The Protection of Ren Crown (17 page)

In the ceiling's dome, a large black-and-white book perched on the circular banister, watching. The edges of its hard cover were tipped forward and little, hard, papered claws gripped the railing.

The books about criminals, and accomplices, and magical siblings trying to raise the dead—those always followed me. The black-and-white one never did. Yet, it always watched me.

Based on the black-and-white patterns flowing around its covers, I could guess at what it contained.

I didn't even need to enhance my senses in order to guess. Though, enhancing my senses would be a great bonus right now. Maybe that would keep me from making stupid decisions—like swallowing whatever emotional magic was filtering through campus and the first floor of the library, or making deals with terrorists.

The black-and-white book's hard left corner edge imperiously gestured to a smaller tome perched near it on the rail. The smaller book, whose cover boasted a shifting kaleidoscope, responded to the directive and dove toward me. Its covers opened wide and I braced myself. While some books were amusing and wonderful, showing history visually on their pages, some were horrifying and activated nightmares.

An open maw of whirling kaleidoscopic colors screamed toward me, and before I could think on what that might mean, the book shocked me by clamping tightly around my right hand. I had never seen a book clamp anything other than a mage's head—hence the helmets.

I immediately shoved at the binding of the rabid book. I should have guessed the books could turn savage!

“Origin Magic,” a male voice said. “They won't release the information on what was taken from the libraries, but is there any doubt? And they arrested two more ferals.”

I froze at the unfamiliar voice and the topic of conversation. The book's pages rippled around my stilled palm, settling and gripping harder.

“Yes. Working for the terrorist factions. Hardly a surprise.” The familiar, deep, smooth voice that answered made my pulse jump to a different staccato.
Alexander Dare.

I looked in all directions. Emptiness. Silence, but for the fluttering and chirping of the books. Not good. Dare was someone I
never
missed seeing. My gaze always zeroed in on him—he got even hotter up close. I took a small, unwilling step in the direction of his voice, toward the circular shelf stacks positioned underneath the cupola.

A flock of books was circling like buzzards above, surveying prey below. I kicked myself for paying too much attention to the silence of the Fourth Floor. The circular stacks created a semi-private meeting space that the combat mages sometimes used. Used, obviously, with
silencing
runes.

“Can never trust ferals,” the first, unknown voice said. “Too easily seduced. They have no national identity, no affiliation.”

“What about common sense?” a sarcastic voice added. “Everyone knows the Third Layer isn't going to win. Everyone, except for them, obviously. Not that I don't want to kick your
crumps
as early as possible in the new year, but I had plans for the first, and they didn't include being stuck on campus bending and scraping before a bunch of buckles. 'Yes, sir. You, what, sir? Want to stick a monitoring device up where, sir?'”

Quietly, I lifted my hand and the book that was secured like a papered lamprey around it.
Guide for Enhancing the Senses
was printed on its cover in raised prismatic letters. I couldn't feel any knowledge transferring out of me, rather there was something that was pushing into me, speaking to my magic, nudging my senses around—forming a knotted pattern near my right ear, and another beneath my tongue.

“Good thing you keep a stick up there already, Lox.”

Laughter, deep and rich with camaraderie—like the taste of chocolate and caramel—came from the other side of the stacks, mixing with the underlying bitter mocha of anger and irritation in the group. I touched my mouth, unused to the physical taste of emotion.

The clamped book pulsed as I drew nearer to the bookshelves hiding the voices. With my free hand, I reached out to touch the spine of a shelved book. Magic bubbled under my skin and inflated behind my eyes. I rubbed the furrowed, leather spine slowly, feeling each ridge and dip under the pads of my fingers—the knobby edges, smooth paths, a scent of spearmint gum. Sudden knowledge bloomed that three people had touched this book in the past two weeks, running their pointer fingers in a similar pattern down its spine. The book to its left had only the slightest smoothed trail traced by a single finger, barely touched with oil.

I nudged the space between the spines, hoping they would move an inch to each side.

The shelved books chattered at the book clamped to my hand, rippling their pages in greeting, then they suddenly turned an indistinct color, allowing me to peer through them.

Through the small, hazy portal, I saw Alexander Dare across the alcove, lounging back casually in a chair, surrounded by other combat mages. He lazily tossed a ball of swirling blue and white light from one hand to the other, a loose smile on his lips, the end of his delicious laughter trailing through my overly sensitized hearing.

I recognized most of the guys by sight, though not by name. Two of them were members of Dare's elite team, while the others I recognized from when the Combat Squad worked with the Justice Squad. Combat mages came in all shapes and sizes, but there was an air of danger about each of them, even the smaller ones. The focus in their gazes was always absolute and overwhelming.

“I hate Olean's classes,” one of them said.

“But how will you know about the feral threat, unless you take one of his courses?” Dare asked, sarcasm heavy in his smooth voice.

“Take the course by fast feed. Saves the droning.”

Someone snorted. “No one needs his class for news on the feral threat anyway. Daily news feed?
Information For The People
flyers?
Threats to Public Health and Welfare
bulletins?”

“The Baileys take their news reporting seriously,” Dare said, and the ball of blue and white became a muted hologram showing numerous people shouting, before shifting back into the swirling, chaotic ball he loved to casually wield.

“Mmmm, Bellacia Bailey,” another voice said. The expression on the doughy boy's face could only be described as dreamy. “In the midst of this shitstorm, there is no finer specimen of womankind.”

“Johnson, I thought you were yearning after Straught?”

“She kicked Johnson's
crump
sideways,” Lox said. He was a large blond who looked like he would be comfortable carrying a broadsword. “Good thing for him she's on shift right now. She'd be booting him here too.”

Dare smiled along with a number of the others.

A vibrant picture bloomed in my mind of the statuesque girl with the Athena vibe. I had seen Camille Straught in the heat of battle. I could definitely imagine her kicking the crud out of the doughy boy.

“But you'll need to refocus again, Johnson. Lovely Bellacia has eyes only for Axer these days,” Lox said, a little tightly.

Dare's smile turned false. “Pass.”

“What?” Johnson blinked out from his enraptured state. “Why would you pass?
Bellacia Bailey.
”

Dare's blue and white ball morphed immediately into a picture of five screaming harpies, and it took a long moment for my enhanced hearing to stop ringing from the pain of hearing it.

The other mage on Dare's team, the deadly and silent mage sitting next to him, shot magic at the image, causing it to explode.

Dare smirked and swirled his fingers, calling back the exploded shards of magic to reform the ball in his hand. “Show her your account numbers and frequency list, Johnson. It's all connections and riches with that group.”

“Really?” Johnson cocked his head. “That's all it takes?”

An older boy leaned over and beaned the younger one across the back of the head with the flat of his palm. “Idiot.”

“
Ow,
man! I had two head wounds from Boxing Day.”

“Yes, watch his tender rookie flesh. Johnson is looking to woo.” Lox seemed to have gotten over whatever had irritated him. “And he thinks his brain is needed.”

The outward tension caused by world events was still present, but as talk turned to inconsequential things, there was obvious relief on a number of faces.

“The helmet coming his way will help, then,” someone said.

A flurry of groans and curses met that statement.

I touched my helmet with my free hand and cringed. But wearing a helmet was better than letting the books that constantly circled me have their way with my obviously delicious brain.

“I can't believe they are trying to push that law through. No
way
am I wearing some regulation Department bullshit in competition. I mean, yeah, we all feel bad about the butchery at Shintering, but no way.
No way
.”

“Would do you good, Lox,” Dare said, voice far too innocent and casual for the smile curling his lips. “Keep those last few bits of magic and brains inside your skull rather than out.”

“Kremp this bit, Dare.” Lox tacked on a rude gesture, though it was of the lazy variety that close male friends shared. “Just because your pretty head hasn't been crushed lately doesn't mean you aren't due.”

“Still sore about Boxing Day? Get Bailey or one of her giggling minions—like Norrissing—to kiss it better for you.”

Lox gave him another rude salute. “You can terminate me a hundred more times like you did on Boxing Day. I'm not wearing their helmet.”

A number of other voices agreed.

“They restrict field of view.”

“I hate those spectacle guards.”

“There is always an interior mirror-effect, no matter how many mages tinker with the materials.”

“We'll be narwhal slaughter.”

A chorus of negative comments and grumbles echoed.

“We need to stage a revolt. Tell them we won't compete. That we won't patrol.”

“Argue material and enchantment pros and cons all you want—I don't care,” said a boy in the crowd. “I'm not having an open port to the Department running around my brain.”

That grim comment made the rest go silent.

“Me neither,” someone else quietly said. “I don't care if it makes me a conspiracist, but 'sending stats' of my health and mental magic to any government or authority via an
open
port
is not happening. I won't compete if it becomes a requirement.”

Voices echoed agreement––more subdued agreement this time, but still firm.

“They can't take on all of us. Not even if they send more Department stiffs.”

“How can they think this is going to pass?”

“They are banking on Dare, Lox, and Ramirez towing the line.” A guy pointed at the first two, then toward the silent, dark and deadly boy slouched next to Dare. “As well as the top contenders at the other schools. And that the rest of us will follow.”

Everyone looked at the three for answers. Lox looked as if he'd bitten into something foul. Ramirez slouched silently, staring at the questioner with dark eyes. Dare lazily tossed magic back and forth between his hands.

“Well, Dare?”

“I've been well informed that they are going to enforce it across the board,” he said calmly. “The media mages won't let the politicians dismiss it, and certain parties won't let the media mages forget. We need to pick our conflicts...carefully. You know that.”

“I don't care! If you can't raise a shield that covers your head first and foremost, and provides death and damage status, you have no business competing or being a combat mage at all. Everyone
knows
the injury rate is higher for helmeted mages on a true battlefield. You have to use diffused magic to keep them on. This legislation is not
for
our true benefit.”

Dare continued casually tossing his magic ball of light.

“Why are you so scarping chill about this, Axer? You hate regulations.”

My translation spell had been letting odd things through ever since I'd returned. I had to do a quick search through the bracelet encyclopedia Will had given me to translate what “scarping” meant.
Ah.
I didn't realize three humans were capable of...performing such motions together. “Crasseetar,” translated in a likewise manner. “Crump” was pretty obviously the part of the body that...got kicked. I did a quick search on “buckles” and it returned as a slang term for a Department enforcer—likely named for the buckled collars around their throats.

Dare threw the magic up in the air, where it began to spin. “You do realize that they haven't yet specified what a 'helmet' has to be, right? Stop thinking of what
is
or what
could
be forced upon us and start thinking of what we can make it. If we are ahead of it, we can control the product.”

There was silence.

He smiled slowly and the ball of light twirled out into a very thin, nearly clear magic. A clear field with delineated points of magic rotated in the air.

“Axer, you are a genius,” Lox said fervently.

“If only you wore a helmet more, you could say the same.”

“A humble, terrible genius.” Lox's smile crept upward the way my brother's had when he had been planning some horribly awesome mischief. “But this... Yes. We'll have to talk to the device nerds.”

“So, we go with the legislation?” another boy asked.

“The next few years are going to determine the future of this Layer. We capitulate to this legislation, and to what the Department is doing to campus security this term, all while putting...other plans into effect,” Dare said, his blue eyes dark.

“You have a plan for security?” the boy said.

“Of course he does.” Lox looked almost resigned.

Dare smiled. “There are key assets that are always overlooked.
We
aren't going to overlook them.”

Another book landed on my shelf, edging into place, pushing the semi-invisible books closer together. The books chittered at me as I nudged them again, trying to see what Dare meant.

Ultramarine eyes shifted suddenly, pinning me to the spot—as if he could see through the magic, and see me watching.

Time slowed for a moment—an audible clock in my head began ticking slower, heavier beats.