The Protection of Ren Crown (12 page)

The material kept its innate properties while changing shape and size at my command. It had been created specifically for me to draw upon, then shrink again.

“Ren, are you listening?” Olivia demanded. She and Neph had finally come to a grudging agreement on how to do the ritual piece.

“Yup.” I flattened my palm and drew my fingers inward to collapse the material again.

“What is that?” Will leaned closer.

“Leandred's birthday present.” Olivia's lip curled. “I recommend against touching it.”

Will poked the edge anyway. He swore and stuck his finger in his mouth. “Electrified,” he said, his voice, garbled. He shook out his hand. I could see him forcing himself not to reach forward to touch the material again. “And still able to maintain its original attributes regardless of size.
Fantastic
.”

Its protection mode activated by the foreign touch, the material immediately shrunk the rest of the way to its postage-sized shape. Days ago, Olivia had experienced the same misfortune as Will.

“That's unlike anything I've ever seen,” Will said, leaning forward, fingers twitching. “He made that for you? I was so right.”

“No, you weren't. It's not friendship, it's calculated advancement. Leandred never relinquishes a worthwhile investment,” Olivia said irritably. It was only something she had repeated five times already.

“I know, Liv.” I stuck the stamp back in its envelope and picked up the leech, giving it a little shake. “Now, what say we give the ritual and this bad boy a try?”

“Yes.” Will pumped a fist into the air.

“
No
,” came the other two voices in the room.

If it had been up to Will and me, we would have had a trial under our belts ten minutes after discussing it the first time, and two-dozen trials since. But with Neph and Olivia participating, we weren't allowed to do more than read books and plot.

I exchanged an agonized look with Will. This whole “safety” thing was grueling.

“We've agreed to do it, but there is still something missing, and you both know it,” Neph said, never losing her normal, calm facade. She was spreading all the serenity she could muster, as her muse training dictated. “Will and I won't see you for a few days, but we will be doing research and asking the elders about spell linking. We will have plenty of time to fix things before school starts.”

That meant Day Five was also a scratch.

And not being able to
do
something made the emotional impact of the week surrounding Christmas a thing from which I could not escape. Maintaining a grueling, sunny expression was at an all-time high in the face of the holiday and all the family events surrounding it.

Overly cheerful during the daytime, I pulled Olivia into everything, tried to keep smiles on every face, and forcibly attacked the creeping sadness I could feel in my parents every time they had a moment to think. So I didn't let them have time to think.

I pushed aside my research in favor of keeping everyone as jolly as possible. For my parents, who had lost their son. For Olivia, who couldn't quite understand my family's bond, but felt compelled to participate in every moment she was afforded—playing four-person board games and cards, discussing politics with my dad, cooking with my mom, watching crappy and awesome movies, teaching me how not to be crushed by her at chess.

Everyone was going to be happy and safe, or so help me, I was going to go on the reign of terror that a mage with a proclivity for Origin Magic was expected to muster.

Determination fueled me, even when I failed to fully sleep at night, plagued by fevered dreams I could never quite remember upon waking.

But the itch of my magic had almost started to
hurt
in the last few days
.
I missed using magic. I missed Excelsine. What if—?

A tentative hand petted my hair, making me jerk out of my thoughts. Olivia was on the couch next to me, her hazel eyes questioning, her book open on her lap. Across from us, Mom was doing something on her computer and Dad was attempting the crossword in the paper.

I smiled—a real smile at Olivia. She smiled back and gave me another tentative pat, before returning to her book. Foot to leg, magic hummed around us. I took a deep breath. But I couldn't release all of my anxiety.

Neph and Will were taking care of their demands at home and wouldn't return until the twenty-eighth. Add a few days more to that and we'd be looking at the start of school again—possibly with me unable to return.

And Olivia...Olivia was hunkering down, as if she had already started planning the best way we would need to live as hermits in the basement. That thought made my magic itch worse.

Two nights after Christmas, and with increasingly wrenching thoughts on my mind, I fell asleep with one thought in the front of my mind. I had to
do
something.

~*~

Monsters and beasts lunged and snarled from the walls of my room, wisps of magic and memory swirling them into knights and warriors, then back again, as I stood in the center of the madness.

My walls were once more alive, and the creatures, graphics, and mad things I had painted and drawn, galloped chaotically—knights and warriors, monsters and beasts—amongst twining grasses and mercurial landscapes. There was no more brown, congealed paint on the walls. Colors swirled around me, like crazy, painted fireflies. If only I could catch one... If only I could make everything safe...

“So sad, butterfly?”

I whipped around. Raphael Verisetti stood in the center of a star burst, relaxed and unconcerned, his warm golden skin and eyes in direct opposition to his nature.

Without thinking, I threw a blast of magic at him. Astonishingly, magic surged to my fingers, then shot into a kaleidoscope of riotous colors that swirled around him. A strange, non-magical deflection. He smiled at my shock.

“What...? How...?” I looked at the swirling colors, then quickly checked the bed, to make sure Olivia was okay.

“She's fine. Quite a dark bit of prey, though, isn't she?” He smiled. “I do hope she survives what is coming. She'd make a powerful bishop on my board with a little...motivation.”

The colors swirled around Olivia's sleeping form, then moved back to Raphael. I watched the colors tessellate. “I'm dreaming.”

“Mmmm.” His head cocked to the side. “Such boring and sad dreams, butterfly.
Tsk, tsk.”
He strolled forward. “But you have finally let me come rescue you from them.”

Even knowing it was a dream, I backed away. Raphael had powers and knowledge that I did not, and we both knew I was not yet his equal. “I don't require rescuing.”

“Ah, then you can rescue me from them. Depressing. Elation and triumph would serve you far better.”

The shifting colors brightened his eyes, edging them with a manic tinge. The edge had always been there, but I concentrated on it now. Helping Olivia with her personal-interaction study had made a few things obvious. “Elation can only be followed by decay.”

“Don't be boring, butterfly. I detest such consummate inaction that analyzing others begets. Better instead to make people dance to your favorite tune. You were made for the latter. And you know it. That's why you sent for me.”

My fingers curled, kaleidoscopic color squeezing from between my knuckles. “I didn't send for you.” Not again,
not again
.

“And yet, here I am.” He spread his arms wide. “Squeezing through your explicitly warded wishes and into the absolute
prison
of a padded cell you have made the place you call home.”

I set my mind to undoing whatever I had done to invite him into my dream.

“Butterfly, I can
feel
that. I'm hurt.” He pressed a hand against his heart.

“Did you send those men?” I demanded. “Did you try to kidnap Olivia and Constantine?”

Cities and towns and global destruction, I could barely comprehend the kind of scale at play in Raphael's world. But the fate of my friends...that, I clearly understood.

“You wound me, thinking I would find any excitement in such dull tasks. I have allied myself with witless creatures, unfortunately. Ones who now believe themselves to be stalks of celery.” He looked at Olivia's sleeping figure. “Wretched and lovely, that little bit of magic performed by your friend. It made it impossible for me to figure out
why
they were there. Your entire quadrant should be off the map. An annoyance all the way around, as they lost us something valuable. But do remind me to praise your roommate for her vengeful creativity when next we meet.”

I focused on Olivia and the steady rise of her chest. I wasn't going to let that happen.

“You, however...” He grabbed my chin. It felt as real as any touch. “Allowing that boy to use your magic? Don't ever let him do so again.”

I yanked away. “Only you?”

He smiled. “At another time, I might cheer our melodramatics, but you have been foolish and require fixing. You do me no good stuck in the non-magical world. And if we linger here too long, you will be unable to accept my glorious proposal.”

“I'm not making any deals with you,” I said flatly.

“You've
already
made a deal with me. The tube of lilac paint for a second level magic. A contract that has not yet been fulfilled on your side.”

Even in the dream, at his reminder, I could feel the magic of the contract we'd made circulating through my veins. I clawed at my arm and the promise living inside of me.

“You wanted that tube of paint
so much
. You would have done
anything.
On a scale that numbers to ten, what is a pitiful second level magic in the scheme of things?”

“Bad, when you are involved.” I'd been so stupid. But he was right, I would have done a lot to gain that tube and the promise it had presented to resurrect my brother.

“Hurtful, but true. Alas, for you, not even death will stop you from fulfilling the terms. And if you stay in the non-magical world, that is what will result—in glorious and sanguinary technicolor detail.”

He could be lying. I wanted him to be a liar, instead of just being painfully cryptic and demented. But the furious, painful itch under my skin, under my new cuff, said he spoke the truth.

Raphael's brow rose in profound amusement. “A developing Origin Mage who suppresses her magic and its use...is a catastrophe in the making. And deadly to all around her when the devastation unleashes.”

I swallowed, deeply unhappy at what he was hinting. A glitter of gold caught my eye. Even here in the dreamscape my subconscious mind conjured the box he always carried.

“Come, come. Let's make this a painless transaction.” Raphael smiled, and the box disappeared with a flick of his wrist. But I knew it was still on him somewhere. Since my Awakening, I had never seen him without it.

Made from my magic. My Awakening magic. Thoughts tumbled and my mind pressed hard.
My
magic.
I needed that box.

Raphael's smile turned gentle. “One thing at a time, butterfly.”

His finger pulled along the edge of the stars to the left of him, gently slitting the fabric of the dream, and hinting at a world beyond. “A little friendly advice—don't tarry long in the non-magic world once we've finished here.”

He stepped one foot through the rip in the dream and I forced my gaze away from what lay beyond.

“You will come with me whether you like it or not.” His amusement infuriated me. “However...there are things I can offer for swift cooperation.”

No.

“Count yourself fortunate that I need your promise fulfilled now, butterfly. Your merry little band of misfits can't fix the spells you ripped away when you consorted with that boy. Can't fix something that
I
specifically put into place. You cannot freely return to the Second Layer without my help. And you have bound your lovely companion to you. She won't leave without you, and what do you think will happen to her, trapped here with
you
, a ticking time bomb with that cuff upon your wrist?”

“I haven't bound Olivia.” My anxiety ratcheted higher. “And I'll make her return, eventually.”

He smiled. “Binding someone doesn't require force. Someone so bereft of genuine love and affection, once given a taste, will never let it go. But these are paltry matters. Come.”

I stared at Olivia's relaxed form. My heart was beating too rapidly for a dream state. “I'll get Marsgrove to fix the spells.”

“Didn't you learn from that mistake already?” Raphael's eyes sparked maliciously, but he quickly smoothed his expression into serious lines. “You are allowing yourself to fall behind mentally, butterfly.”

The sincere voice he had wielded and the mentor persona he had worn in the weeks following my brother's death and before my Awakening, were as compelling now as they had been then. The sudden absence of madness in his eyes and the momentary glimpse of a long lost friend temporarily muted my hatred.

“You've lost your focus here during this week-long lamentation of death.” His gaze was piercing and serious. “But you have no time to grieve. You will stay sharp or I will kill you myself.”

The dreamscape started to unravel around us, and I gathered the tangles of dispersing thought. “You are the reason Christian is gone,” I said.

“No. Those idiots who didn't realize what they had are the reason. I simply followed the delicious trail left behind and clasped opportunity by the throat. But that's all in the past. If you allow the Department to chain you when you get back to school, I will wipe you free of this Earth. Which would be dearly regrettable. Come. This is your last chance to follow and bargain freely.”

He stepped fully through.

Don't follow. I stayed where I was.

“You will come anyway,” he said in a singsong manner. “And what might you find, should you follow freely?” His low voice beckoned from the other side of the void, reading my mind in my own scape. “The key to the protection of your family and friends? What sorts of answers live here in the beyond? What sorts of...things?”

Raphael knew me well—had studied me and picked apart my brain when I'd been at my most vulnerable.

Darkness followed the path of the unraveling dream as threads slipped from the sky.