The Rise of Ren Crown (21 page)

“What stops anyone from jumping?” I murmured to Neph, watching the display and how close to the edge the mages on each side stood, emotion clogging my throat.

Especially on a night like tonight...

“There's an enchantment that keeps people from jumping. And the lockdown grid will further prevent anyone trying to get around that enchantment.”

It was easy to forget the grid was even there. The lockdown grid had become transparent as soon as all the squares had connected.

Stepping to the edge of the Top Track, I placed my hands on the cold, gray stone, then reached out and touched the air at the edge. The air shimmered in iridescent waves, then turned clear again.

Keeping us in. Protecting us. Encapsulating us.

I looked down. The Legion, dressed in black, with a red pin to the left center of their throat, stood in formation along the length of the Fifth Circle as far as the eye could see. Interspersed between them were troops from other locales and countries—personnel who had volunteered to help sweep the mountain, and were now participating in the vigil and memorial.

Protecting us from any threat still left on campus. Or making sure none of us escaped.

Down in the distance, I could see the Midlands—the tenth through twelfth circles of the mountain—swirling with white gloom. Troops were heavy there—dots of black disappearing into and out of the perimeter.

Dare and I would be breaching that border shortly.

“Madness,” I whispered.

“It's what you specialize in.”

I'd felt him approach—a slight tug on the connection that bound us. He wasn't trying to hide.

I glanced up at Dare, standing alongside me. His expression was battle ready as his gaze tracked quickly over the landscape. A memorial armband was strapped around his bicep, the metal plaque glinting.

A shifting in the shadows below caught my eye. Looking down, I could see the shadows moving, bulging in place, then thinning back to normal size. I concentrated on the path of expanding and contracting darkness. Thirty feet, twenty feet, then Kaine stepped out of the convexly forming shadow underneath the tree nearest to our position.

I pulled back automatically, fright response engaged. Stopping my jerk, I inhaled deeply, then leaned forward again.

He was nine stories below us, but I could make him out as easily as if he were in front of me. He was staring up, smirking. Wanting me to see him. Wanting
us
to see him.

Dare was looking down as well, his fingers gripping the stone. A small anti-listening spell was pinned beneath his first finger.

Neph ran a fingertip down the bridge of her nose, then touched the back of my hand, giving me a temporary protection against eavesdroppers. It would disrupt any spells already on me for a few minutes, giving the listener bursts of static mixed with other conversations pulled from the general vicinity. She then slid into the crowd behind us.

“You don't...you shouldn't come,” I said to Dare, as I stared at the Legion members below, keeping my gaze away from Kaine. I had seen the awaiting horrors in Kaine's dead eyes as he'd looked at Dare. This plan was more than madness.

I was used to working at a fast pace. I was used to working when traumatized. However, my trauma with Christian had been enveloped within my determination to bring him back, and in all the tasks involved therein. Today, still in the midst of a new trauma, with everything so fresh, I felt like I had stepped onto a tilt-a-whirl ride at the county fair—and I couldn't step off.

Dare gave me a look that fully communicated what he thought of staying behind.

I gripped the stone harder. “This is my mess—”

“This is our mess.”

“I—” I shook my head, unable to finish the thought that maybe we should wait. Maybe Kaine would grow bored and leave after a few days.

Olivia's rescue couldn't wait for Kaine's boredom, though.

I needed to rescue Olivia, but I didn't want to sacrifice
Dare
to do it. I swept a hand over my torso, and the bulk of my connection threads. I needed all of them safe.

I needed me safe too, so that they all wouldn't be stupidly heroic and sacrifice themselves for
me
.

“The papers. The vine. Kaine will find them.”

The papers had Dare's magic in them too—they'd sucked some of it in when they'd touched him the afternoon he'd given the papers to me. And the vine—who knew what it held.

Okai. The items would go where my magic was strongest. Guard Rock and Guard Friend, and all our projects... Will would be toast. The rocks would be locked away, or destroyed. We'd, all of us, be thrown into cells, or shackled by a collar around our necks.

I nodded. It was a shakier action than I wished it to be.

“Princess? You've got five.” Trick's spelled voice came from the plaque's enchantment, zipping through my skin and into my ear—along a slim, opened pathway of magic that Neph and I had spent an agonizing hour untangling.

I nodded at Dare, this time more firmly.

“Let's go.”

Chapter Fifteen: Shadows in the Night

We walked toward the stairwell where Dare's crew was standing. Camille's gaze was frosty as she looked at me, but she said nothing. None of them did. Camille, Lox, and Greene maintained their positions, but Ramirez folded out of his and followed us into the stairwell.

Patrick, Asafa, Neph, Mike, and Will were inside. The usual expressions were on their faces—Patrick looked manic, Neph was exuding calm, Will looked panicked, and Mike was trying really hard to exude support.

Ramirez said nothing, just looked at each person in the stairwell, gaze taking in each.

Trick put a finger to his lips, then motioned for me to twirl. Used to this now, I slowly followed his direction. He scanned me with his device and pulled off the spells one by one, then dropped them in a soundproof bag. He pulled the enchanted drawstring tight and thrust the bag at Asafa.

“Loudon, Adrabi, and Peoples have secured the entrance below, and the combat mages are above. We have one minute.”

“You are certain of their ability to hold the entrance?” Ramirez asked in a low voice. It was rare to hear him speak at all.

“You don't know the half of it,” Trick said, shaking his head, a small grin pulling up one side of his mouth. “They'll hold it.”

I remembered Trick's words during the attack. About never again messing with Loudon.

Ramirez stared around the group for a long moment, then he circled a finger in the air, as if encompassing the group. An invisible grip tightened against my forehead—enough to make me gasp—then Ramirez snapped his fingers and a duplicate of Dare bloomed beside him.

No one said anything, but there was an undercurrent that I could only partially read. Ramirez had done something to us. I tried to verbalize it in my mind, but
couldn't
. He had mind whammied us so we couldn't talk about what he had done after.

His ability to duplicate Dare meant something big then—either about Ramirez's magic or about his past.

Saf and Trick exchanged a glance, and Mike swallowed, gaze not leaving Ramirez's for a few seconds. Saf broke the stalemate and motioned to Neph. She nodded, then visual enchantments bloomed all over her and I wasn't just looking at her, I was looking at
us
. She had become both of us, standing side by side.

Neph and Ramirez had both created doubles, but they had done it using completely different magic.

“Hiding in plain sight, Ren.” Trick gave a rakish grin to cover up whatever nerves had gripped everyone. “Muses. You are so very,
very
scary,” he said fondly to Neph.

I looked at Ramirez. He was not a muse. Then what...?

Trick was pinning something on my shirt and talking to me, making me tune back in. “—will be looking for the markers they placed on you and won't look further,” he said. “Give them what they are expecting to see, and they become complacent in their tracking. These are neutralizers. Should dampen down your magical signature.”

“But we won't be able to use these same tactics twice,” Trick said, expression going serious. “Not on the same board of play. So use your thirty minutes well. It's all we can give you, and not a second more.”

Saf held up a finger to regain silence, then carefully put the spells from the bag into place around Neph's double image. He left one in the bag and tied the strings tightly. “I'll throw that one into the crowd. Crown, you have to stop letting them put listeners on you.”

“Yeah,” I said, sighing. I motioned to the other me and to the other Dare. Both doubles looked at me. “That's a little freaky.”

“But effective.”

We had gone over the plan earlier and I'd been told that creating a double was not something that was easy to do. That it required a specific type of bond or mage.

“Okay. In order for the fireworks to get through,” Trick said, a hologram blooming between his fingers. “There are localized blasts allowed through the grid panel closest to the charge. With all of the personnel below, these won't be monitored quite as closely—who's going to do anything with the Legion staring up at you?”

Dare nodded and his battle cloak whirled into view. He withdrew two things from his pocket, then the battle cloak whirled out of existence again.

“We have created a very special firework.” Saf ran a hand over his elevated hair. I'd never seen him make that gesture, one full of nerves. “It will attract their attention. No one will look away from it for ten seconds, guaranteed. You have ten seconds to get through this open grid panel”—he pointed to a spot in the hologram—“and into the tree line. Givens?”

Mike held out his hand; two small white boxes were on his palm. “Wind streamers. You can ride them into the trees.” He placed the boxes in my hand. “Set them on the stones, activate them, then hold onto the box.
Don't
let go. Don't lose concentration.
Don't lose the boxes
. You must detach them before the grid flips back into place, or the alarms will sound.” He speared Dare with a glance. “Are you sure you can get back in?”

“Yes.”

Mike didn't look happy, but he nodded, then gripped my shoulder once for good luck. Will followed suit.

“The stairwell will be held for thirty more seconds. Don't get caught.” Trick tipped a salute to me, as did Saf. “Ta, Crown.”

Neph touched my hand, and I felt her magic flowing into my palm—a little reservoir for when I needed it.

Ramirez looked between us, expression blank, then turned and looked at Dare, the real one. Dare tipped his head. Ramirez and the other Dare turned and slipped back through the door to Top Track.

Will and Mike nodded, then they too walked out, Neph behind them. I watched my double disappear.

As soon as we were alone, Dare pulled a heavy black garment out of one of the objects in his hands and threw it to me. “Put that on.”

I did so, quickly sticking my hands into the armholes, then crisscrossing the fabric to buckle along the edge of my body. I fumbled the red Legion pin—realizing what exactly I was putting on. The metal was cold beneath my fingers. They shook as I tried to latch it into place.

Dare reached over and drew the long hood over my head. “They aren't wearing these on campus. They are against the rules set forth by the officials earlier today. But we need them. They'll hide our magic and identity to any spells cast our way. And they will camouflage us to a certain extent so that we can travel by darkness. But we
cannot be seen
. And we cannot step too close to the edges of any shadows.”

I nodded quickly, not really understanding the danger associated with the edge of a shadow.

“All they need is a memory tag of our faces in these and we are done,” Dare said, hands pulling the hood tighter as he emphasized the words. He was shaded, rippling in my view from whatever property the cloak was providing. But his gaze was piercing as he forced mine to meet his through the water-like effect. “Worse than just slipping out of the Magiaduct during a lockdown, wearing these cloaks is an automatic detention. There will be no trial. They will take us both. The laws guarding us here will not exempt us if we are seen in these cloaks.”

“I get it. Seriously. I
get it
.”

He held my gaze for another loaded second, then nodded. “Let's go.”

We exited the stairway on the eighth floor, and walked past Loudon, Adrabi, and Delia. I could feel the shadows reaching down from the edges of the ceiling as we skimmed along the wall. I squeezed Delia's shoulder as I passed. She stiffened, then turned to the other two. “Okay, boys. Time to join the vigil.”

They turned left toward a stairwell further south, while we headed north.

The countdown timer indicated we had two minutes to get into position. Exiting back onto Top Track two hundred yards away from the others, I looked at every face we passed.

Their gazes slid right by us.

So far, so good.

Loudon had made it very clear that we had to use a grid panel that opened on its own. That we couldn't force one to stay open without leaving damning evidence behind. Fortunately, a Fibonacci pattern was programmed for the sequence. A spiral of magic lifting slowly into the air one firework at a time. The others had slotted in their distraction somehow—through some Community Magic trick that they were confident in.

Confidence was a large component in the game we were about to begin.

Our panel—the one Saf had indicated—was set to open in thirty seconds. In the generated sequence, it would open the moment after the panel some five hundred and twelve to our left lifted and let loose the boys' distraction.

Dare gripped my elbow. “There is darkness, and there are shadows. Avoid the shadows.”

I looked at him from the darkness of my hood and gave a firm smile. The kinship in the cloaks allowed us to see each other's faces.

Three, two, one...

A brilliant light burst five hundred yards to our left as the club's firework exploded in the air, and the crowd gasped in shock.

Our grid opened, and the waiting firework rushed into its spot, as we jammed the devices onto the ledge.

The murmur of the crowd grew louder.