The Protection of Ren Crown Read online

He had found us the night of Christian's death because I had broadcast some sort of trace with my not-yet-Awakened magic. He had tracked me even in the non-magic world.

  I edged away from him before I consciously realized what I was doing.

  The corners of his eyes tightened and he rose abruptly. “You will need to figure out how to follow traces in order to be effective at this job.” He pointed at the dragon and the stilled map. “Can you do that anywhere?”

  “The tracking? Not for a sustained amount of time. And setting up a map requires...sacrifice.”

  “What kind of sacrifice?”

  Precious paint drops. “Magical sacrifice.”

  Sarcasm overcame his features and he opened his mouth. “Specif—”

  “Axer.” Lox strode out of a tile slide, Peters trailing him like a spooked Chihuahua. I stuffed the dragon wing into my pocket. “It's Pisces Rising. We still on for the factory hunt and processor check?” Lox asked.

  “Yes. As soon as the shadows are out.”

  With the way Lox immediately looked at me, I realized that Peters and I were the “shadows.” Lox examined me slowly, then dismissed me and nodded to Dare. The two combat mages started forward, and Peters followed immediately behind them. I trailed, gripping the paper remnant in my pocket and wondering how I was going to keep the secrets I needed to keep.

  A sudden shot of tangerine jarred me from my thoughts, and a crash followed. Dare and Lox were still walking, as if nothing had happened, though Dare was lowering his hand.

  Looking to my side, I was dully surprised to see a small trollish creature splayed on the ground. A tangerine mist floated away from its body. I checked all of my limbs and sighed.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, not bothering to yell it up to Dare. He probably had freaky magical hearing in addition to his other supercharged powers.

  Peters was wide-eyed, his eyes darting everywhere. I had been in the Midlands briefly with Peters and Dare just before the bone monster had appeared last term, and though Peters had been uncomfortable then too, he looked far beyond that now. I wondered what had happened to him in his first shadow session with Lox to make the usually irritating boy look this spooked.

  He had to have done this before. Peters' birth had probably been recorded on the Justice Squad's roster, he was so into his duty. I snorted.

  Peters jumped at the sound.

  I frowned. “What's with you?”

  “This is nothing like last year. Nothing like I signed up for. Twenty squad members have died and been resurrected at least once in the last hour alone.”

  Peters and I weren't friends. At all. But he now had my undivided interest. “Why is that different from last year?”

  But Peters clammed up and said nothing further.

  We finally reached a tile containing Midlands' mist. The mist clung to the edges of the Midlands and always signified an exit. Stepping through the mist, I was surprised to see a crowd had formed on the edges of the Ninth Circle.

  The emerald-eyed girl from Dorm One was in one group, along with a few mages who were not part of either squad. Her gaze took in the four of us, then narrowed in on me. She smiled—a social smile that didn't reach her eyes.

  Without even a simple farewell to anyone, Peters made a beeline for an arch that would take him to Top Circle, obviously eager to get as far from the Midlands as quickly as possible. The girl stepped into his path and said something. Peters immediately stood straighter and answered, though his face lost none of the strain.

  He was freaking me out now. Justice Squad members never went into the Midlands on calls alone, but we did enter sometimes in groups. What was different about today?

  “Squad training tomorrow.”

  At the smoothly voiced statement, I jumped and whipped around, imitating Peters' jitters.

  Dare's brow rose sardonically at the action. “Then meet me here the day after. Perhaps, get more sleep before you do. Aries Rising in two days. I have your class schedule, so I know you are free.”

  He turned and strode back into the Midlands with Lox and the other combat mages.

  It wasn't until they had all fully disappeared from view that I realized two things: In my tired and hyper-aware state working so much magic, I had stopped stuttering around him.

  And, in the same state, I had offered to figure out how to port him through the Midlands. Something no normal mage could do.

  ~*~

  At dinner, I glumly told Will, Neph, Mike, and Olivia of my fate.

  “You are working with whom? Where?” Mike's jaw was someone near his plate of steak. “You have the worst luck.”

  “Yeah,” I said morosely.

  Olivia's gaze was less sympathetic. “Working with Axer Dare is power. Learn from him. He doesn't give anyone other than his immediate group the time of day.” She meticulously forked her salad. “Power.”

  I frowned. “I've seen him help people. He helps all the time.” He helped lots of people. Like me, and me, and more me, all in different, unknowable incarnations.

  “Yeah, he helps everyone,” Mike said. “He's a campus protector, the campus protector. But he doesn't give those he helps the time of day. Doesn't talk to anyone more than he has to. Saves you, then he's off. Like Bautermann.”

  I did a quick lookup on that. Bautermann was this layer's version of a magic-wielding Superman. But a colder, more ruthless type of Superman.

  Dare had helped me beyond rote duty, though. Off campus. A whispered sympathy to a bloody, unrecognizable, ordinary girl.

  “Bautermann slaughters anyone who gets in his way, Mike,” Will said, half-laughing. “Dare hardly has that sort of need for vengeance.”

  Mike pointed his spoon. “Bautermann's motto is that individually caring for strangers is a liability.”

  Olivia stabbed a green. “Vengeance is bred in his bones. He is the grandson of Benedict Dare.”

  “Bautermann?” I asked, trying to scroll information on my leather bracelet and listen at the same time.

  Will and Mike both laughed until they were holding their sides. Finally, Will looked around, then leaned in. “No. The Dare family owns and lives on the island that holds the lost archives. Very valuable. Waged a full-on war three decades ago against the combined military forces of a number of nations in the Second Layer who were trying to take them. The Dares won. Bloodily. They picked off an entire quarter of the forces like ants in a line, and kept them under an anti-resurrection bubble until the first retreat was called.”

  I poked at my bracelet without absorbing more information from it, and thought of Dare's statements to his team in the library. About defending Excelsine against all threats, about maintaining its independence from government supervision. A core family value, obviously.

  “They destabilized two perfectly adequate governments and completely ruined a third as a result of those battles,” Olivia said. “Not to mention the economic and social impact on the others.”

  Mike pointed his spoon at her. “If a government is unstable enough to be overthrown, it shouldn't be attacking nations offshore.”

  “Provocation breeds stupidity,” Olivia said dismissively. “The archives should be shared, but they were simply the excuse. It was obvious what was going to happen when Maximilian Dare married Sera McEllian. A choice that all knew would provoke war. And no matter how quietly they stick to their island or try to put forth their scion as a protector of the realm, the danger to society will always exist. They will never be able to hide the warlord he could be.”

  I blinked. A conversation long ago between Dare and his uncle drifted through my head—‘You play too many team sports. We should have raised you as an assassin instead.’

  “They made reparations, entirely of their own volition. They didn't have to.” Mike pointed out.

  “Benedict and Maximilian Dare understand politics and manipulation. They destroy everything around them in defense of anything they consider theirs, then helpfully hand service to the realm. Make no mistake, anything a Dare
does is plotted meticulously.”

  I poked at my potatoes and decided against eye contact of any sort.

  “And anyone with access to the family scion needs to take it.” Olivia's voice forced my eyes upward and she gave me a look that brooked no opposition. “Caring for strangers individually is a liability for a warrior. Make yourself not a stranger.”

  Mike shook his head. “Become a target instead.”

  “Many muse groups practice a similar philosophy,” Neph said, nearly out of the blue. She looked and sounded tired. “For the group, the good of all. Never get attached to anything, or anyone, outside of that.”

  An uneasy silence stole over the table like a broken link in the chain, combating the calming and re-energizing magic that floated freely in the air.

  Will shifted in his chair. “Er, Neph—”

  “And other groups teach members to attach,” Neph said, forced calm in her voice again. “Every group is different.”

  “And some groups are quite split, are they not?” Olivia said, her voice clipped. “Attaching to treasonous causes within?”

  Olivia and Neph held a silent battle of wills, one that discouraged outside participation.

  Mike forcefully changed the subject to class schedules that went into effect tomorrow, but I watched Neph's graceful form continue to move wearily and automatically through dinner motions.

  As we all cleared up to leave, I touched Neph's arm. “Can I come by?”

  I had finally figured out how to use our connection to recharge her, and she had never looked so in need of some energy.

  She smiled tiredly and magically dumped her dinner remnants into the trash vault. “I do so wish you could. But I have practice and procedures all night. And they—” Her gaze caught something over my head and her expression closed off. “We are implementing a large-scale project to automatically reset unbalanced emotions on campus and to reinitialize a more balanced atmosphere hourly in order to reassure the elders and unseat the need for any outside presence.” She looked down. “Don't come by tonight. Tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  Now that we had limited our room's calming spells, the forced calming of the masses sounded far more...nefarious again. But I trusted Neph. And even if I didn't, the threads that connected us were pure and reassuring.

  I watched her gracefully walk to join the other muses, slightly apart, but grudgingly included as they exited en masse.

  I felt Will come up to my side. “Will?”

  “Ren?” He answered in a cheeky voice, but his voice contained a subdued note beneath it as he too watched Neph leave.

  “New project,” I said, watching Neph disappear from view. “Three to four hours. Do you have time?”

  I needed to read all of those leech books as quickly as I could, but Neph needed me now and I had something particular in mind to help her.

  Will nodded, and I knew that his quick mind understood the minimum of what I was asking, and for whom the project was intended. We had worked together far too frequently—and the essence of my bond with my brother still bound us—for him not to extrapolate from the angle of my gaze and the tone of my voice.

  “Of course. Lead the way.”

  We skirted by the watchdogs carefully, entering the Midlands by way of a long, stony section of the Ninth Circle that frequently slid into the chaos. Because of the rockslides and ease of injury when entering a place where injured mages could get eaten, it was beyond stupid to enter the Midlands in any part of said section. That made it perfect for us.

  Okai and the rocks immediately welcomed us. Guard Rock poked Will's shoe twice with his stick in competitive banter.

  I quickly located base materials and pulled up the relevant documents on my reader while Will opened his engineering notebook and started asking questions. Dare's magic recharge had given me the idea. I didn't know what he had used, but creating a small bit of container magic for Neph couldn't hurt. A little bit of us to reinvigorate her when she needed a charge. She was always helping us.

  “Muses run on the vibes that they send out,” Will said as we tinkered in the creepy, but relaxing atmosphere of Okai. “So the seriously large task of calming campus should be keeping them energized. I don't know why Neph has been so drained. But maybe it's something 'muse-y' that doesn't get publicized.”

  Guard Rock stood at attention by the door while Guard Friend groomed him. They had hung their farmhouse portrait on the wall, above where they liked to stand. For a second, I contemplated how they had hung it. One rock standing on the other?

  I focused back on Will, who was looking at me critically. “You okay?” he asked. “You are not as freaked out as I'd expect with everything going on.”

  “Calming spell in our room,” I said. “We just got rid of it, but I've still got the remnants partially riding me.”

  Will frowned, then nodded. “And Neph is your muse. Maybe that's it.”

  “What? Me being calmed affects Neph?”

  He shrugged. “If it's preventing her feedback loop from kicking in, maybe? I'll look it up. She looked tired, but not in danger of detonation. We turned off the spells in our room right away. Mike hates them, and they lessen my desire to create. For most people it is easier to control magic when they are focused and calm. Maybe Mike and I need stress and chaos in order to get things done.” He shrugged again. “But Mike does have a 'tracker' on the campus system so that he can tell at what level they are dousing us. He is adamant about keeping track. Says it tells you a lot about the administration's emotional state.”

  “But...Neph?”

  He frowned. “The relaxing vibes that muses exude work on them in the same way. The release of the magic relaxes their system. If she is helping to calm campus, she should be experiencing a strong Zen kickback. But you are her most important component. If she's not getting feedback from you, that might be the problem.”

  “Wait. Hold it. Rewind. Are you saying that if muses hold energy in instead of releasing it, they overload on stress, and poof?” I motioned a blast outward with my fingers. “Muse bombs?”

  “Yup.”

  I looked at him in horror.

  He chuckled. “With the campus effort, there is no way any of them are holding anything in, including Neph. And it's why they have a community—to take care of all the muses and to make sure each one stays on the level. They regulate some things in a pretty draconian way. Lots of the internal regulations benefit the muses. But some of them...” He shook his head. “She doesn't complain to me either and the community keeps information locked in each muse with magic.”

  More determined to succeed, an hour later I examined our half-finished prototype. Will had had the great idea to make the container into a sachet, encompassing the magic in a bundle of comforting smells.

  “Maybe we should infuse a little of Neph too?” I asked, turning the soft fabric in my hands. Delia had shown me how to make crudely magicked hook and loop fastenings that when pressed would each activate a little burst of the magic within. “Make it so that she feels the feedback loop of helping us, even if it is a false feeling? Or maybe rather than false, it is better to say that it would be a memory of the feeling—feeling like she is helping us, even when we aren't near?”

  Will nodded decisively. “Yes. Add that to the list.”

  We worked on it together, using Neph's lingering magic on both of us to bind bits of ours inside. My magic was naturally neutral to Will's, but the resonance from his time in my sketch and the use of the sketch sword brimming with Christian's magic combined with mine, had set up a good degree of affinity. And we continually worked to figure out better ways of combining our magic. Will was of the opinion that relying on natural sympathy was lazy and laziness should not be rewarded. Will relished challenges.

  But sympathy had bound Olivia to me—we would never have become friends if not for that initial tie that had stopped her from expelling me from the room. Sympathy was merely another component of a relationship.

  Tal
king and creating was easy with Will, and we caught up on recent events while we worked.

  “You are certain you want to work with Leandred on developing a leech?” Will asked, voice calm, as we put the finishing touches on the sachet just after midnight. Dangerous projects never fazed Will, but there was something strange in his voice.

  “Yes. Olivia is livid about it.”

  “You'll be fine,” he said, his tone switching to a reassuring one. “And I'm happy to help, if you need it.”

  “Thanks.”

  He nodded. “You going to tell him about this place?” And there was that strange note again as his voice suddenly shifted to too calm.

  I examined him as he concentrated on the pouch in his hands. His gaze didn't rise to meet mine. I looked at the workspace around him. Will's solo projects—like his portal technology—were mostly kept in the room he shared with Mike. No matter Will's scoffing, he reaped rewards doing magic near his highly sympathetic roommate. But the projects that Will and I were working on together that required less...legal...means and ingredients, had all migrated here.

  I looked over to the rocks. Guard Friend had finished buffing Guard Rock and they were sitting together near the door, keeping watch. Keeping Okai, which Guard Rock and I had found together, safe and private.

  “Well?” Will's voice was calm and his eyes were focused on the magic seeping into the sachet. Neither fooled me.

  I bumped his shoulder. “No. It's our secret lab, right? With Neph and Olivia keeping an occasional eye on us so we don't Frankenstein out?”

  His fingers relaxed around the pouch. “Okay. Yeah. You sure?”

  “I'm sure. And Constantine is a home turf kind of guy. He loves playing host.” Spinning webs from his velveteen chair. “If we need to go somewhere else to do the magic, we will find another location.”

  I removed the pouch from Will's fingers and placed it in a fiber bag before giving it back to him. “This needs some absorption time. And I have something else for us to work on. Something occurred to me during the time I spent with Alexander Dare today. What do you think about using chaos magic for skipping portal pads across space?”