The Awakening of Ren Crown (54 page)

After six grueling hours of creating twelve different types of sculptures and dolls that might house Christian during preliminary soul-binding rituals, I trudged back across the cloudy border between the tenth and ninth circles.

I cleared the Midlands border and slogged toward the Battle Building and the arch that was on the other side of it. It was long past lunchtime and I was starving.

There was a group of ten people in front of the arch, talking. They all looked strangely exhausted, and quite determined.

“That was the worst one yet. I didn't realize they could have so many horns.”

“Just giving Straught here a little practice before the combat demonstration this evening.”

“I'm not entered. Demonstrations are beneath me,” Camille Straught said. “I'm
not
for display.”

Another girl sighed. “And no Dare or Greene, Lox or Ramirez either. I guess I'll put all my money on Nathanson.”

“The winter competition is the first week after break. That's when the big guns will be competing.” A girl I recognized from my first cafeteria table disaster nudged Camille. “Like our girl here. Daggers.”

I slowed my steps, interested.

“You are going to need those skills,” one of the others said. “This morning only proved that.”

“I just think the lot of you are barking up the wrong tree. It
has
been messier than usual,” a boy admitted. “But that doesn't mean a feral or rare is responsible. Nor a terrorist. These outbreaks occur in waves.”

My steps stuttered.

“Plus the professors you have approached have scoffed at the suggestion,” he finished.

Someone snorted. “They are interested in their funds and research, teaching and recognition, not the actual populace of the school.”

“That isn't true,” someone said. “Professor Trout—”

“Most, then. And the administrators are only concerned with the bottom line. As long as the reputation of the school doesn't diminish, and the funds are streaming in, they don't care. And we benefit from that. Usually.”

Despite the alarming nature of the conversation, I had found most of the stated sentiment to be true. The hands-off nature of the staff, and magical gifts of enterprising students, combined to create the atmosphere of campus—competitive, invigorating, and dangerous. If one graduated from the prestigious Academy, to the community it meant you could take care of yourself.

“Well, they will care when the school is destroyed.”

“Revolution,” someone whispered.

“Collapse of magic,” someone else said. “Just like those half-formed horned beasts we just battled.”

There was almost never a line at an arch. And the group was clustered in front, rather then actually trying to get through. The magic under my cuff moved restlessly, as if it too thought that getting in the midst of the group would be entirely the wrong move.

I made eye contact with one of the boys at the side of the group. Then with another boy who was watching me as well. Both boys I had seen frequently over the past two days...now that I thought on it. Watching me.

Ringing alarms exploded in my brain and kicked in some much needed adrenaline to my slowed system.

“
Get out of there, Ren,”
Christian said.

“That's her? You have to be sure,” someone whispered, though with my senses suddenly so sharply attuned, I could hear it clearly.

“A bunch of us from Lolinet have been investigating and we
are
sure
,
” one of the two boys who had been watching me said.

“We are next here, if we don't deal with the perpetrator now. It was
our
arch that was destroyed,” said the other.

“
Get out of there, Ren!”
Christian yelled.

“Fine. We'll know soon enough. Do you have it?” murmured the pretty girl from that first cafeteria table.

They were going to use some device, to keep their attack on me from registering. Just like they had said at the party. I connected to my shields. I would go down fighting.

“There you are, dearest.”

I turned sharply to see Delia sauntering toward me from the west, a wicker basket hanging from her arm.

“I thought for sure that you remembered the place where we met for Henry's sixteenth birthday party.”

My focused mind immediately entered her track. “Memory loss. Sorry.” I accepted her loose embrace.

Delia leaned back, shaking her head. “All of these strange events happening. Henry was diagnosed with proximity madness yesterday. I bet you caught something. Let's get you to the clinic. They cleared up Henry in a quick minute.”

The other students muttered harshly to each other and slowly dispersed, though Camille Straught's eyes lingered upon me, as did those of the two boys.

Delia hooked her elbow with mine and pointed us toward the dorms. I mechanically followed her lead, bypassing the arch and walking across the wide field and toward the stairs that would take us to the eighth circle.

“What are you doing here?” I murmured to Delia as we drew far enough away from the lingering members of the hunting party.

“I was looking for you.” Delia handed me the basket, keeping one arm hooked with mine. “To make up for leaving you alone at the party.”

“How did you find me?”

“You still have my card in your pocket.”

I blinked. I had put on the same jeans, it was true. I hadn't realized I was carrying a tracking device. I had to restrain the urge to pluck it out and toss it in panic.

“Why?” I asked as we walked, figuring she would understand the real question. Or questions really. Why had she helped me? Why had she lied? What did she want?

She cocked her head. “You are interesting, and I am excellent at emotion magic. You have a weirdly strong loyalty vibe. Abnormal. I want it. We are going to be friends.”

I looked at the basket in my hand.

She laughed. “The apples are not poisoned. Listen, a bunch of us are going to the combat demonstration. Do you want to join?”

In another life, yes. Combat mages were revered on campus, and the demonstrations, games, and competitions were the sporting events to go to. However... “I don't think it's a good idea.”

She looked at my outfit. “You do need to change, but that's not the worst I've seen.”

I looked down at my jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt.

“Come on. We'll sit smack in the front and talk about dear Henry and how you, too, were cured. Totally back to normal, nothing newly feral about you.”

“No, I can't risk going to the demonstration.” I couldn't risk being trapped.

“I'll just have to spread the tendrils of subterfuge myself then. I'm excellent at it,” she said without a hint of modesty.

Delia had just helped me out in a big way, but still...

She squeezed my arm, the edges of her mouth lifting in the sharp humor she always seemed to display. “Stop thinking.
We
are going to be friends.”

~*~

Delia joined us at lunch every other day from then on, and Delia and Mike got on like crack partners on...crack. That they had never found each other before was almost sad. And Mike had taken to teasing her in a disturbingly flirty way.

Delia, true to her word, spread all sorts of stories, and the two boys who had been watching me had started to watch others again as well.

The list of people who knew some of my secrets was growing, though. I wasn't sure whether Mike knew, but Neph, Will, Olivia, and Delia were well aware I was newly feral. I was pretty sure Stevens had known it from the first. And, unnervingly, Constantine too.

He reminded me a little of Mr. Verisetti. Enough to be on my guard. Though I sensed that Mr. Verisetti had come from nothing and clawed his way to dark false insouciance, whereas Constantine had very obviously been born to extreme wealth with the type of careless blitheness that only came from bitterness.

I came back from a squad visit to him, annoyed. There had been a girl outside his door when I had arrived, and she had been sobbing, “He doesn't love me!”

Constantine had been unrepentant when I'd asked him about it.

“She's boring,” he'd said. He couldn't even come up with her name.

“So how did it go?” Olivia asked as I entered and flopped on my bed.

“Lousy. Two small toads and one giant one.”

“Someone turned into a giant toad?”

“No, I have a friend who sometimes qualifies.” I wasn't completely sure Constantine
had
friends, to be truthful. But I couldn't very well say he was a repeat offender who blurred the line to fellow conspirator. The justice magic prevented such a thing.

Olivia frowned. “Who?”

I leaned back against my pillows and looked at my framed sketch before focusing on her again. “His name is Constantine.”

Olivia straightened—and that was a hard feat considering her back was straighter than anyone's I had ever seen. “What did he do?”

I shook my head, hazarding a guess from her reaction that she knew him. There was an anti-gossip enchantment in the tablet's magic, not that that stopped determined teenagers and twenty-somethings from figuring things out—as Olivia obviously had from his name, and the fact that I had returned from call. But the enchantment helped at least make things shadier and unconfirmed.

“No, I mean, what did he do to you.”

“Oh. Nothing.” In fact, Constantine seemed to look upon me as some sort of strange pet he wasn't sure yet if he was going to keep or kill. “He just isn't very nice to people in general.”

She looked relieved. “Oh, good. He's bad news.”

Like all those crying girls hadn't given that away. “Old magic?”

“The oldest.” She shook her head, mouth tight. “He should have been expelled first season here, but it will never happen.”

“I kind of got that impression. You know him outside of school?”

“My mother and his father are fierce allies and fiercer enemies.” She shrugged, as if that weren't a little creepy. “But he and I have little to do with each other.”

That didn't surprise me. Olivia was upright and uptight. Ok, well, there were all those notes about taking over the world and finding minions, but so far she hadn't stepped a toe out of line and was a repressed and staid lady of privilege, working hard to exceed every expectation. Constantine was a rich boy with far too much money, time, and probably magic, on his hands—seeking to undermine every expectation.

And he had made enough references for me to guess that his father was his least favorite person in life.

“Are all the old families connected?”

“No.”

“What about the Dares?”

Thankfully, Olivia never seemed to find anything I asked strange. I was a little like a weird pet for her too, I think.

“They don't deign to enter politics. They barely leave their island fortress. They just buy and fund what they are interested in. A more high set and close-knit family would be hard to find. And the Dares are only ever interested in
anything
for the good of their family.” She gave me an unreadable look—she was great at those—then pulled a tome off her shelf. “This has a comprehensive listing of the old families, their alliances, and affiliations.”

“Debrett's for magic users?”

“Yes.”

I should have been less surprised that Olivia would know the reference. “How do you know what Debrett's is?” I only did because of a project I had done on the British Royal Family.

“I know the lineage of everyone of consequence in every layer.”

She didn't look as if she was kidding. And Olivia
didn't
kid. “Oh.”

She went back to work, but I really wanted to talk for some reason. “What are you doing?”

She gave me a look that said I was edging close to a zap. “Practicing lines for my debate class.”

I blinked. “How do you practice lines for a debate?”

Her expression said I was
four
words
away from a zap.

“I can help,” I said quickly. “Do you want to debate me?” I could really use the practice rallying from verbal stupidity.

“I don't think that will work.” But there was a hesitation in her words, and I jumped on it.

“I would really like to help.”

I could feel the need inside Olivia. I caught glimpses of her covered emotions every now and again. Like my magic had tagged her and was keen to notice and point out changes when they occurred.

“Very well.”

“Great!”

Two hours later my eyes crossed as Olivia verbally crushed me again.

“I'm not sure I am helping you,” I said, feeling like I had been run over by my own brain—and lost.

“You have a unique style of argument. Half of it is measured and thoughtful, and the other half jumps all over the place—random and emotional.” She pursed her lips. “And you are very naïve. Arguing with you makes good practice for dealing with less logical beings.”

Great. “Great! Happy to help.”

We set a time for her to crush me every other night. I was wiped half the time, but the contentment radiating from Olivia at the end of each session made it worth the loss of my dignity. And I was learning valuable information about mage culture that I wouldn't have otherwise—social customs and ethics about this world that would have slipped me by.

~*~

At three weeks remaining until deadline—in the literal sense of the word—my pace increased from feverish to frenzied. I was painting and experimenting in Okai, attending classes and doing homework, doing projects for Stevens, helping Olivia with her debates, helping Will with his Layer project, helping Neph learn how to draw while I learned how to dance, helping Delia and Mike with a weird weather project that had sounded unbearably interesting, helping Constantine make a vortex inside an ottoman—something that was assuredly illegal, but also unbearably interesting—and staring at Alexander Dare when he wasn't looking.

My first red milestone—which I had scheduled for thirteen weeks' post-mortem—was approaching at breakneck speed, and I had only managed to make my blob matter into a four foot zombie before running out of fingernails and ear lobes.

Thank goodness for Nephthys, who had managed to magic everything back on me so far. Community service kept me extremely busy too, as a yeti, a troll, and a Level Six green dragon had popped onto campus in the last two weeks. We had experienced an earthquake, a tornado, and three layer shifts, all of which I had been told in passing were not normal.