The Rise of Ren Crown (11 page)

And to be so scorched of such means when I needed them most was a bitter pill.

“Ren,” Dare said.

“Don't,” I said bitterly. He had helped Marsgrove take Olivia's scarf. I didn't care about mine, but I couldn't look away from hers. In a more rational mood, I might have responded differently, but nothing unemotional was making its way through my head.

“You are a coddled magelet, Miss Crown,” Helen said coldly, focusing on me again. “Your
protectors
cosset you.”

I gave a short laugh.
Coddled?
Mages had beaten, shocked, imprisoned, leashed, threatened, used, and fed me to monsters. I had forgiven that last one, but I hadn't forgotten what falling into the Blarjack Swamp had felt like my first day on campus, when I'd had few magical skills to assist me.

It was little wonder that I had taken the enormous magic well I had access to and run with it.

I had died twice by magic's hand, one of those times in order to save Dare and campus. And I'd been left for dead, completely physically broken, in the non-magical world by mages trying to steal my brother's magic.

I had been living a pretty un-coddled life since discovering magic.

I stared at Olivia's scarf in Marsgrove's hand.

“Get out,” I said.

“Enjoy your pampered life while it lasts,” Helen said pleasantly, her eyes hard. “For I can guarantee you, Miss Crown, that it will not.”

A tendril of magic slithered over my skin, then pinched hard.

Chapter Seven: Choosing a Path

I sat a little ways off from the rest of the students in the dorm’s common room. I could feel them watching me, as I stared at the notebook in my lap, my fingers trying to grip the scarf that was no longer there.

Helen Price had made me miss the window of time with Neph, Will, and the others. Every dorm had enacted mandatory procedures, backed by Administration Magic, which called the members of each dorm to the dorm's community area upon the designated return hour.

All I wanted was to reunite with my friends. My emotions felt as knotted as my magic. But trapped in an Olivia-less dorm, I had instead taken up the position as freak and spectacle for the residents of Dorm Twenty-five.

I jolted as a member of Delta and one of Epsilon took seats on either side of me. They silently met the gazes of the other students. They weren't wearing their Plan scarves either—and I wondered if theirs too had been confiscated—instead they had small blue scarves tied around their necks, symbolic reminders.

They stared coolly around the room, and the intensity of the gazes on me lessened and became sporadic—people were forced to take quick inquiring glances in my direction instead of the blatant staring they'd been doing before. I didn't know the Delta and Epsilon members as well as I did some of the other delinquents, but they'd been involved in Plan Fifty-two, and they were providing steady support that I desperately needed.

The dorm heads assembled in the open space in the center and began enacting spells.

Magic shifted between and among residents of our dorm. Community Magic was using the paths that we all already possessed to recharge the group faster. It was the way Community Magic worked, building small, localized communities, then tying those to each other—most potently between two roommates, to four friends living near each other, to groups of six and ten in hallways, then onto inhabitants of larger spaces like a single dorm, then the whole Magiaduct, then to places where the entire community met—the cafeteria, the libraries, the fields and halls—until powerful magic flowed freely around the mountain.

The Dorm Twenty-five heads gave a spiel, repeating much of what had already been shared via frequency, community, and campus communications. They reiterated that as soon as the last student was secured in the Magiaduct, we'd be locked down, and the whole Magiaduct would start to regenerate and focus Community Magic more swiftly.

The words “locked down” resulted in fifteen minutes of panic for many in the room.

The words “roommate reassignment” caused an additional fifteen.

I tried to block both episodes by closing my eyes and doing mental calming exercises Draeger had claimed would help my magic refocus. The traumatic magic swirling around made me nauseous.

Apparently, the crystal ball that we'd all had to pass our hands over as we'd entered the common room had coded and locked those of us without roommates into the system. Once everyone on campus was entered into the system, each of us without a roommate would be paired.

“Okay, everyone. Calm down. That's right,” said the soothing voice of one of the dorm heads. “We are going to search and flag magic levels. We want to make sure everyone is physically well. Depletion, usage, mindset, and state of recovery all count in the color that is generated. Panic and trauma to a mage's magic levels will affect your final color as well.”

I was going to have to look into Psychology Magic at some point, as I found that distantly fascinating.

As an introvert and artist, and studying with Christian for sports psych, I had always practiced a lot of mind and visualization techniques, so knowing that mindset affected a person’s magic wasn't mind blowing, but it did make me think about how that reality could be
used
. My mental pyramid took on new dimensions.

If ever things on campus went back to normal, Mbozi was going to have to start running away from my questions.

It was hard to imagine normal, at the moment.

I yanked my eyes open when I felt the spell scan me. It then moved to the Epsilon member at my right. Everyone's level was visible to the rest of the room.

Green meant healthy in body and mind, and was represented across the spectrum in various verdant shades.

No one showed green.

The yellows were a mix of issues, physical, emotional, and mental. Every shade of yellow was represented across the broad spectrum of the four hundred or so people in our dorm.

The Delta and Epsilon members next to me, who had been stuck in the Magiaduct during the attack, showed butterscotch limned in purple, but the dark outlines were easy to ignore due to the steadiness of their neutral central color.

The purple outlines were likely due to a backlash through the scarf system. It made me wonder
what
everyone else had experienced when I'd taken a turn toward the insane after Olivia had disappeared.

Purples necessitated heavy concern, both emotionally and magically, and they were horribly present in pockets of students scattered throughout the sea of yellows.

Black encompassed the emotional and physical turmoil of the purples, but also indicated something was
severely
wrong with the person's magic.

I was the only one in the entire room showing black.

I folded my arms tightly against my chest and refused to look up again. There was nothing helpful in seeing the looks of horror and fear...or of seeing the more calculating and sly glances.

“He-her-here,” someone stuttered. Magic “supplements” were shoved into my hand by a scared-looking slip of a mage who had been tasked with delivering them where needed.

“Crown, back to your room,” the dorm head said, frowning. “Medical will come for you.”

I pushed out of my seat, happy to leave the staring behind.

Back in my room, I chucked the supplements into the trash and started scrubbing my desk.
They wanted me to feel better?
Destroying the taint that Helen Price had left behind would make me feel better.

I hoped she had accidentally ported to hell.

A discordant tone rang through the air like a mangled foghorn. From my tablet, I could hear voices on the main frequency channel stilling, then a voice that sounded like Patrick's said, “Here comes lockdown, hold onto your butts!”

I sat on my bed and leaned against my window, magic sponge in hand. Outside, the magic shimmered, then grids of air flipped like invisible louvers, one after another, molding together and locking—sealing us in.

Trapped.

From my tablet, I could hear the voices of the other students. It was a discordant background mix—a low hum of nervous, traumatized voices, blending with calm and steady ones. How officials were justifying this to the parents across the Second Layer, I had no idea. Although, until mages reached the age of twenty-two, society considered them unsteady—not yet ready to be out in the world making independent magical decisions. Even in the First Layer, where eighteen was considered adulthood, none of the adults really seemed to trust anyone during that four-year spread.

It was some sort of weird limbo where we were expected to act like adults, but always with the air that we
weren't
really.

They'd trapped us in here.
For our own good
.

I looked around my room. Olivia's things sat immobile.

I looked out the window. At the Department stooges combing campus. At the panels of magic keeping us locked inside. Safe against the outside. Trapped within. With supplements, and calming spells, and empty reassurances.

While they chose our paths for us.

I would have traded myself for Olivia today. I would have bitten Raphael's obvious lure.

It would have been a stupid choice. I
knew
that—because with me under his control, Raphael could pinch Olivia's life force between two fingers—but the choice to go with him had been made from emotion, instinctive.

Emotion that had been telling me that only
I
could fix things.

I looked at the empty bed across the room.

But I wasn't the only one involved. I hadn't been for days now, weeks.

I dropped the sponge, and slowly picked up my tablet. Before we'd had the scarves in place, we had used a temp system.

Taking a deep breath, I clicked a button and said, “Hello?”

A flurry of voices answered, magically wrapping around me.

“Lady-in-waiting, we've been waiting for you to call,” Patrick said, in a satisfied voice—though there was a large dose of relief to his tone as well.

Other members added their comments as well,
their
voices more subdued. They were waiting for me to speak. Justice Toad was vibrating with the tension of it.

I wondered how long they'd been waiting for me.

I swallowed and activated the charm that popped everyone's full-color holograms into view, then spread them out in a visual grid before me. It was similar to what Godfrey had done hours before—spreading nearly the entirety of the Second Layer in view.

Faces appeared, arrayed in front of me. I was so overcome with relief that I had to get hold of myself for a moment. These people had helped me save campus.

Patrick said, “Got to tell you, Crown. Was worried there for a bit.”

I focused on his hologram.

“Worried you might go all—” He made a looping motion around his head. “And scupper without any of us the wiser.”

I cleared my throat. “No. I, uh, worked through a few things.”

Whatever that tunneling light had been when Marsgrove had taken the scarf from me... The light had felt world-ending. Whether I might have blown a hole in campus, or the layer, or Earth, or
existence
with my mangled magic...yeah. Relying on my emotions made me extremely responsive and focused. But when I didn’t temper that with practical planning, it made me actively dangerous.

It was something I’d have to put real effort into working on...the tug against my chest to go after Olivia was getting tighter with each hour that passed.

Everyone was watching me closely.

“Plan Fifty-two is complete,” I said. “You have no further commitment to fulfill. And our...previous line of communication is unsafe.”

Thank God, Saf and Trick had already had the presence of mind to have me silence the scarves, though. In the Administration's or Department's hands...

Mike, Delia, Will, and Neph said nothing, and I didn't look at the other members of Plan Fifty-two, concentrating instead on Olivia's terrible twosome.

Asafa stared silently, while Patrick's eyes were manic and deadly. “Do you think that is why we answered this call? To be released?”

“No,” I said softly.

The edge disappeared from his gaze. “Good.”

I swallowed around the emotion. I smiled—a smile that started out strained, but gradually worked into something more real. “I would really appreciate your help with...” My voice came out far more steady than what I felt, but I still had trouble finishing. “With making sure every last one of our members returns to full health and safety.”

Every single one of them knew I was talking about Olivia.

If there was one thing I had learned this past term—wasting willing help was not an admittance of failure. Christian and I had always been a team. So much of one, that we'd really been more an extension of each other. When I'd lost him, then arrived at Excelsine, furiously trying to revive him, I had been a one-woman squad of destruction. This past term had taught me a lot about the value of teamwork: working with Dare, working with Olivia, Will, Constantine, and Neph, working with Patrick and Asafa, working on Plan Fifty-two…

No, I wasn't going to go off half-cocked this time. Not when I
understood
there were better ways to proceed.

“Excellent, that is exactly what we were hoping you were going to say.” Asafa's voice was even and calming. “There's another mandatory assembly in our dorm in an hour to discuss habitation and roommates. They are checking everyone.” I heard Will and Neph chime in with their assembly times too. “When do you want to meet?”

I felt a stirring along one of my strongest connection threads, and some of the tension I'd been holding dissipated as I recognized that the magical coma that had been holding Constantine had started to lift, somewhere in the bowels of the Magiaduct.

They might not be letting anyone in to see patients yet, but I'd been mandated for a medical check, and I wasn't going to wait here to be called. Not when there were other places I could be.

I gathered my things together.

“An hour after the last mandatory assembly?” I asked, and was met with a flurry of positive responses. I looked at the empty desk across from mine. “And...maybe in your room, Saf? Trick?”