensive, and he looked far more threatening than any other man on the street. He looked eerily similar to the men who had exited the black SUV in front of my high school—and to the man who had been gophered. It wasn't their features or body types, but something about the way they moved that brooked the comparison.

I looked back to the man at my side and revised my statement—far more threatening than any other man
except
Raphael Verisetti. He looked as if he had stepped off his yacht, wearing his expensive shoes, slacks, and loose collared shirt, a relaxed, almost lazy posture, exceptionally handsome golden features...and sporting a smile so cold and evil as he observed the man running toward us that I took an automatic step away.

His dark gold shield—with veins of black—pulsed, then peeled back to rest behind us. He pushed a hand down toward the sidewalk tiles, and the cement rolled in an explosive wave toward the other man, then opened into a mouth that closed over the top of him. The ground and concrete gave a sort of belch, as it shifted back into place.

I opened my mouth, but nothing emerged as my jaw worked. The silent screams around me increased.

“How rude, interrupting our time together,” Mr. Verisetti said.

Two other men ran toward us, lights shooting from their hands in deadly arcs. Mr. Verisetti's shield walled me in from behind. I had no way to run.

And I had no knowledge of how to repel the beams. I channeled all of my focus into powering the gold of my own shield, but instinct told me I was about to join Christian.

I just wished I could have made us a family again first.

Mr. Verisetti flipped open the ornate box and it hovered in the air between the spread fingers of both of his hands. There was a tearing sound in my ears as black-and-white swirling holes ripped open a mere two feet in front of us and swallowed the jets into...nothing. My magic pulsed and throbbed, and terrifyingly reached for the hole nearest to me.

He pulled his fingers together beneath the hovering box, waved his wrists, and flung them forward. The power of the energy he thrust was tangible. The holes flipped, zipping shut as if they had never existed as a tear in the very fabric of the air, then ripped open directly in front of the men. Lights shot out from them, striking their targets.

“And the rude shall be punished.” He caught the floating box as it fell easily in his left hand.

Bile rose in my throat, and I automatically covered my mouth at the sight of the carnage fifty feet in the distance. The magic from the blasts swirled, then shot upward into the sky. A horrible crack sounded as the dome splintered, spider-webbing out in long, thin lines.

“But I do think I am getting proficient at that maneuver, wouldn't you say, Butterfly?” An opaque chunk of the dome crashed to the pavement across the circus. All of the shop doors blew open, as if their magic had somehow released all at once. “You should move along, Butterfly. There are hunters everywhere, and I wouldn't want them to capture you. That would quite ruin my game.”

I could see people running, their mouths open, screaming, but for some reason I could hear nothing past the pounding in my ears and Raphael Verisetti's words. Black swirling smoke, like ink ejected into water, dispersed around us.

“And try not to forget, Butterfly, that when it comes to pigments, there is no true black in nature.” He winked and opened a space in the smoke by circling a golden finger as one would cut a hole in glass, then pushing the resulting hole inward with an audible
pop
. He put the finger to his lips in a “shh” motion, then disappeared in a violent swirl of black-and-white smoky dust—the echo of my black-and-white patterned drawings. A moaning sound echoed, as if my magic, and the universe itself, were groaning in displeasure.

Sounds grew in volume, screams echoing loudly and violently in my ears. The notion that Mr. Verisetti could disappear that way...

The memory of sketched drapes flashed.

Crack. Crack, crack, crack.

I lunged for the open door of the antique store and dove through as the dome fell. The lingering traces of the heavy smoke clung to my clothes and swirled behind me. Bang. I could feel the shocks in the ground as the explosion grew closer. I hugged the packet and paint tube to my chest and ran to the mountain arch and plunged through, tumbling into a somersault in Ellery Square. I gained my feet and sprinted. I could hear the arch crack and explode behind me.

People were yelling and screaming.

They were so loud, the shouts.

Everywhere I was, people were screaming.

Sirens were blasting.
“Campus lockdown, repeat, lock all off-campus portals!”
echoed from every direction.

I ran like my life depended on it, uncapping the paint tube—haunting lavender staring up from its jaws—as I sprinted toward the base of the mountain. I squeezed a drop onto my finger, then jammed it against an off-campus arch whose interior had turned a sudden, milky white.

CRACK.

It blew me back and my hand automatically gripped the tube of paint as I fell. Paint squirted to the ground. The ground shook, a fissure cracked downward under the paint trail, the arch vibrated violently, and a milky rock painted with a drop of lavender exploded outward. I caught the rock against my chest.

Screams grew as the fissure in the mountain opened, splitting violently down toward the water.

I lunged to my feet with the ejected rock and sprinted up through every inner-campus arch I came across. I didn't look back.

Chapter Sixteen: On the Edge

As I ran toward Dormitory Circle, the paper trapped between my stomach and shirt gave a sharp tug. Marsgrove's paper. I slammed a hand over it and entered the dorm. Groups of students were talking loudly and gesturing wildly.

“—Ganymede Circus destroyed!”

“—sweepers, gambits, lockeys, and moonglows ported right into the center of town.”

“—the terrorists have a new weapon! The port mages
must
be in league with them!”

“—trapped here!”

“—fifty officials are trying to hold the twentieth circle together! The arch to Lolinet was destroyed too! We are under attack!”

Marsgrove’s paper tugged harder and something told me that losing skin contact with it would be a bad idea. I sprinted up the stairs.

Holding the paper firmly against my stomach with one elbow and the painted rock firmly in the other, I clumsily picked the door lock. Thankfully, Olivia wasn't inside to hear my fumbling.

I slammed the door shut with my hip, dumped the painted arch chunk on my bed, and yanked Marsgrove's paper out from under my shirt. It tugged and pulled wildly, trying to rip itself out of my hands. God. Nearly everything I owned was still in there. I slapped my hand down on top of it and willed my things out. Trash bags and boxes immediately started ejecting. The corner of a cardboard box hit me in the temple and I lost my grip on the paper. The freed paper shot toward the floor grate and dove inside.

Breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably, I stared at the mess strewn around me. Hadn't there been another trash bag? I put my head into my hands and tried to will myself to calm down.

I was no longer a flight-risk. Not even the paint worked now.

And Mr. Verisetti had found me so easily off campus. I activated the live news feed and saw fleeting images of Marsgrove, tight-lipped in the background.

“
Negotiations are trying to be salvaged in the wake of today’s unprecedented attacks in Ganymede Circus. Diplomats will work through the night to push negotiations forward. Salvatori Lorenzo has issued a statement expressing sorrow over the loss of life claimed by the terrorists, but an unnamed source in his camp hinted that they expect better terms for the Third Layer in light of today's incident and show of force.”

The reader panned in just as a familiar paper winged its way toward Marsgrove. If he found any of my items in there, I prayed he would just think they were ones he had forgotten to remove.

It didn't matter. I was here. Unable to leave. I could choose to be freaked out and scared, or I could
do this thing
until I was caught. I would get Christian raised and be ready the next time someone tried to do something to me without my permission. Or the next time someone decided to destroy a town around me.

The dorm starting shaking. I could feel seismic shock waves running through the mountain. I knelt to the floor, touching it with my fingertip.
Please, please, please don't let me have destroyed this too
. The tremors lessened. I placed my palm down on the tile, and everything around me crystallized—slowing like it did whenever I entered “the zone.”
Heal, heal, heal.
The rumbling stopped completely.

For several seconds everything was unnaturally silent, then the chatter out in the hall started again. I laughed shakily at the thought that I had tried to tell a mountain to stop destroying itself and for a moment believed it to be possible. Delia from the student center would applaud such self-delusion. I touched my reader in order to tune it to campus news. The professors must be doing something.

Knock, knock, knock.

I approached the door warily. An extremely harried student officer stood on the other side.

“Hell of a morning. And it says here that you racked up a substance abuse offense two hours ago, eluded pursuit, then racked up two more substance offenses in the last fifteen minutes. That adds up to a Level Three.” He shook his head. “Listen, kid. There is no reason to use this much, even with the world being as screwed as it is. Get some help. A Level Three is serious. The punishment I'm going to give you allows three days of leeway, but my advice is—do it in the first two, don't push that third day. Maybe some hard punishment will stop you wanting a fix?”

I wasn't capable of speaking anything other than the wooden acceptance response that was required. He handed down my punishment—molted firesnake skin collection on the fourth circle. Even through my numbness, that seemed weird. What the h—

“Take these.” He handed over three pieces of paper that had popped out of his tablet. “And be a good citizen from now on.”

One paper contained the campus address of a substance abuse facility. The second gave the drop-off address for the five skins I was supposed to collect. The third was a general student advisory that I read as I closed the door.

Mountain integrity has been assured. Travel Restriction Advisory: Students may not leave Excelsine unless accompanied by a Department official or the Academy President.