Chapter Three: Of Angels and Devils

 

I shuffled from the room, far more tired than when I had entered. Puzzling words and blatantly disguised warnings made my head hurt. To be without what? Magic?

My shield cracked, allowing the overabundance of said magic to bleed around the edges and between the cracks.

I could hear hushed whispers curling around the edges of the cavern as the large doors closed slowly behind me.

“She is trying—”

“Frost Viper, you will learn. Learn to balance hope with fear in such times. The more powerful, the messier and faster they end. And this one—”

The door clicked shut.

I leaned against the wall and let the back of my head hit the corner, so I could stare blankly down the long corridor, watching the bottoms of the walls melt into the floor in overlaid patterns. I felt the marble in my pocket—felt the way that it connected to the project that would prove I could fix everything. I felt how my magic reached for the fragments of the world around me. I felt the addition of Liam and the eight other ferals I had saved.

I felt all those things connecting beneath the protections I had painstakingly placed upon the complex. Seals and containers creating a dome and inverting it to be invisible. Flat.

Safe.

I closed my eyes and felt my power. It was a deep well beneath the top layer of abuse it had taken today. But it was there, and I could mend the top, just like I had mended it before.

Why couldn't the Council see what I could? I could fix this world.

I forcefully wiped a new drop of paint from my nose. I could save the ferals. I could do any—

“There she is.”

My gaze jerked open to see a mob of refugees—people from throughout the Third Layer who had been unhoused and disenfranchised during the ongoing war between the terrorists of their own layer and the authorities of the Second.

They started rushing down the corridor toward me. Protective magic coiled in my palms instinctively and patterns sharpened. I had nowhere to go except through them.

“My village—”

“My town—”

“You must help us—”

“Our people—”

I pulled my hood forward and down as far as I could and overrode every instinct telling me to blast bodies and run.

I strode briskly through the press of bodies, letting my magic nudge them to the edges of my personal field, and tried not to let their emotional cries strike like the daggers they were.

“You—”

“You did this—”

But even worse were the ones who reached out to touch my cloak with reverence as I passed.

“Blessed.”

“Blessed.”

“Magic's honor.”

I shuddered and continued pushing my way through the throng, letting the darkened interior of the cloak shield me in more ways than one.

“You should be doing more,” a woman called out.

My cloak brushed my ankles as my steps slowed. A dozen hands reached out to stroke the fabric over my arms.

“You are the Magus Angelus,” she said. “You should be doing more.”

I gripped my fingers into fists and kept moving. I was almost to the intersection in the hall.

“You are the Magus Angelus,” she called out more loudly.

The title brought forth conflicting cries from the crowd.

“Origin Mages bring prosperity.”

“Origin Mages bring death.”

“Kinsky made the Second Layer stronger. It is now our turn. Our turn!”

“Or it is their turn to die.” I looked up to see a woman with fanatic eyes standing at the intersection. “A death demon. Like Flavel Valeris.” She spit out the long dead Origin Mage's name like a curse. “She will bring ruin to them, like he brought ruin to us; it is promised in the scriptures of Erthamus, that one will come who will end the wor—”

The woman's eyes went abruptly unfocused, as did the gazes of those around her.

I didn't have to look up to verify who stood behind her. I didn't acknowledge him as he peeled himself from the wall he was lazily lounging against. I stuck my shaking hands into my cloak and turned sharply down the corridor, bypassing the gauntlet of the crowd, who were now looking vaguely confused and disoriented.

His magic—mixed with another warmly familiar one in sepia tones—reached out and blanketed the overwhelming patterns overlaying my vision. The world around me shook for a moment, then settled.

I wanted to reach for him—like a drowning woman being offered a lifeline—but instead clenched my shaking hands into fists and continued walking without acknowledgment. I couldn't allow the bone-deep feeling of relief and longing to settle. I had to hold on to the surge of vexation and worry that was just as thick and overwhelming.

“I prefer the lust version myself,” Constantine said, falling into step beside me. “That type of demon is most welcome, especially in the evening when the hours drag by.”

“You should be in class right now,” I said without looking at him.

“And yet here I am. You're welcome, darling.”

“You shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't be here.” He should be safe on campus. “I was doing fine. I am doing fine.”

I focused straight ahead instead of on the people who were plastering themselves to the sides of the hallway as we passed. Even at nineteen-years-old, Constantine often provoked that reaction on his own. He held a weird position in the compound—not quite ally, not quite enemy—and was only allowed in because of some deal he had made. I still didn't know what it was.

“Fine?” His voice sharpened from its default negligent state. “You can't hide from me beneath that hood.”

I picked up my pace. “I'm not hiding.”

“Your makeup is uneven again.”

“I’m not wearing...” I firmed my lips and started to scrub at my cheek using my shoulder, but then thought better of it. My cloak was made to withstand my paint temporarily, but it was always a bad idea to push it.

“Even on you, blooded paint streaks aren't appealing,” he said lazily.

“Noted,” I said stiffly.

He blocked my way, moving silently and quickly. He reached out and tilted my chin to the side, then tilted it to the other—the movement exposing my face fully to the light.

Magic rushed through me, and the paint that had been relentlessly pushing for release finally settled.

“Why do you keep doing this?” he whispered. “No, don’t answer. I know what you will say. What caused all of that color to explode with nowhere else to go, darling? You look like a horror movie that got the colors all wrong.”

“I got the job done. I saved another one.”

He examined me for a long moment, mouth tight, then let his hand drop to his belt. “You need rest. I just used an amount of muse juice that would make a politician weep.” He touched a small glass vial filled with sand that was dancing with delicate, spoken movements.

I forced my gaze away from the vial, and with it my yearning. Home was gone.

“I got the job done,” I reiterated.

“Did you?”

I created a memory ball of Liam in my palm and held it out to the side for him as I resumed moving.

Constantine looked the memory over, keeping pace once again. “Charming,” he said with disdain.

I rolled my eyes, but my shoulders eased at the normality of the statement. I collapsed the ball into my cloak for recycling.

“And the atrium testing is working fine,” I said. “As is the city. Will is going to be ecstatic, which he will be without your report because the progress is available remotely.

I stole a look upward when he didn’t respond.

“You shouldn't be here,” I repeated with less bite. I was far too hungry for the company to deny it when it was in front of me. “It's too dangerous.”

“I am a scientific envoy, attending a conference in Ravishkan for two weeks,” he said, voice regaining its lassitude. “You, on the other hand, are a terrorist, labeled as such by the Department. I think of the two of us, you have little to say on the matter of danger.”

His feigned lethargy couldn't hide the tight tension coiled within him.

I climbed a series of steps at the end of the hall and stopped in front of the lone door.

“This isn't Ravishkan. You are going to get caught in a vortex somewhere, Con. And they will throw you into a hole even I can't find.”

I was barely keeping up with finding the newly Awakened mages. I hadn’t even come close to locating the ones the Department had taken before I’d been expelled from campus.

“They haven't caught me yet. Just like they haven't caught you,” he said in a blasé manner that contradicted every sharp, pointed feeling emanating from him.

I opened my mouth to argue then shut it with a grinding of teeth. I reached my fingers toward the door and let my magic slip into my self-made lock—a trick the Origin Book, Ori, had taught me the first time I'd manually picked a lock in front of it.

Constantine looked inside as the door swung open. “Ah, the hovel. I've missed it so.”

“You were just here. You are always here, like you are worried that I'll disappear if you don't check often enough. And it's not a hovel,” I said, entering my turret.

Papers were scattered everywhere, like a bomb had gone off. I checked the wards to make certain that was the only result from the earlier explosion.

“No, you are right, of course,” he mused. “It's more like a shanty with a really tall roof.”

Ori was crisscrossing the room, flying through the cross sections like a frantic pigeon stuck in a too small space. Upon seeing me, the book dove into a downward spiral. It blasted around my head, making my hair lift in the harsh breeze.

“Charming,” Constantine said.

His lip curled further as he glanced at the foot-high, real-time hologram of Axer trouncing combat mages on the practice fields.

Adjacent to Dare’s hologram were two others that were currently active. Neph was dancing with the other muses around the flagpoles on Top Circle, a look of sad intensity on her features. Olivia was intently pouring over a text. Will’s usual spot held vacant white smoke—he was probably off in the cafeteria, but he’d pop up when he was in one of the designated observation spots, usually with Mike.

All reminders of what I had once, and had no longer.

I had known Constantine was up to something when his figure disappeared from the hologram batch this morning. He was almost always in his lab or with Stevens these days—both places that showed his holo.

“Your vocabulary is shrinking.” I locked the door and removed my cloak, shedding it heavily, like the hundred-pound armor it seemed instead of the nearly weightless material it was. “And you created that holo feed of your roommate—created all the feeds—but that one specifically so that I could, how did you phrase it, ‘learn new moves’?”

“A constant regret.”

Constantine poked Guard Rock with his boot and kept a judicious eye on the ceiling, where the book soared in tight circles again. Guard Rock retaliated, stabbing his pencil through Constantine's boot, forcing the material to expand around the pencil's tip, before the self-healing material shoved the piercing object back out. Guard Rock flipped behind Constantine and stabbed him in the ankle. Constantine trapped him against the wall with his heel.

They had a weird relationship.

Constantine's relationships, in general, didn't fall along standard lines.

“I want you to be safe,” I said, resuming the previous conversation.

“Not much use for that on campus if I die of boredom.” I heard his boots scuff against the tile and the sound of his heel hitting the floor.

“Don't hurt him.” I didn't bother to look behind me.

“He's a rock.”

“I wasn't talking to you.”

“Charming.”

I pulled out a piece of paper and grabbed some charcoal from the mess on my work table. I sketched out some quick mind maps—pulling data from today’s Awakening and spreading it on the linen in visual form: where Liam had been found, how he might have been activated based on what I had seen in his magic, what his powers were, and the numbers and attack patterns of the hunters.

Releasing my breath, I let the feelings and magic from the fight reorient through the muscle memory of drawing.

My hand shook. A drop of paint fell and sizzled on the page.

I heard Constantine sigh, and from the side of my view, I saw him punt Guard Rock into the air. The rock flew; arms and legs extended back for maximum air time, then flipped to land on the table. He ran along the diameter line of the table, then screeched to a halt amidst the papers at the end, curling their edges into the air as he assumed a warrior’s pose.

Constantine threw him a sharpened pencil. Guard Rock caught it and thumped the lead against the table. The magic shot from the tip along the papers and up into my arm.

My hand stopped shaking.

“Better?” Constantine asked, sounding bored, but tension vibrated along our connection.

I stared at the table. In the live holos, I could see Axer pause, turning his head just a fraction. Neph’s hand went to her chest, head bowing forward.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Our mutual sharing was something I was still coming to terms with. Constantine now possessed a vial full of Neph's dancing magic. Somewhere in the way that I had connected us all during the showdown with Stavros on campus had allowed us to use our individual magics from afar when our friends were in need.

Constantine could pull on Neph, Guard Rock could channel Axer, I could—sometimes—pull on Olivia's measured deliberation.

Permission-based pulls made stronger by each of us contributing to the community pot.

“It's fine,” I said.

“It looks fine.”

“It is.”

He lifted a shoulder and dropped into a chair. “Fine.”

“I'm fine.”

“Unarguably.”

“You are arguing it right now.”

“Debatable.”

Ori chose that moment to swoop down again and slice my cheek with the edge of a single page. I glared at it and pressed my finger to the paper cut, healing it.

Constantine eyed the book narrowly. “When did this begin?”

“It is...feeling cramped.” I didn't react physically as the book buzzed my head again. It had been doing this for the last week. “I keep telling it that I can't go off on adventure. I'm getting plenty of adventure already. It doesn't take refusal well.”

That wasn't the only reason for the book's reactions, but I kept that part to myself.

Axer's feed disappeared, as it always did when he was done fighting. Constantine had made a quip about hooking his feed up to the showers instead. But Axer was almost always training in some way, and Neph dancing, and Will experimenting, and Olivia plotting, and when Constantine wasn’t dogging my steps, his holo always showed him creating something diabolical.

Those five usually surrounded me while I worked, just like they always had—with other friends swarming in and out of view alongside them.

Viewing the holograms made me less lonely, which was sadly amusing, since I was inside a compound full of people.

But the people here were awed and terrified of me, and I wasn’t Ren here.

I looked at the feeds from Excelsine with longing. I could no longer go anywhere near campus—even the Midlands were off limits. In order for Excelsine to remain free of repercussions following my expulsion, Marsgrove had been forced to install alert wards against me.

And for their own protection, I had cut communications with all of them outside of shielded areas. No more frequency or armband comms—no friendly or mischievous outside voices in my head.

The book fluttered its pages and Guard Rock took a stab at its binding as it flew past. The book had been keeping just inside the edge of outright mutiny, but it wouldn't be long before it rebelled completely.

Constantine looked and felt irritated as he watched the book, his emotions matching up for once. “Tell it to leave. I'm still surprised it didn't drop you the second you were off campus.”

I pulled a clammy hand along my forehead. “I've told it it's free. It feels its debt hasn't been paid.”

The line of green was far more in my favor now. Releasing it from seventy-year-old chains made quite an impact on all the bargains we'd made in Excelsine’s library.

Constantine reached out and touched the skin in the hollow at the side of my throat, then my temple. “You have a fever,” he murmured. “Didn’t you paint two days ago?”

I swallowed, pushing the question—and answer—down. “Stavros is going to declare war on the entire Third Layer because of me. He's going to use me as an excuse to collapse the layer. He got praetorians into the First today.”

All things I couldn't control, even with all my power. Not yet, at least.

“I know,” he murmured, darkness rolling through him, allowing the change in subject—for now. “I came as soon as the first image was shown. They almost got you.”

“But they didn't.”

“Not today.” His expression was unreadable, but his emotions—dark and heavy—were not. “But the praetorians have been given discretion. The Department gave the council edited versions of all your fights in the past two weeks. Damning edits. The vote was nearly unanimous—the timing, no mistake. Even with Excelsine, and the power behind the students there, on your side, the Department knows what it is doing. They have been spinning a negative campaign web against you for months now.”

Constantine's father was on the council—at least for the moment—and he was the only one who was remotely on my side. Or more precisely on his son's side. Though, it was hard to tell, sometimes, what his views were from the way he played the political and emotional game in the press.

“They are going to attack this layer with weapons they have been building for thirty years—powerful weapons you can’t begin to comprehend—as soon as the trigger they are waiting for is depressed. They are doing everything they can to get you in their grasp and you make their job easier. You risk yourself further every day.”

I leaned forward, arms pressed against my stomach. “I know. The territories also want me to remain hidden, to rise slowly with the rise of the layer. They aren’t wrong, but I must… I need to save the ferals,” I whispered.

Like I hadn't been able to save Christian.

“And I need to save you,” he said blandly.

“Con—”

“Do you want to save one mage, Ren, or a thousand? A million?”

I maintained eye contact. “I have to start with one.”

He spread his fingers. “But you can't. You can never choose only one. You can never choose to sacrifice just one, and because of that, you lose ten, then twenty. Which is why you lose at chess when it involves live pawns. Put people in place of carved wood and your whole game falls apart. For every pawn you save, you lose a more powerful piece. You can't save every pawn. You know you can't.”

He flicked the holo of Axer to the floor.

I retrieved it, then rubbed my thumb over the knuckles of my other hand, staring at the moving images.

“It’s only a matter of time before Stavros is given permission to invade, Ren.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “And I regret endangering the people by being here, but Stavros can’t hunt me here. Not yet.” I looked at the dense lines of the wards I had looped over the compound.

“You need a permanent place to hide.”

“I don’t think permanence is an option for me anymore.” I tried to smile, determined to lighten the mood. “Good thing I’ve always enjoyed travel.”

“With all your ducklings somewhere else? I don’t think so.”

Guard Rock nudged me with his pencil and pointed at Constantine with an open hand gesture as if asking permission to stab him.

“Itlantes will open its gates to you,” Constantine said, emotions and voice tight as he watched the hologram of his roommate. “And you will find many options there for your friends.”

I tightened my fingers into fists. “I'm not putting Axer’s family in danger.” The Dares' situation was a powder keg already. There was absolutely zero chance that the public would permit either the ferals or me to go there—not with the easy, negative spin the Department could put on it. I wasn't going to start another Great War in the Second Layer.

“The Dares are always looking for an excuse to go to war,” Constantine said, all tension hid beneath torpidity. “You would simply be giving them one.”

“No. It wouldn't just be twenty countries fighting them this time—they would face every country that believes the Department’s spin and believes in Stavros' goodwill.”

“I know the Dares. I grew up with their favorite. You underestimate their power and willingness to fight. Especially when they consider something theirs.” Constantine looked to the side, expression pulling as tight as the ribbon through his fingers. His expression loosened abruptly, and he rolled his head around his neck. “And you underestimate the Dares’ desire to rule the entire layer.”

“Axer, running the world? I don't think so.” I couldn't imagine him enjoying anything less.

“He was bred to be a warrior and protector, but if you haven't seen how he holds the attention of all around him, you haven't been paying attention,” he said bitterly, flinging his ribbon to the table.

I examined him, mystified. “Why do you want me to go there?”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Because once you are there, they will stop you from leaving. They will wage the war.”

“They would stop me from saving new ferals.”

“Yes,” he said shortly.

“Then you know why I can’t go,” I said simply.

He clenched his teeth.

“I can save them. I can save all of them. If all of you are safe, I can do anything,” I said, looking at the table. “And Marsgrove is keeping everyone safe at Excelsine like he promised—except you, who keeps escaping.”

The dark feelings roiling through him didn't cease, but I could feel him unwillingly shifting within a tide I couldn't see.

“Then you know why I can’t go back,” he said.

My head jerked to him. “No, absolutely n—”

He stabbed a finger on top of mine, pinning it to the ribbon and table as he leaned forward. “You make your choice, and I make mine.”

I swallowed down the “I won’t let you” that I desperately wanted to say.

He tossed a device onto the table—a familiar one, already glowing. “You are thinking old thoughts. And disregarding others’ feelings for you. There is no shortage of people willing to help.”

I stared at the device and licked dry lips. “I used the portal pad today that Will and I—”

“That's not what I meant.”

I fiddled with the ribbon on the table, watching the whorls grow as I twisted it in the light.

“I know,” I whispered and looked away from him. “I don’t want any of you hurt. And I...I want to be the one to save the ferals.”

Constantine, for all his polemic leanings, stayed silent while I divested myself of my boots and the last bit of my gear—trying also to divest myself of the admission, the dark secret I had kept clasped to my chest.

“I know that makes me selfish.” I didn't meet his gaze.

“You seek to assuage a guilt you should not possess,” he said.

“Not guilt. Not..” I shook my head. “I have the power to do it. I am saving them. I've saved every single one since I was expelled.”

“And when you finally miss one?”

I swallowed and looked at my glowing hands.

“I care little for these pets of yours,” he said, body listlessly draping the chair, emotions tight. “In point of fact, I rather loathe each new one as you trade your safety for theirs.”

“I can stay ahead of the praetorians.”

“Mmmm. Well, everyone in your little circle is losing their minds right now.” He pulled a loop of magic around his temple lazily as if he could hear them. Constantine didn’t have a frequency, but he had something more efficient that had never been named. It allowed contact with everyone through means that couldn’t be tracked. “And Alexander’s putting his affairs in order. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to go to Itlantes; Alexander's going to cart you off as soon as he escapes his campus responsibilities. As soon as he isn't integral to Excelsine's stability. He will be leaving, if not legally at the end of the term, then as a fugitive.”

I withdrew the toasted supplies from my cloak, needing something else to concentrate on, and started fixing the most crippled device first. “Julian Dare’s made that known.”

Axer’s uncle had tried to grab me, two days ago. He'd followed me all the way to the Third Layer. I had to give him credit for his tracking abilities.

Unfortunately for Julian, the Third Layer's denizens didn't trust him anymore than they trusted Stavros. He was drenched in Department spells, and the Dares weren't known for being involved in anything that wasn't for their benefit. Julian had been unequivocally unwelcome in the halls of the Outlaw Territory tribes.

He would always be a tracking step behind when I started a quest from behind their warded walls. His nephew, however, once freed of campus, would have no problem tracking me anywhere.

“You go to Itlantes with Alexander, not with Julian,” Constantine said darkly. “Alexander isn’t the one who will take Stavros’ place in the new world you seek to flip.”

I stared at Constantine.

“Give Alexander the coordinates of the Awakenings. As much as he's an irritant, he is...more than adequate at the things he does well.” Constantine grimly watched me wipe another drop. “You worship him for a reason—like everyone else on our blasted campus. Fifteen-minute absences for his merry little band can be covered at Excelsine by Marsgrove and the administration.”

“They'll be caught.”

“I cannot wait to tell him you said that.”

I grimaced. “The Awakenings are triggered, but not precisely pinpointed. The layer feels slightly different around a mage, but it's a large expanse of territory that the difference covers. Which means Stavros can know where a possible mage could be, but not who the mage is. But he has the second most important element in each scenario—time. He is setting off the magic in a targeted area, then immediately looking for grid spikes. So, if he knows he plans to trigger part of the tri-state area, he sends people to the general region, so they can be in proximity ahead of time.”

I looked up. “But that is my advantage. I can feel the layer shift as the mage Awakens. I feel it inside of me—I just know where to go, like a thousand points of data converging into an intuitive leap. I have, at most, a five-minute head start, and at worse, none. Axer can't get there before the Department does without me. And having me there would be a death sentence for him.”

“But all he needs to find you is a moment of your presence. He can always find you.” There was something dark, almost wistful in the words. “And you've already developed something to help, haven't you?”-

I rubbed a finger along a groove in the table, my other hand reaching into my pocket to touch a spelled chip there. “How—”

“Your flaws, while humorous, are always overcome by guilt, darling. You want to save the pawns yourself, but you know their long-term rescue outcome and the stability of the non-magical layer will increase if you remove yourself from the equation.”

I shut my eyes tightly. “Don't refer to them as pawns.”

“You are a god now, darling. Everyone is a pawn.”

“That isn't funny.”

“But you can do anything,” he said lightly, sending tendrils of darkness curling around me in gentle mockery. “You started thinking those exact words in the hall.”

“That's not—” I blew wisps of hair and darkness from my face, then reluctantly pulled my hand from my pocket, curled fingers letting the spelled chip drop like a weight on the table. “The First Layer won't survive the praetorians. I know this. But...”

Christian. Every person like him. One last Awakening pod.

“I know.” Constantine's voice was far more understanding than others would give him credit for. He gently pushed the glowing device toward me again. It was pulsing with his magic, waiting to spread its net.

I activated the holotalk with a mixture of sadness, trepidation, relief, and joy.