The Awakening of Ren Crown (38 page)

Christian didn't like that. He was usually quite vocal about it too.

They were dissimilar in many ways, though. Christian had been a social lion. And it wasn't that Will was socially deficient, he was just wrapped up in his projects. Because I expressed interest in his work, and he in my art, we easily found common ground to chat for hours. This was likely the reason I felt the similarities to my brother.

It made me wonder...maybe I wasn't socially deficient either. Just...otherly focused.

Mike was more like Christian socially and sports-wise, and often made me laugh. Hanging out with the two of them made my heart lighter than it had been since my brother's death.

Will did have some secret life, though. Occasionally, he would get a shifty look on his face, touch his tablet, and say he had to be elsewhere.

When our eating schedules didn't mesh, I braved the cafeteria alone.

I learned from my first experience that I should go to the cafeteria before the rush. Once there, I would snag a free table and pull out my reader. The other seats would fill in eventually. I had met a few nice people that way, though they were fleeting acquaintances in a sea of fifteen thousand.

And I was very careful to stay quiet around or away from mages whose eyes were too quick and too cold in their watching of everyone else. That included Camille Straught and her friends. I avoided their tiered section completely.

But besides spending time with Will and Mike, joining the masses in the cafeteria was worth it for another reason. The food was excellent.

The different serving lines offered various types of ethnic food, something for everyone’s taste—even the mage chefs had lines that allowed their magic to combine the raw ingredients on display into unique, personal concoctions. After a particularly disastrous episode in their red line—in which I had envisioned preparing paella and ended with raw squid tentacles dangling from my hair in seafood dreadlocks—I had avoided it. Neither my magic nor my experience in a kitchen was yet up to the task, so I had stuck to the already prepared food lines since.

But to my half-delight, half-disturbance, the ten-eyed folks
read
a bit of one's surface magic to make a single food selection for each student in the brown line—and that answering positively to the “caniopidas” question gave them permission to do so. The food they chose was always disturbingly good and perfectly suited to my palate.

More importantly, though, meals were the times when I watched everyone around me and conducted social reconnaissance.

People seemed to be people, no matter what their magic abilities. However, the ability to shape life around them gave mages a slightly more mature outlook. Sixteen-year-olds spiritedly discussed terrorism and political tactics here. And mages like Dare, who I had discovered was nineteen, guarded the gates with their lives.

I wondered if the twenty-two-year-olds on campus withdrew magical Social Security.

When mages performed interesting magic or discussed thought-provoking topics around me, I took note, and researched the topics later—how one embedded spells, the history of magic, how magic
actually
worked between mages as a conduit and magic as an energy...a thousand things that I skimmed and flagged for later study.

Since I watched everything and everyone around me, it was impossible not to notice Nephthys, the girl who had healed me in the library. She sat alone three meals in a row on the second tier, head lowered over a reader. People would sit around her, but no one ever seemed to speak to her.

At the third meal, there was an empty chair next to her, so I decided to brave my crappy meeting skills and join her. Surprised, she glanced up. I gave her a determined smile that I hoped was friendly and not strange. Her eyes were kind, but sad, and I wanted to know her better; to make her smile.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

A small, genuine smile grew on her face. “Please do.”

The dream-like quality of sand and veils she had exuded in the library, hiding strength of character beneath shy innocence, was still present.

“What are you studying?” I pointed to the images on her reader. People were leaping and twirling on the screen.

“I transferred from the Sakkara Institute this season.” She looked a little tense at the admission. “I'm a Terpsichore mage.”

Other than Sakkara being the name of an Egyptian city, I didn't know much else.

“I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know what a Terpsichore mage is.”

She smiled, her face lighting up. “Really? But you noticed...” She shook her head lightly, but her smile stayed warm and her eyes were happy. The feeling suddenly seemed to transfer to me and seep right into my bones. “Ignore my babbling. It is a fancy way of saying that I dance.”

The increased energy made me feel like I was hovering on the edge of the zone—like I'd be able to do anything if I just tipped over and into it. “I paint. And draw odd structures.”

She tilted her head. “But you aren't a muse.” It was not a question.

“Er, decidedly not.” I didn't know what a muse meant in the magical sense, but I was far from anyone's reason for success.

“
You were always my reason for success.”

I hugged Christian mentally.

“
Suck out the other one's soul!”

I gave his evil twin a dubious mental pat.

Nephthys glanced at my notebook, the front of which was now covered in moving patterned doodles. “I've always wished skill with a pen or brush.”

“I've always wished to be able to belly dance.” Guys seemed to like that kind of thing.

She smiled again, a soft smile that lit up her face. Her eyes danced a bit in the light, as if some part of her needed to be in motion even when she was gracefully still. “Perhaps we can teach each other.” She looked suddenly unsure. “If you wish.”

“I'd love to swap skills. And to hang out.”

Her tension released and the air suddenly felt like a warm blanket of my favorite paints collecting on a canvas. “I'd like that too.”

Making friends with Nephthys Bau was like making friends with a gentle wind or a comforting stream. Just being near her was soothing. It was never a pacifying kind of soothing, though, more like an energizing one. I didn't forget my goals, they became
brighter
, as if anything were possible.

She joined the three of us for meals when our schedules coincided, and I started getting to the cafeteria even earlier in order to secure a table with more room. It was strange at first that I needed to repeatedly call attention to Nephthys. The eyes of the other people at the table would just...slide right by her.

Considering that Nephthys was beautiful and Mike was always eying pretty things, it was decidedly strange. But I put in serious, daily effort and, as if a veil had lifted suddenly, I was rewarded one lunch period. The boys stared at her for an entire minute until I poked them both with my fork.

Will turned to me with a look of amazement a moment later, then gave me a warm smile, as if I'd done something wonderful. Weird. But I was happy to smile brightly back, feeling the warmth of the moment.

Her soft wit was a good counterpoint to Mike's more raucous vibe, my half-ramblings, and Will's nerdy expositions. Strangely, I always accomplished a lot in the hour after a mealtime with her.

But far more than that was the bright look in her eye. Nephthys would fit in anywhere, so it was strange that she seemed overly thrilled to hang out with us, as if we were extending her an immense favor.

Reaching out to someone else made me feel more self-confident than I had in a long time.

Focus. Concentration. Knowledge. Confidence. They weren't just the cornerstones of magic. They were the cornerstones of my life now. I put them into action in every task I undertook, building my personal pyramid brick by brick.

By the end of my third week at school, I had settled into a modified routine:

* Magic breaking work with Stevens and Draeger.

* After hours recon on the art vault—carefully noting schedules, professors, and the manners in which they each exited the vault.

* Attending any class that was studying anything remotely like a chaos field.

* Watching for Marsgrove.

* Trying not to make eye contact with Alexander Dare, who always seemed to be outside the battle building when I exited.

* Testing ordinary paint drops systematically around campus.

* Serving countless hours of punishing tasks for my offenses and attending two mandatory substance abuse classes.

* Eating meals with Will, Mike,
and
Nephthys.

“Did you find it?” a boy anxiously asked another outside the cafeteria one day.

“I got the list. Shut up about it already!”

“We discovered something at Arch Twenty-Two-Fifteen,” a girl said.

“We need a better device, though. Ask your cousin.”

Campus lockdown was making people seriously edgy by the end of week three. Horrible and strange things were happening in the other magic layers, but other than keeping tabs on Marsgrove and listening for news on Mr. Verisetti, all of my mental resources were needed for other things.

Will and I had set up our art-science booth at the Art Expressionists meetings. Sitting unobtrusively in the back with Will, a hundred different types of artists argued and shared tips during the town hall format, then browsed the booths. I made enough sales to purchase a number of items I needed for soul binding rituals, and thirty small glass containers of regular paint.

Meanwhile, I racked up a half-dozen more Level One Offenses and two Level Twos testing containment fields.

Most of the time, the students who came to mete out punishments were civil, though by now I was pretty sure all of them thought I was a raging druggie. I used the small glass containers of paint for testing and watched each one zip away.

Unfortunately, Peters had responded to three of those calls, and he loathed me. He had made me attend and assist the creation of a new Blarjack pool. Without Magical Moses to magic the resulting mess off, I had trudged across campus and through the dorm covered in clinging green-snot swamp water, mouth firmly closed.

Upon entering our room, however, a chorus of “Nooooo's!” had emitted and the lot of it splatted upon the floor.

Olivia had been coldly displeased. But I was getting pretty good at scrubbing surfaces with magical cleaning products.

One afternoon I saw Olivia stop and sniff some blue flowers near the dormitory. I plucked a few later that night and put them in the common area atop the fridge. The lines at the edges of her eyes had loosened a fraction upon seeing them. I kept the vase full after that.

And I was getting really close with my containment field, I could feel it. Something was missing, but I finally felt I had enough knowledge to go into the art vault and determine what the missing piece was.

“
Yes, then you will help me.”

Christian's voice was sly again. He fully alternated now between raging against the world and consoling me. Encouraging me to test more and cautioning me to be careful. Telling me to save him and telling me to let him go.

His voice was always clearest in the moments before I fell asleep—which made my nightmares worse. I dreamed of him suffocating somewhere, being held in thorny chains, begging me to help him. And occasionally, his words turned cunning, like now. The warnings in the necromancy books were messing with my brain.

But I could hear his calm, confident voice clearly too, suppressing the other voice that sounded like him, but not.

“
You can do it, Ren.”

Yes. I just needed to figure out the art vault's wards. Simple observation. Easy. No reason to feel apprehensive.

It wasn't like people died doing this sort of thing.

Chapter Twenty: Death and Consequences

The next midnight, I watched the vault door open and began the countdown in my head. Three. Two. One. Wearing my soft moccasins and dressed in black, I slipped from the bushes and moved from the east as the professor exited to the west—as was his routine. As he moved, so did I. I had five seconds. The professor continued straight west, finger pressed under his ear, paying attention to whatever was playing or talking there. The steel door started to slide shut. I sprinted forward and dove inside, the heavy door clipping my ankle.

The door sealed solidly behind me as I rolled into a crouch, and the room lit, registering a presence. I rubbed my ankle and let the throb ebb before carefully standing. No alarms shrieked, but there was no time to waste. I unstrapped my pack and fished out my reader.

Juleston's
Giant Tome of Wardery
popped up in full book form. It was passive device magic, but I spent a tense moment scanning the room, waiting for a siren to engage.

No alarm sounded, so I began. The instructions were simple—weave my intention to make the ward lines visible, then match the colors to the text for identification. I should be able to get around the active magic restriction, as identification or study was considered passive magic.

I placed the book down on the counter, and put on the magic-enhanced goggles I used with Stevens when conducting experiments. Ready. I took a deep breath and constructed my mental inverted pyramid. Intent, focus, knowledge, confidence. Chartreuse paint puddled the mental base. Just a little more depth of color needed...there. I sent it sliding down the lines and to the focal point of the pyramid's tip. Studying was passive. Identification was passive. I kept my intent passive.