The Awakening of Ren Crown (26 page)

Everything fell into position internally, zeroing in on that one movement. Like being in the zone. My art zone, or a music, or sports zone. A lovely combination of focus and emotion, making me feel as if I was doing exactly what I had been born to do.

I wanted this feeling forever.

“Excellent, Cadet. The cornerstone of focus is incredibly important. Your magic
wants
to be used and always will. Can't put the grizzly back in the cage! But you need to figure out how to focus with a switch of your mind.”

He ran a simulation that produced a lovely trunk. Gorgeous lines of color crisscrossed the space, some of them startlingly intense and others bleeding and blending. The trunk itself was a masterwork. Brilliant gold-and-rose-colored lines swirled out and billowed around it like some sort of Pandora's Box.

“Magic at its clearest levels, Cadet. Magic lines—wards, leys, old spells, and new enchantments.”

My brain kept thinking “pretty” in a looping pattern.

“Mages with excellent control can channel magic that is crystal clear to most eyes. The more skillful you become at picking out even the slightest hue change, the better off you will be in magical situations.”

Each drill threw out a new beam of color, and I had to identify its basic feel and hue before I got zapped.

Identifying the basic “feel” of the beams left me floundering and I got zapped...a lot. Christian would excel at this, though, and only when I thought of him could I correctly identify the feel of the beams every time. Luckily, on the color side, I had a bit of an edge. I could identify the differences in color and texture rather well. Turquoise, lapis, cobalt, teal, sea-foam, ocean. A tiny variation in hue made the color look entirely different to my eye.

Draeger set up the simulations to run in tandem. Beautiful things grabbed my attention and distraction nudged me physically off center, pushing me out of the zone again and again. Blocks fell, and fell, and fell some more.

I wiped my forehead. “The books suggested picturing peeling rose petals, drops of water, sand grains falling, flames dancing,” I said. None of those things were working for me.

His gaze was penetrating. “Magic is not a one size fits all boot. Some mages learn and express through logic, some through movement, some through introspection, others through rhyme, and everything in between. Find the image and focus that works for you. That is your homework, Cadet. Look to your strengths. The goal here is for you to connect with your magic. Magic is about self- discovery. Let's begin again.”

I tripped from the brown room in a wondrous daze four hours after entering. I had memorized everything he had said, so I could absorb it later. Tips, tricks, basic knowledge. Failing a task had made me more determined. I would learn
everything
. I would master everything. I would get Christian back.

Outside, the world seemed brighter even as dusk was taking hold.

A group of students carrying staffs, swords, and wands walked past. A mage rolled two metal balls around his palm as he walked and talked. My eyes pulled ahead to a figure entering the swirling gray smoke of the Midlands. Alexander Dare's form was swallowed completely mere seconds later.

The pull tugged, but I turned in the other direction, back up the mountain. I juggled my bag as I walked and withdrew my reader and the news card. Easy enough to operate with its channels and menus, a live feed of the treaty negotiations was prominently displayed on the first page. I selected it. Only a minute later, I could see the room. I could see Marsgrove. It looked as if none of the participants had moved since the last time. Good. If they stayed in those seats, unmoving, for the next two weeks, even better.

I jumped to the fifth circle by way of three arches, then surveyed the mountains far in the distance. The thrum of magic was a pleasant buzz in my veins. I felt as if I could fly.

I focused on the teeniest, tiniest drop of paint falling from a mental paintbrush into a glass of clear water. The paint drop spread inky tendrils through the water in my mind's eye, sending magic flowing through my limbs in reflection. My administration map lifted out of my hands and wobbled in the air. Yes.
Yes
.

“
You are doing well.”

“
Now get me out of this hell.”

I checked my reader's news feed—Marsgrove still in place—then gave Christian a firm mental nod.

Chapter Fourteen: Plans

Magic was tiring—making me fire on far more cylinders than I was used to. I yawned and flipped through a few texts on magical meditation. I pushed them aside twenty minutes later. There were too many things vying for attention in my brain for me to meditate.

I
had
to learn magic. I had to be good at it.

While finishing off a Magi Mart personal pizza, I looked at the sketch I had framed the night before. I had stared at it while falling asleep—hung so near to my pillow. The room lights glinted off of it, giving it a soft inner glow.

I brushed off my hands then grabbed the black auto-sorting notebook I had purchased for my necromancy research.

Olivia rose and her starchy schoolgirl outfit rippled to be replaced with something older and even starchier. She disappeared with her bag a minute later.

I looked over the ritual that would determine if Christian's soul was at peace, then got to work. Three candles from the bathroom were placed in a triangle formation on a ceramic plate to represent “enlightenment.” Potpourri was scattered around the edges for “essence.” The “writ of the deceased”—an obscene postcard from Christian when he'd been at football camp last summer—went in the middle.

I started the chant, focusing on the ink of Christian's slanted letters. Suddenly the ink swirled, fire lit, and I was bodily ejected from my bed and thrown into my desk.

Whack.

Swearing, I rubbed my shoulder and dragged myself back over to the bed. I blew out the overturned candles before they could ignite my bedspread. The picture of the smirking model wearing a skimpy Speedo had been obliterated. I shakily turned the charred fragment over. The joking text from Christian was gone. Only a single two-letter word in his handwriting remained.

No
.

Christian was not at peace.

Grief was sharp as I collected the ashes of the postcard he had jokingly sent to me months ago. I'd get new notes from him soon, though. I nodded sharply. Full steam ahead.

Delving into my reader, I found I could access some of the main library collection through a centralized server. But the fourth floor library texts were only accessible by hand, and many of the second floor wall books were accessible only by card. It was as if students were being herded to the library if they required more information.

I dove into the books available on the server. There were some crazy practices involved in bringing someone back from the dead. Rites and rituals involving ashes, pits of fire, goats, bells, circles, talismans, bloodshed, and earth. Some of the darker ones entailed copious amounts of blood, consumption of rotten food (to simulate the flesh), and eating flesh itself.

I gagged, but dutifully transferred the knowledge from the reader to the notebook via the spell interface. It copied the words neatly in my handwriting.

Speed reading over the items that weren't directly related to my goal, an advertisement at the edge of the page caught my eye.

Black Magicks Unlimited. Loosen your stiff! Reanimate the dead! We do it all! Ten percent discount* on your first visit! *Ganymede Circus branch only.

I stared at it. Could it be that easy? Had I overlooked the obvious due to all of the insane warnings in the texts? A shop that could bring Christian back—it was right there in their advertisement. I quickly noted the information. Ganymede Circus? I had no idea where that was.

A quick search through the library server indicated information concerning Ganymede Circus was only available on the fourth floor. I wasn't meeting Will at the library for two more hours—an eternity. Time to figure out how to get up to the fourth floor on my own. I threw my notebook in my bag, shoved my feet in my shoes, and started jogging.

Pausing only when I reached the third floor of the library, I examined the ascending staircases scattered around the floor and studied my hand drawn map. I had tried, then noted, a dozen different staircases. None of them had worked.

I needed to watch someone else do it, but few people seemed inclined to go up. It made me a little nervous as to what was up there.

Whereas the floor beneath the third level was glass and steel, allowing frequent glimpses of the second level, and even the first, the ceiling above the third level was thick and opaque.

Staking out a comfy chair that had an unimpeded view of eight ascending staircases, I waited for the first candidate. I pulled out my notebook and began a design for my first storage space paper. Something simple for a first attempt, yet complicated enough to be useful. I shaded three-dimensional shadows around a single bookcase with three shelves. I chewed my pencil cap. I sketched a spinning carousel in the margin and wrote “future ideas” above it.

The idea also made me think of my magic focus. The paint drop was great, but I needed to work the cornerstones together in order to perform the magic I would need. Maybe I could use a geometric construct? I'd ask Draeger in the morning. I planned to spend a serious eight to ten hours in the practice rooms tomorrow.

Movement at staircase three caught my attention. Notebook and bag snatched up, I was out of my chair and padding closer as I watched Alexander Dare saunter up the stairs. Seriously? Was he everywhere? I felt like some kind of weird, unwitting stalker. He paused deliberately on the third stair with his hand on the rail, then continued up.

Ok. That might make sense. Focus, concentration, knowledge, confidence. By the time I gained the third step, he had disappeared up into the mystery of the fourth floor. My eyes closed, and I concentrated on projecting my desire to get to the fourth floor. I
needed
to get up there. Christian needed me to.

In my mind, I rotated a three dimensional box, like the one I had just drawn, with paint spreading around its sides. The image was not quite right, but magic slipped from under my cuff, soothing as it traveled along my fingers and into the handrail beneath. I opened my eyes and a bright light lit the top of the stairs. I hurried up, bypassing an umbrella stand that held a number of carved wooden walking sticks in its basin and helmets on its pegs, and entered pandemonium.

Unlike the bookstore, where books marched in orderly fashion, here books were soaring and diving through the air in a hostile manner, book covers snapping. A mage battled a book that was trying to eat his papers.

Before I could close my dropped jaw, a book swooped down, pages spread open like wings and clamped around my face. My relationship with my brother flip-flip-flipped in my mind exactly like the magically flipped pages of a book that was sucking out my mind.

Sucking out my mind.

I pried it off, and the word “twin” that it was in the process of writing took a sudden dive down the page like a pen that had been yanked away. I thrust the book far from me, freaked out, and it flew upward, circling above me, the words “Magical Family Relationship Collection” on its cover.

Another book swooped in with great, paged wings spread and clamped its pages around my head, boxing my ears. The book sucked, then took off in hungry disgust. I saw the title “Dating Advice” written on its cover. Ok. Disturbing and embarrassing.

I turned and snatched up one of the walking sticks and a helmet. There was something rectangular on the end of the stick, and as I brandished it, the aggressive book diving for me snapped its covers shut, propelling itself back through the air like a squid reacting to danger. I examined the bottom of the stick. An eraser was stuck to the end. I waved it menacingly at another book that looked poised to attack and shoved a helmet on my head with my other hand.

The books circled like vultures, awaiting opportunity.

In a table in the center of the main room, five students were sleeping with their heads on cushions, books greedily sucking out their souls. I watched horrified as helmeted mages walked by without sparing them a glance.

“
Save them, Ren!”

“
Suck out their souls too!”

Ok. Christian was intact. Well, part of him was still intact. I took a shaky breath and poked carefully around my mind, relieved to discover I hadn't actually lost any memories or thoughts of my twin. So had the book only made a copy of something in my head? And that's what the other books were now doing to those students? I crept toward a student/book pair, bent down, and peered under the pages to see words speedily writing themselves on the mellowed paper.

A passing mage gave
me
a weird look, and I hastily pulled back, then whacked a book that was diving toward the edge of my helmet—as if it planned to knock it off.

Still freaky. Though, if I could get a book to drag a term paper out of my head in the future, that would be horrifyingly useful. I put osmosis on my mental research list.