The Protection of Ren Crown (52 page)

“She's not
you
.”

“That doesn't mean she's bad!”

“You are not sidetracking me on this. She doesn't matter. No, that is entirely untrue.” Her hand cut through the air. “Sera McEllian Dare matters, but she is not the main problem here. That Axer Dare knows what you are
is.
”

“Why?” I asked bluntly. “He's been nothing but kind. Well, kind is perhaps the wrong word when he's all grim and serious, and perfectly muscled, but still lean, and hotter than the sun...” I flailed my hands a bit. “But he's funny and a little wicked and I like him, and he's like Superman, always saving me and everyone else. Or Bautermann, or whatever Mike said.”

“
Why
? Because the Dares have an
agenda.
And you just admitted he's a little
wicked.
Weren't you
listening at lunch
during that Bautermann discussion?”

I cringed. “Only sort of listening. Sometimes I tune out of the political discussions.”

“
Ren.
The Dares are setting up their scion as the protector of the world on
purpose
. Who can argue against the guy who wins everything and saves everyone?”

I nodded. “Yup. That's why I'm not arguing.”

Olivia turned to Neph. “Handle this. I
can't do this
.”

“Liv—” I started to argue.

“
Listen,”
she said, steamrolling right over me and ignoring her own directive for Neph to handle the conversation. “Do you know how many tests the Department has put Alexander Dare through to see if he possesses the remotest ability to bridge?”

“Judging by your tone, I'd say a lot.”

“He has failed—or passed, depending on your viewpoint—all of them, but they make him retake the tests every year.”

“Seems extreme.”

“Because they think he has the
ability
, Ren.”

The kind of ability that would allow him to give me something that he could then use to control and manipulate my magic when I was about to explode?

It wasn't exactly controlling someone from across a street, like he'd implied that his mother could do, but it had taken him all of two seconds to put magic that could control me into a piece of cloth. Seemed like someone had valid concerns out there. And no way was I going to say any of that out loud.

I would share all of my own secrets, but exposing even the
possibility
of someone else's—no. And especially not someone who had done nothing but good things for me.

“It doesn't matter what you say about this, Liv,” I said gently. “I don't care if he has mad goblins in his family tree.”

“Do you know what the Department would do if they thought a Bridge had access to an Origin Mage?” she hissed. “They'd figure out a way to wipe the Dares' stupid island fortress off the map, no matter how impossible the Dares have made it to do just that. A war was fought over Maximilian Dare marrying Sera McEllian. A war their family
won.
Add in an Origin Mage, and it would certainly send the message that the Dares plan to rule the world.”

Olivia said it like that was the message she had already received with this new information.

“I don't think they are trying to add me to their arsenal,” I said. “I've only met one of them, his cousin Nicholas. He's sixteen. He was with us right before the Bone Beast showed last term, and sometimes they are training together when I arri—”

“Oh my
God,
that is not what—” Olivia took deep, heaving breaths. “You're going to be taken. Or killed. And there is
nothing we will be able to do to stop it
.”

“Hey, it's okay.” I sent pulses of soothing magic to her through all the streams in our room.

“It's not okay, Ren,” she said through gritted teeth.

Will was anxiously looking back and forth between us. “So, let's talk good news instead.” He clapped his hands. “Ren, Leandred, and I got a leech working an hour ago!”

“Will!” I hissed. “Timing!”

And that was how Olivia's magic blew my indestructible desk into thirty pieces.

~*~

Olivia grimaced as we walked the short distance to Okai at twilight, but gave a brisk nod of greeting to the rocks as they opened the door.

“So?” she asked, after I shut the door behind us. She was still pretty upset with me, but it had manifested into a more resigned world-weariness. And she'd spent an hour using our room's magic to make me a new desk that was even more awesome than my old one. That my desk had
teeth
that now aggressively stole my schoolwork if I worked for too long had to mean I was almost forgiven.

“You are vibrating with energy,” she said. “I have all sorts of scenarios running through my mind about how you brought me here to cover up the tunnel you dug to First Layer China.”

“That's a great idea!”

“Ren...”

I laughed and bounced on the balls of my feet, excited. “Not a tunnel.” I whipped out the wood chip I had been carrying for the past few hours, waiting to use. Waiting had been
agonizing.
But Will had spilled the beans about us finishing a leech, and there was no time like the present to put plans to action.

“You've been collecting First Layer playground bits?” Olivia said dubiously. “Well done.”

“Anyone who says you lack humor, obviously just doesn't know you yet. No. Look again.” I thrust the chip toward her, so excited now that I was literally vibrating with it.

Olivia gingerly took the chip. She knew by now to wait for an explanation rather than to run automatic diagnostic spells on anything Will and I handed to her. Not that we'd
meant
to electrocute her on Monday. The less said about that, the better. Who checked for poison on a loofah anyway? Olivia was pretty paranoid. We'd just wanted to make and give her a relaxing, magical shower aid, since I had done all that research on shower charms after that day in the Midlands.

But it meant that since she
did
accept things from me without checking first, that she trusted me a great deal.

“Like Will said...we succeeded.
Ta da!”

I held out my hands in a showman's pose. Guard Friend copied the motion, one hand straight up, while the other offered toward the item.

Olivia stilled, her eyes now focused on the chip. A careful tendril of magic flowed down her fingers and wrapped around the chip, gently prodding. The chip pulsed beneath the questioning magic.

“How much?”

“It will allow the user to channel my magic for a five-second period of time. It will only work on me. I refused Constantine's suggestion to start manufacturing nonspecific leeches wholesale.” I rolled my eyes. “Hopefully, this will be just enough to start cracking through Raphael's spell.”

“I...” She swallowed. “Ren, if you had asked me to do this the week after you moved in, I would have done it and sucked every possible drip of your magic dry in that five seconds. But now...” She shook her head.

I smiled. “Which is why I'm offering! And hey, Constantine wanted me to tell you that he is totally willing to test it instead.”

I had expected Constantine to wheedle a first try with the leech anyway, but other than a small, covetous look at it, he had waved his hand to indicate his acceptance of my plan to have Olivia do it. Oddly, even though he ceded the first try to Olivia, his expression had been one of complete satisfaction and anticipation.

Olivia grimaced.

“It's completely safe,” I said reassuringly. “It's a small drain with a built-in safeguard. Not enough to control me completely, and easy enough to shake off, if I want.”

Like Dare's cloth. He'd taken control of my magic, yes, but it had been an exertion that had consisted of only positive intentions toward the user. If I had panicked, he would have let go. Or at least, that was how it had
felt.

I knew this wasn't the leech Constantine sought.

Constantine had been so animated and determined lately. And not only was the leech project going well, but so too was the dodecaplex design and the paint making. We were getting better, a lot better. It made it hard not to smile smugly at Stevens the three days a week that I saw her.

Maybe Will was right—and Constantine simply had been terminally bored. The projects kept him focused and directed. He'd barely crested twelve judicial infractions this week, and I hadn't seen a honey bunny in weeks.

Olivia took a deep breath. “Okay. Let's do it.”

We clasped the chip between our hands, then I
willed
my desire for the magic to work.

White light flared and an internal link of gold was pried away. Another hook detached.

The smile bloomed across my face in reflection of the feeling within. “I can feel part of Raphael's magic breaking free.”

Olivia lifted her five seconds of magic use from me, and I only had a second to wonder at what she'd use it for before her outward burst of magic surrounded me in an exact reflection of the lightning blast I had set off at the Festival. Pure joy filled me.

“Olivia, that was wonderful.”

She looked relieved that I had liked what she'd chosen to do with the magic. She handed the chip back to me.

I kept my hand out, smile still wide, and motioned to her bag.

“What?” she asked suspiciously.

“I'm going to join the chip to your cocoon. That way you can use a little bit of my magic whenever you nee—”

“No.”

I blinked. “But I think it will help. Bit by bit the magic will chew away at Raphael's leash.” Dare's cloth maneuver and the first hook detaching had made me think it possible.

“We can do that here, bit by bit, in a controlled setting.” She gave me a look. “With Nephthys and William watching next time.”

“But—”

“No.” She looked weary all of a sudden. “I'm trying to be a better person, Ren. One step at a time, okay?”

I blinked. “You are already a good person.”

She stared at me for a long moment. “If everything is fine through the night, we can try it again tomorrow, okay?”

I readily agreed and we returned to our room.

Thoughts of the day wouldn't stop zooming around my head, so I stared at our (still) blank ceiling and babbled instead of trying—and failing—to go to sleep. Emrys was out to get me. The squad simulation had been a horror-fest. The Justice Squad loyalties were split between the Combat Squad and the Peacekeepers' Troop. Tensions were high.

Olivia was generally willing to listen to my grumbles and mad stories, but she was still a little irritated about my inability to see Dare as a threat. Therefore, she issued displeased little noises every few sentences.

I said nothing about the cloth or the dragon wing.

“Working with the Troop is torture. What we need is an awesome fighting force of delinquents,” I said, already thinking of the wild and insane abilities and misdeeds that each club member could contribute.

Olivia gave me a deadpan stare, then returned her gaze to her book.

“No, seriously! Think of it! Who better knows the secret ways of campus? Who knows how to skirt regulations and rules?”

Olivia paused in the act of turning a page, then slowly grabbed her pen and held it over her pad. It hovered there for a long moment, then hit the paper with a jolt as she jotted down her note. She crossed something out on one of her many other lists, cocked her head, then penciled over the top.

“What are you writing?” I asked.

“Number Fifty-two.”

“What?” I was clueless as to what she was referring. “Fifty-two what?”

“Nothing.” She had once more dismissed me entirely, turning her attention back to her book.

I spent the rest of the time until I fell asleep riding high on my success with the leech and amusing myself with thoughts of an awesome imaginary fighting force. Together, the thoughts stopped me from freaking out completely about Emrys, Dare, and all of the watchful gazes waiting for me to screw up.

Chapter Twenty-nine: Click Once for Luck

I had taken to naming my most frequent followers—lizard, stripes, business girl, neon shoes, ribbons, rainbow eyes, tie-dye hair, and twig-man (who was both skinny and easily startled)—and in order to stay sane in the cafeteria, I drew animated cartoons of them being both inept and cunning. Keiren and Inessa, the two mages I knew by name, were often depicted as well. Delia found it all hilarious.

Bellacia got her own comic strip. I called it Bellacia on Report. Just like in real life, she popped up on the page at the most unusual spots and at the most inopportune times to “chat” with the red-headed villain. Trying to catch me when I was most vulnerable and unprepared.

In real life, I evaded the watchdog groups as much as possible, and excused myself from Bellacia when she popped into my path, but unfortunately I couldn't avoid her in class.

Usually, that was true for Keiren too.

However, Will's tireless efforts at working out how to get our group to assemble together paid off big dividends Thursday in Politics when Neph
finally
slid into the circle of our group. We also pulled in Asafa as our sixth. He had immediately opted into the plan when he had overheard us planning to corrupt the system to be in the same group.

I had tried to help Will with the spells that he had attached to the class chairs, but Dare—running on some crazy pre-adrenaline high mere days before the competition—demanded most of my time. Olivia had finally put her foot down three nights before and told me to
delegate
.

It had taken an agonizing few hours of being pulled in all directions before I'd asked Delia and Mike if they could help Will on the last few enchantments.

They'd been delighted. I still didn't know how to feel about the whole delegating thing. Guilt, relief, wonder. It was a strange and somewhat heady mix.

Will racked up a demerit in the class log for the spell, but it didn't matter, as whatever group was formed today would be the one assembled for the rest of term. As the group clicked audibly into place, Will gave Bellacia a smug smile.

Every class period, the other assistants moved from group to group, never staying too long in any one—and never approaching ours. Bellacia, on the other hand, spent the majority of each class sitting smack in the midst of our group.