The Protection of Ren Crown (25 page)

The other sense enhancements from the book had ended. But the one highlighting the people I was connected to remained. Determination, coupled with all of my weird experiences with wards—especially with my first death—had allowed me to keep the connecting threads in view, once I was made aware of their existence.

Constantine's had been strong like the others, but now his were dull. Masked.

“Yours
were
a strong violet and bronze,” I said pointedly. “And somewhat informative. What are you afraid of?”

“I'm afraid of nothing. Don't be silly.” He unfolded from his chair, his gaze already on the door to his workroom, his connection threads still absent of anything I could read. His voice frequently lied, but his eyes rarely did. He was hiding both his gaze and the threads.

“Come, Crown. I'll show you what I have.”

I didn't know which part of our conversation had made him stop playing games, but I felt no small amount of relief as I rose to follow him. “Thanks.”

He waved a negligent hand over his shoulder as he unlocked his workroom, but there was an air of disquiet about him.

“No, seriously… Thank you, Con.”

His hand paused on the knob. “I know, darling,” he said softly. “I feel your gratitude and unnecessary concern. Thread connections work both ways, if one knows they are there and how to find them.” He pushed the door open.

They did?
I looked anxiously at the pulsing gold one that I feared the most. “How do you stop them? How did you stop ours?”

He didn't respond for a moment. Something told me that he was seriously unused to hearing himself included as part of an “ours.”

“Your naïve openness is part of your charm. Why would you want to be dead like the rest of us?” Amusement laced his voice. Only a darkening in the connection let me know that it was forced.

I touched his back as I passed him, and pushed comforting vibes down the completed connection circuit. He was so like Olivia sometimes.

He didn't move for a moment. “Gathering us all together like lambs?” he asked lightly.

“Friends,” I said, putting my bag down, very used to him somehow reading my mind even without a known connection. “I'd never mistake you for a lamb.”

“It would be a deadly error,” he said, just as lightly.

“Did you come to the First Layer with the intention of using that leech?”

His gaze met mine as he pushed aside some of the papers on his workspace. “No.”

“With the hope?” I knew better than most that phrasing was important in the magic world.

“Hope is a diabolical and stupid emotion,” he said. “And yet it continues to exist.”

“You wanted to use it.”

“Of course I did. I knew it would be magnificent—viewing the world and magic in the way only you can see it.” He hesitated a moment, then gathered a few books together, and stacked them on the table in front of the chair I had yet to sit in. “What did you do with the button?”

“I hid it.” In the small secret hollow in the bricks of the basement that Christian and I had used for things we didn't want our parents to find. Olivia and I had hidden all of the things taken from the terrorists there too.

“You didn't destroy it?”

“No.” I had thought about it. Briefly.

Something pained, hungry, and desperate slipped through his shield, and an unreadable smile curved the edges of his lips. “I am unaccustomed to being forgiven. But then I'm never sorry.” He leaned over the table and curved a finger under my chin. “I'd do it again,” he whispered.

“I know,” I said, not allowing the charged silence following that statement to settle.

He smiled and sat in his work chair, tapping the top book on the stack in front of him. The scholarly attention he usually hid was on full display now that we were in his work room, and his eyes narrowed in academic focus, flirtation gone. This was the Constantine who was easy to be friends with––the Constantine who never appeared outside of this inner room. I sat.

“With that particular leech, in order to use it, I had to receive permission from you—that is true with any of the lesser forms of leeches. All forms are hard to create, but as with anything, there are rising levels of difficulty. Leeches that do not require a mage's permission are true works of magical art.”

He laughed lightly at my grimace. “Fortunately for you, they are extremely rare, and using one will get a mage a life sentence in prison. Which neatly brings us to law enforcement.”

He flipped a few pages in the book and tapped on a picture.

“The cuffs used by law enforcement remove casting ability completely, and require no permission, but they don't allow the enforcer to use the magic therein either. You can think of law enforcement cuffs more like inhibitors—they do leech small amounts of magic in order to keep the mage alive, but they don't give magic to someone else. Of course, the legislators continuously toy with the idea of taking and using the magic of imprisoned mages in some productive way for society, but they haven't yet won over public opinion and personal fear. So, as it stands, law enforcement cuffs are the least compelling of the leech forms.”

He leaned back and I started flipping through the book he had opened—titled
Leeches, Leashes, Collars, Cuffs, and Control
.

“Leashes and the internal collars they connect to...” He stretched his ribbon. “Combine the properties of both a cuff and a remote leech. They are truly the thing to fear and to learn to guard against. Like law enforcement cuffs, debate continuously rages over them. Currently, leashes are banned, except in extreme circumstances, and deep within hidden facilities that the government doesn't discuss.” His gaze met mine pointedly.

“Can I take these?” I touched the stack of books, thankful they were simply made of paper. This was one of the rare cases where I wouldn't want to experience the Library of Alexandria's books or halls on a topic.

“Of course. They should fit in one of your storage papers for safe transport.” I heard his implicit warning not to be caught with anything written on the subject matter.

I did as he suggested, letting the books sink into one of the storage papers visible on his rectangular work table. As I folded the paper, my gaze took in a mathematical sketch on a paper beneath it. I touched the sketch, then moved it so I could study the one stacked beneath. A complicated pattern of pentagons interconnected in a two-dimensional rendering of a far more complex structure. “A dodecaplex?”

He smiled through the strands of hair that fell into his face as he leaned forward on his elbows. He looked down at the sketches as well.

“A project I'm considering roping you into. Courtesy of your storage papers and the delightful firsthand peek into the way you can manipulate dimensions greater than three. Visualizations I can only grasp like a lost dream or drug-fueled haze—that showed me the secrets of the universe for a single moment in time. So tantalizing and frustrating. So perfectly you.”

I shook my head, amused, and shuffled through more papers, then stilled.

“That is exactly what you think it is,” he whispered, our bent heads nearly touching. He was far too close for such a diabolical revelation.

Rudimentary plans for creating both a leech and a leash were laid out in fine detail on the papers touching my fingertips.

“You knew I would come to ask you about the leech.”

“Such is the stupidity of hope,” he said, sounding too amused for the emotion to be real. “But I felt it there when I was controlling your magic. Something...else...with a claim on you. That is what you truly seek, is it not? A way out from someone's leash?”

There was something very off in his voice. He usually kept things close to his chest, but there was an intensity, a need he wasn't able to hide.

“Yes,” I said, somewhat numb, my mind already going down the path he had laid forth on the paper—easily following the path because it had already been fluttering around my thoughts. It was one of the reasons I was here.

Constantine knew my working mind well. I usually sought to build or create in order to understand a concept before I flipped it on end.

He leaned back, his hair sweeping to the side, a smug smile muting the anxiety that still trickled beneath his facade. “Then I'm at your disposal.”

Olivia...was going to be furious with me.

Chapter Fourteen: We're Doing What?

“Hey, Olivia?” I asked as I shut the door to our room and batted at the calming spell trying to attach to me.

She inclined her chin to show me she was listening. Best to lead with something besides 'I visited Constantine and we are going to make a leech that will rob me of magic! Yay!’

“Why haven't you shut off the calming spell to our room?” I asked.

She turned her full attention my way. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, it's a little weird, right? Having that pump through? We didn't have a calming spell last term and we did fine.” Mostly fine.

“You are addicted to the cafeteria. What kind of magic do you think always blasts through there?”

“But the cafeteria recharges us and balances magic levels, right?” I chewed a fingernail, then went searching through the heaping pile of books, paper, art supplies, and random hair bands on my desk, looking for one of my specialty pen tops to chomp on.

“And we only spend an hour at a time there, tops.” I motioned in the vague direction of the cafeteria, then around our room, as I sat down. “We are in here a lot more than an hour or two every day. The spell has been on all day. It will even be on while we sleep.”

The thought of it made me itchy. I scratched my neck.

“You've required the extra calm,” she said. “Everyone has.”

I shuddered at the remembrance of what campus had been like before the crowd-calming magic had kicked into place.

Grief and Grieving
made a big deal out of dealing and accepting, rather than denial, though. “True. But I'm ready to go cold turkey now.”

Her shrewd gaze narrowed on me. “Calmness provides rationality and limits unreasonable behavior.” Her gaze was far too pointed for me to escape her meaning. “I'm willing to go along with the herd for a few days.”

“Camille Straught and her lot are always going on about how control cuffs regulate ferals because they can't regulate themselves. And yet you’re telling me they are sucking down calming spells?”

The edges of Olivia's mouth turned up into a smile. “You are calling the Second Layer Magicists hypocrites?”

“Yes.”

“People create the truths they desire.”

“Constantine and his roommate shut off the spells in their rooms.”

“Of course they did.” Her gaze pinned me completely. “Why were you there?”

“Getting help.”

“From Leandred?” she asked in a tone that indicated the only way he could help someone was through death or dismemberment.

“Yes.”

Constantine was my friend, but I was
his
business partner. I didn't delude myself on that score. But that didn't mean the score couldn't change. It had taken a lot for me to change that same mismatched status with Olivia. A lot of patient, galling moments where I had just steadfastly refused to budge from my friendship course.

Her fingers tightened, then loosened on her chair, as she tried vainly to maintain her calm. “He leeched you not quite two weeks ago.”

“I know,” I said. The excitement in my voice had to be overly obvious, because she recoiled from me.

I scooted forward. “The experience made me aware that Raphael has some sort of permanent leash on me. And knowing that problem means I can
fix
it.”

Olivia's eyes narrowed, and I could see her quick brain working. “Verisetti said something last term about you 'tugging' him.”

“Yes, he said I tugged his thread.” I looked down at my hand. “I am connected to him,” I whispered, feeling nauseous. My magic vibrated discordantly with the feeling.

“Of course you are.” Olivia's voice was brisk. “
Breathe
.”

“No, you don't understand. Not just a connection.
Cadmiat.
He used my magic.
Ganymede Circus
.
Jauvine
. All of them. I felt him draw on my magic and I could do
nothing
.”

“I thought he was just using your captured Awakening magic.” Her gaze turned inward. “Verisetti having a leash on you... I should have seen that.”

“It freezes me each time. Makes me useless. My magic killed all those people,” I whispered.

“Don't be foolish.” Her voice was hard. “And this is exactly why we still have a calming spell. Suck in more of it before you completely hyperventilate.”

I steadied myself and shook my head. “We need to get rid of the calming spell.” Every time I said it, I felt more and more certain. And now that I knew Olivia was keeping the spell going for my benefit, the belief was absolute.

“Liv, I know you, of all people, don't want a spell dictating how you feel.”

The edges of her mouth tightened. “Perhaps it's better than the alternative.”

Oh.
Oh, Olivia
. Anger at Helen Price overwhelmed me and I struggled to suppress the feeling.

I closed my eyes and touched the wall, sending comforting pulses through the room. This time, Olivia's threads tentatively reached out in return, and I embraced them.

It was stunning to realize that Olivia had just confided a
weakness
, even if it was a momentary one.

“Let's return to Leandred's part in all of this,” she said briskly, piecing back together her powerful facade. “And the thoroughly stupid things you are already planning to do with him.”

If I didn't embrace the subject change, I was going to say something unforgivable about her mother, so I grabbed my storage paper and retrieved the books. “Constantine gave me these. We're going to start working on constructing different types of leeches and a leash too.”

“Absolutely not.”

“We don't need to
complete
them. I just need to understand the characteristics of each design, and what the different parasitic magics feels like at a core level. So that I can identify which leech and leash are attached to me.”

“Absolutely
not
.”