The Protection of Ren Crown (16 page)

Olivia's aura fully burst into view. The welts were angry, deep, and salted, as someone might do if they wanted to increase pain and slow healing. Fury boiled deep within me, overtaking all other emotion.

“What did she
do
to you?” I tried to keep my voice even. I took an aggressive step toward the door. I knew exactly where to find Helen Price.

Olivia threw herself in front of the door, blocking my way. “You aren't leaving.”

With Olivia standing in front of the clear door wards, I could see the wound fully—the horrible bruising and jagged tears. It was similar to the damage sustained by Constantine during the attack in the First Layer.

I rested my hand against the wall and set my magic free, anger sharpening everything. I could see the flow of magic filtering through the clear lines on the wall and into the air, connecting to the wards in the room. More importantly, to the blocked spring green one that promoted healing.

Olivia shuddered, and I could see one of the welts looked slightly better, like the magic was healing. She took a hostile step toward me. “
Leave it
.”

“Let me help. Or let me go after her.”

“
No.
”

I pulsed another clot of magic to the spring green ward.

Her retaliation was fierce. The air in front of me exploded with color. My shields blocked most of it, so she slammed her hand against the wall and shot a sickly ochre along the same pathway to which I was still connected, splitting the spring green and shooting straight into my hand.

I lurched back, then lunged toward the bathroom, dropping my bag and making it just before I threw up everything in my stomach.

“A stomach virus?” I spit into the toilet again, saliva coming fast as my stomach roiled. “Really, Liv?”

Instead of healing, she had done the exact opposite. She stood in the doorway and her expression was nearly unreadable—not because it was blank, but because there were too many emotions there. I focused on the part I could clearly relate to—the stricken part.

My coolly controlled roommate was wild-eyed and horrified underneath her anger and pain.

“They let roommates poison each other?” Shaking my head made me throw up again. “Seems like a really bad idea.”

The upside was that all I could now concentrate on was how physically terrible I felt, putting the psychological effects of the previous few hours on temporary hiatus.

“Don't you want to know what happened to all of the roommates before you? Don't you wonder what happened to them?” Olivia's voice was almost hysterical.

“Yes.” I fumbled for an enhanced Kleenex from the rarely used box and wiped my mouth. If I attempted one of the magical functions on the toilet at present, I was going to give myself a swirly, at best—flush myself through to the processing plant, at worst. “But it doesn't matter in the end.”

“What do you mean, it doesn't matter?” Her voice had gotten low and dangerous.

Nausea rolled again. I put my forehead on my arm, willing the wave away. “I'm not going to leave you.”

“I'll
make
you leave.”

Based on her tone of voice, she was willing to give it a try. I wanted to ask why, but that was not a question to ask a cornered creature. There were a thousand things I could say in response, things that could get me anything from a second bout of stomach flu to missing limbs to a wholly uncertain outcome.

I closed my eyes on another wave of sickness. “I'd rather stay. Here
.
With you.”

“No, you wouldn't. No one does.”

“Yes.” I held down the remaining contents of my stomach through force of will alone. Throwing up at this moment in the conversation would send the wrong message entirely. “I would.”

“I'm not going to sacrifice myself for anyone!” Her voice was high and hysterical again. Alarmingly desperate.

I didn't understand what she was referring to, specifically. But that wasn't important. I flushed the toilet and stared at the water as it swirled into the vortex that would head to the processing complex in the Midlands. It finally cleared to crystal again. “Good. I don't want that,” I whispered.

The bathroom door slammed.

Forty minutes later, I felt well enough to crawl across the floor and slowly pull myself up into bed. Olivia was nowhere to be seen. Her usually meticulous desk looked as if a tornado had touched down.

Going after her was out of the equation now—if the building caught fire, about all I was going to be able to do was close my eyes and enjoy the heat.

And if Olivia went straight to her mom, like she had expected me to assume she would, I was going to be dealt with sooner, rather than later. I was too sick to care, and my accessory-to-murder guilt said I would deserve it.

I shakily sent Will and Neph notes on my “status,” saying I had caught a minor flu bug and was going to sleep. When Neph wrote that campus was stabilized and that she wanted to come heal me, I lied and said Olivia was taking care of me. I didn't want to deal with the fallout from admitting that Olivia had actually poisoned me instead.

I shut my eyes and willed my stomach to still and the world to be different when I woke.

No
. I jerked, causing my stomach to roil again. I would make the world different. And I would take back my magic.

Determination and hope, even grim hope: those traits had gotten me through the painful and horrific experiments I had done last term to revive Christian, and they'd serve me again.

Olivia strode back into our room four hours later. She said nothing. Didn't look in my direction. Just readied for bed, placed two additional wards on the door, and turned off the lights.

Loneliness and despair flashed through the room magic, connecting us for a moment, then there was nothing, as she shut me out.

Olivia had opened up about many things during break, but her home life had not been one of them. Observing her in my own home had only shown me glimpses of what her life was not.

After I was sure she was asleep, I put a lid on my nausea and redirected the room wards designed to refresh my core and heal me, toward Olivia instead.

~*~

Unprotected and drained, as I fell to dreaming, Raphael's golden eyes and sly grin appeared.

Chapter Eight: Feral Enhancements

I woke violently the next afternoon, to harsh sunlight piercing the window above my bed.

Olivia was at her desk and I felt along the thin thread that still clung to her. Her magic was at full strength, her wounds were pink and healing, and she was better emotionally. Less despair, more coolness. She was determined about something.

I backed my protection and refreshing magics out of Olivia's streams and hooked them back into mine. A bit of vigor returned, enough to let me push myself out of bed and into the bathroom.

A ghastly image of crazed reddish brown hair and dark circles stared back at me from the mirror. Bloodshot eyes mimicked jagged dream memories. I had tried—tried so hard—to fight Raphael. To find the stolen box and rip apart his dream facade.

“
You'll never find it searching that way, butterfly.”

He'd parried my attacks easily—pinning me to the wall of the dream—amused.

“
Determined to block me? That won't do. You will force me to come in person to collect all you owe.”

I owed him
nothing
else. He had collected his Second Level Magic in the lost haze of the world beyond my dream two nights ago. Yet, unease slithered down my spine like the serpent Raphael reflected. Deals with devils never truly ended.

He had smiled—
smiled
—over my anger and questions about Cadmiat, and told me that power was a gift.

I had summoned up enough fury to eject him finally.
Finally
. But clinging to the edges of the dreamscape, seconds before he had been blown through, he had gotten in one final taunt.
“Choices, butterfly. What will you choose this time? Or rather...whom?”

I splashed my face with water, rubbing my eyelids more aggressively than necessary. I had been too sick to leave last night, and had slept right through the morning. If madness still reigned outside, I was going to risk it for some fresh air.

I was determined that today was the first day of the end of Raphael Verisetti's hold over me.

I dressed manually, still not convinced that my clothes would stay put if I dressed magically. The last thing I wanted was to run around campus naked.

“Good morning,” I finally said to my roommate.

If being a “Carrera marble statue” was the most desired state of being, Olivia was in museum-quality shape. I felt like the sticky, gummed floor at the pedestal's base.

“You added protection streams to my side of the room,” she said in her professional, clipped voice, without looking up.

“Yes.”

“Even after what I did to you and how miserable you felt.”

“Yes.”

There was a thick knot of tension in her shoulders. “Why?”

“Because you are my friend.”

She didn't respond. Her fingers continued working precise magic over her desk.

Pained at the loss of the easy communication we had established, I tossed out an opening. “I'm going to the library.”
Ask me why. Please.

She moved a piece of paper efficiently from one pile to another. “Crowd-calming magic was forcibly pushed. Clubs have restarted and even though everyone knows we are being manipulated, everyone is stupidly trying to pretend this is just an early start to term. Classes are starting a week ahead of time.”

I grimaced.

“And someone from the Justice Squad came by. Said you weren't answering your tablet.”

Crap. I fished out Justice Toad from his silencing pocket, and he unhappily croaked three late alerts. A bold message said that squad enforcement was back in effect and that if I didn't answer, I was going to be fined fifteen additional community service hours.

I was half tempted to push the tablet back into the silencing pocket. But because of the contract I had “signed” when Marsgrove had “enrolled” me, the Contract Magic would eventually make me do my community service. And at this point, I needed all the free hours I could get in order to free myself from Raphael and fix...everything. I mechanically signed in and activated myself on the Justice Squad's roster.

Great.

I gathered things into my bag slowly, hoping Olivia would say something—anything. The empty lunch plate on her desk indicated that she had eaten. I was starving, but at the same time, my recovering stomach protested my favorite waking fare of pancakes and sugar.

“Would you like to come to the library? Or...I can stay?” I tentatively asked.

Everything about her stretched tight—from her muscles to her magic. “Neither. I have a meeting.”

I ached at her cool tone, but nodded and rubbed my hand along the wall, stroking the spring green ward there. I added a protective pulse to it. Olivia shivered and the muscles in her arms clenched harder.

I stuffed a few plain granola bars into my bag along with the remaining tube of crackers I hadn't upchucked the night before.

As I approached the door, I stole a peek at the new notes around her desk. They were always invaluable glimpses into her mindset, since Olivia implemented plans immediately. Repeated words littered them—sacrifice, death, kidnapping, protection, triumph, consequences.

She sat stiffly in her chair, cold, composed, regal. Poised like a woman who had been reared to rule. To brook no distractions or friends in the path of life, but merely to collect sterling pieces for her chessboard.

I touched the silver knob. “I'll see you in a bit, then?”

She didn't answer. I stepped into the hall, closed the door quietly behind me, and looked at my room key—the one Olivia had given me, officially making me her roommate instead of a stowaway. I curled my fingers around it.

The campus news feed on my reader indicated that all off-campus ports were still closed, but that on-campus ports had reopened.

Students passed by, smiling, waving to each other, and casually chatting about what classes to take. That freaked me out more than if they were running around screaming in despair. There weren't any Department mages about, but a few of their student recruits were easy to spot as they watched and recorded data around campus.

As I walked, the casual atmosphere began seeping into me, loosening my stride.

I sent a note to Neph and Will saying I was on my way to the main library. The old me said to conduct the leech and dream research on my own. The new me was embracing the fact that I had friends, even with Olivia acting the way she was.

Two students stood beside the entrance to the library, looking at each passing student, then clicking their fingers in patterns against their wrists or thighs. As a non-frequency user, I could only guess at what they were doing.

Unease vied with the unnatural calm that had seeped into me.

As I walked into the library, my shoulders immediately loosened and calm swirled through me again. The very air felt soothing and light. A reflection in one of the many glass panels showed a smile on my face and a peaceful expression. My steps felt almost jaunty. What was there to worry about?

I looked at my two-way notebook. Neph and Will had responded that they would meet me in thirty minutes. The first two floors of the library were packed, so I headed to the fourth floor, an area that didn't generate much traffic.

I grabbed a helmet from the entrance bin and entered the papered fray.

Books immediately swooped through the air, diving hungrily toward me—hardcover raptors interspersed with soft, chirping paperbacks. Their pages opened and closed, rippling and fluttering near my head. Unlike the traumatic experience at the Library of Alexandria, this was like being approached by a flock of pigeons looking for hand fed seed.

“No one's been feeding you boys?” I asked, always happy when surrounded by paper and magic.

As I moved through the stacks, seven books followed me, hoping to find an opportunity to swoop in and extract my thoughts and experiences and transfer them onto their pages.
Magical Attacks and Kidnappings, Teenage Confusion, Poisoning, Feral Survival, Terrorist Threats
... I stopped reading the titles. The rustling of paper and parchment and the comforting little clunk when a book plopped on a table were the only sounds aside from my heavily beating heart.