Chapter Twenty-one: Genesis Omega

 

We caught up with the Bandits through our comms at the edge of Verrange after traversing three more natural paths through roots, streams, and rock veins.

“Bailey has been working overtime,” Olivia said, giving a short report. “She was remarkably prepared for the event. Her reporter recorded some excellent footage. Thousands of the Awakening mages and their families, as well as a surprisingly large number of the tech personnel on site, are adamantly claiming that you three saved Crelussa. The Department can’t close the reports fast enough.”

“Er, right. Yay!”

“Ren.”

“Yes?” And my lambasting was going to happen in 3...2...

“I’m glad you got Bailey on your side,” she said quietly.

I softened, aching. “I miss you, too.”

Neither of us said anything for a few moments as I exchanged remote hugs with everyone—made all the easier by the connections that had been so freshly used.

With shadow cloaks engaged, Axer, Constantine, and I navigated to an underground secret entrance beneath the nondescript toy company in Verrange. Dagfinn had deduced and located it while comparing on-file schematics and accountable magic space. There was a lot of unaccounted space beneath the office building once Dagfinn put magic tracers—all illegal—into play.

“Approaching the gate,” Saf said, tracking us.

The gate was a ten by ten magical barrier, connecting to the tunnel. In its center was a circling stream of patterns that began moving faster and interlocking the more I stared.

I looked at Axer and Constantine. Both shook their heads.

“That's why this lock design is used. I can see only the barest pattern, and that's only from having been so tightly connected to you,” Axer said.

“Found enough intel to get you through the five blocks after this first one,” Dagfinn said. “But it's only you, 01, who can access this gate without a key.”

The elaborate patterns shifted, zinged and circled, then parted on an answer that I knew. I knew this pattern—had solved it before. “Got it.” I let the answer bleed through the comms so that Dagfinn could work up a skeleton key that I could imbue with the magic for if there was ever a next time.

I inhaled calmly and touched the locking mechanism on my cuff.

Axer stayed my fingers and smiled. “We can remain hidden a bit longer. I’ve got this one.” He held up a sphere that I knew intimately—a puzzle box of the same design that I had solved last term—and inserted it into the pattern. It engaged the lock, combining the two sides to form a whole that was then turned.

The barrier dropped.

I blinked at it, then looked at him. He raised a brow. “I told you that practice was for saving the world.”

All those puzzles he had given me to solve had sharpened me. I had recognized the patterns when Ori had first started training me.

“I did, like, sixty of those for you,” I said slowly.

“And now we have sixty ways to proceed without you doing any more,” he said with a smooth grin, slipping inside.

“We need to get those,” I heard Loudon whisper.

“Dammit, Ren,” Olivia said.

Axer raised the barrier when we were on the other side and pulled out the key.

“Activating remote trace on the tunnel gates. I can get you clearance through the next five,” Dagfinn said. “03, sending you the path.”

It had been implicitly understood by everyone that Axer oversaw anything that might involve reconnaissance and fighting.

Which was good, because as we made our way through the twisting corridors it allowed me

to connect all the talk about Stavros and the Basement, the Chamber, the Institute, the little bits and pieces in Crelussa, Helen, the vats, and the timing.

“Liv, I need to know what Genesis Omega is.”

She inhaled sharply through the comms.

“When Helen jettisoned the units, you suspected something.” When she didn't respond, I said, “Liv?”

“Yes. I know.” She seemed to be trying to get herself together. I sent a reassuring squeeze her way.

I heard her swallow. Heard the deathly silence in the rest of the comms.

“Tell me,” I said softly.

“Yes.” Her voice became certain. “Genesis Omega was a series of population control measures given under the guise of puzzles and tests that Great Grandfather made all the Vanator children do. Phillip and my mother included. Ways to rewrite the political system from within.”

“Population control, like, you can only have one child?”

“Like a culling,” she said bluntly, and I could feel the emotions ripple through the others as the chill ran through me.

“Culling the non-magicals?”

“That was Helen's plan,” she said in distaste. “But it wasn’t everyone’s. The Vanators created world-breaking operations of different types. Population resets. Temporary dark ages. Using different ways to do it—extraordinary mages, convergences, the captured force of disasters—but Helen’s plan used the Awakening canisters, specifically, as a start.”

That caused a flurry of reaction over the comms that I forced myself to ignore.

“Are you telling me that they are planning to wipe out, what, large swaths of the population? The layers?”

“I don’t know.”

“But Marsgrove knows?” I remembered the strange conversation he and Grey had when Marsgrove thought I was “asleep.” He had sounded frustrated more than anything. “Why hasn't he told the world?”

“He has been in a flurry since the Department took the canisters. Believe me, there are going to be some major happenings in the next few days. And maybe it's not what I fear, but the canisters...” She broke off. “And no, Phillip didn't know. Nothing concrete. I went through his files. I went through those files using three decryption puzzle boxes that Dare gave us while he was still on campus—dammit, Ren, stop solving puzzles for people,” Olivia said grimly. “Phillip only knew Helen had been up to something, knew Stavros was using her, but not what for specifically.”

“A new dawn,” Mike murmured.

“Yes. There have been whispers—there are always whispers. When Kinsky was alive, I was told there was lots of talk at the parties, in the shadows. The regular things—that Origin Mages destroy as often as they create—that a new dawn was coming. The normal conspiracy theories.”

“Raphael knows something,” I said. I was sure of it.

“Yes,” Olivia said grimly. “He spoke to me of it in roundabout ways. He wants to kill Stavros for his own fervent reasons, and Verisetti's been lost to insanity for years, but he said multiple times that humanity would benefit from his killing of Enton Stavros. That he, Verisetti, would take those involved down and leave those of us left to sort it out. It's easier to glue together his madness the more pieces we see.”

“Why doesn't someone just politically take out Stavros?” It was beyond frustrating. Here was a man in power who shouldn't be.

“He's entrenched. An institution. What would it mean to people in the Second Layer to know that we've let such a person in power? People don't want to know. They want to continue their idyllic lives. The Second Layer has it good. Why would anyone want to change that?”

More than one person on the line winced. “It's true,” Mike said grimly. “Think of Layer Politics, Ren. It's a golden age. No one wants to live like those in the Third.”

“And Stavros and his policies provide us with an abundance of plenty. Keeps us thinking that way,” Olivia said, before I could argue about making the Third Layer awesome with a little work.

“He hosts dozens of science and tech competitions. Puts loads of money into the STEM fields. The Department is very positive to engineers,” Will said. “Figuring out who to recruit or keep an eye on, I’m sure, but he’s considered a visionary because of his works.”

“The only blip on Stavros' record before you came online, Ren, was the Dare uprising,” Olivia said. “And he managed to weather that loss by placing responsibility on the countries that directly engaged Itlantes.”

I frowned. “He would have had more of Kinsky's magic then, than he does now.” It seemed strange.

“Maybe he feared what Sera McEllian Dare would do. There are deep, hidden rumors that no one speaks of, of what a Bridge Mage did with Origin Magic before a dark age in the past,” she said grimly.

Now there was no need for “rumors” of what a Bridge Mage could do with an Origin Mage’s power. I looked at Axer, who looked steadily back.

I shrugged. “Okay, but if Stavros is keeping the Second Layer as a land of plenty with all the good things, why is a culling necessary?”

“I don't know,” Olivia said grimly. “The Vanators go big, but many people believe small resets are a good thing. Recycling resets, for instance. Maybe his plan is smaller.”

“We aren't talking about recycling, though.”

“No.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” I asked Olivia softly.

She didn't answer for a long moment.

“At the beginning, it was simply a bargaining chip. A piece of information on the chessboard. Like I did with Phillip, I would have used it for other things.” Her voice shook. “But the problem with knowledge when crossed with emotion, is in how that emotion shapes and warps decisions. Once you were firmly ensconced within my heart, I could bear no longer to possess the knowledge that would send you right to him, into the pit of the beast.”

Constantine jerked, and I looked to see reluctant understanding forming in his gaze.

I remembered how easily Olivia had given in to Marsgrove's deal of extending the deadline on revealing the secret. Quickly ceding any desire to give detail.

“I didn't want it to be you he wanted,” she whispered as the last wards dropped right on Dagfinn’s schedule.

I gave our connections a stroke as we came to a fork in the corridors. “So, we have to figure out if Stavros’s ideals are the same as Helen’s.”

“Well,” Loudon said. “I guess we are going with super sketchy Plan DoGA, then—Die on Glorious Adventure!”

“Loudon, I swear—”

“So, 01,” Dagfinn said, firmly entrenched in codenames, even at the possible end of the world. “This is the part where you get to figure out which corridor to take. They both lead to the same place, but there's something weird about the space in the schematics. Usually a good bet that there are multiple pocket dimensions in play. Take heed.”

I looked at the possibilities. They looked the same. I touched my cuff, and my fingers lingered on the clasp. I could use magic, or... I could use other means and give us a bit more time. I looked at the flaring thick gold thread connected to the shield around me and carefully twisted it.

A gasp, a laugh, and anticipation echoed. I knew you would survive. I knew you would find it. And I knew you would call. I've been waiting.

You helped us in Corpus Sun. What are your intentions?

I could feel him rifling through the data I let him access. Deliberately let him access.

You are getting so paranoid, Butterfly. And controlled. I approve. Go left.

I held firm. Amusement percolated down the connection from him.

Left, Butterfly.

I looked left, and excitement churned that was not my own.

Left, he sing-songed, but it was saner than normal.

Answers first.

Before you meet the devil? That seems fair. I felt him rifling again. Your conversation was somewhat correct. Omega Genesis is Enton’s attempt to play at God. I do support the part of the notion that… He trailed off, then started to laugh. Enforced truth. Lovely. You really outdid yourself. I must take more care in our mental space.

I learned from the best, I whispered in my mind, looking at the pulsing gold.

Flattery will get you the very heart of a mage. Truly fascinating, how you remade your connections. You left the one to me, but imbued it with honesty. I can tell you truth, or nothing at all. This is to both our benefits in this maze. I’m not leading you astray, Butterfly. You can feel the honesty in your creation.

I could feel his dark humor as I looked down at the gold thread and swallowed at the shine.

I still don’t trust you.

You’ve always been the smart one. But I want you to reach your goal here as much as you want to. And I know this place.

I took the left corridor.

Constantine looked at me strangely.

Right, then left, then left again. Hurry now.

I followed the directions, picking up my pace.

“I’m mildly concerned at our sudden, deliberate path, while you feel conflicted,” Constantine said casually.

“You should be,” I murmured. “Watch me for possession.”

He looked at me sharply, and his fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist.

The boy joins. Charming.

Constantine sucked in a breath, fingers constricting painfully before forcefully smoothing my pinched skin without letting go.

Axer’s eyes narrowed on the two of us and he touched my other wrist.

Even less charming, Raphael said. Let’s grab a better one.

“Ren,” Olivia said stiffly. “Why am I hearing Verisetti?”

The lovely Miss Price, Raphael crooned. A much better addition.

“Ren,” she said warningly.

I sent a mental summary packet.

Now, to work, Raphael said with relish. It is good for you to have your rabbits. They will ensure you survive to face Stavros.

I narrowed my eyes.

We aren't going to find Stavros here?

Assuredly, a sliver of him. But the Basement is a workplace, not his home.

Unsettled, I heard the dead silence across the feed.

This is the Basement, though? I asked calmly.

The loveliest of workspaces, designed with the brightest brains to lobotomize in mind.

Why didn't you destroy it?

I've tried. Failed. I've killed thousands in the attempts. The problem was always finding the entrance. Once inside, no problem. I know this place. His mental voice became vicious. But the bigger problem with Enton Stavros is getting him where you want him to be. I had an opportunity...

His voice turned wistful and I felt all three of my friends twist at the connection.

“You would have killed Ren,” Olivia said angrily.

Yes. But it's always been her path. She saved herself from the very beginning by making me flee her Awakening before I was ready. Enton would have had us both, had I stayed. Left, then another right, Butterfly, then...

Dark feelings mixed with triumph as we proceeded.

This is it. That door. This is what you want.

 

This was the Basement.

 

You have all the pieces for finding Enton. You just need to put them together.

I looked at the swirling patterns on the last door. The patterns were trying to hide their true nature, but I knew them. I sent Axer an image and held out my hand. Axer placed a completed puzzle box on top.

I opened the door and pressed myself against the adjoining wall as Axer quickly slipped inside. At his signal, Constantine and I hurriedly joined him behind a section of stacked crates inside a warehouse-styled room. The shadow cloaks wouldn't hide us for long, but long enough for this.

My heart lurched as we peered around the crates.

At first appearance, it seemed like a normal warehouse. Rows of storage units were piled along the walls with rows of shelves extending far beyond. Unlike a warehouse, the storage contents on the right were quite alive. Mages and beings of all ages and ethnicity stared back at me. The first row was stacked only two high, but the others behind it were ten high and at least twenty deep. Tubes and lines of magic whirled in curlicues of color into and out of the different grids.

And these weren’t like the Awakening cells in Crelussa—where a mage would stay for a week or two. These cells were for long term captivity and held no privacy.

There was a different look and age to the gazes of the mages at the far back rows, from the ones at the front. The gazes of the ones to the back were deadened and older—as if all their emotion had been consumed over time, and they were simple husks. The ones I could see in the front rows appeared terrified, and the colors from their cages were sparking and flying. The ages of the mages from back to front descended like a macabre timeline of Stavros' experimentation.

A gruesome vision of pain and death painted the space to the left and the ceiling above.

Creatures and magical beings were attached to magic siphoning tubes and electric fields. Some were stretched out in the air as if they were a moment from being drawn and quartered, others were manacled to the ground. One specific dragon-looking creature was netted upside down on the ceiling. None of them were awake or alert—maybe the only positive in the entirely horrifying scene.

Vats—different ones from those at Crelussa—were stacked to the ceiling in the back of the room, connected outward to both the creatures, beings, and mages in long, clear tubes.

Five “work” tables were arrayed on the left, in front of the rows of storage shelves containing jars, containers, and tools. The storage shelf in the front pushed down through the floor and was replaced by another—this one with a solid front and a far more sinister purpose. Tools glittered on hooks and beakers of steaming liquids shone malevolently in the light.

A cell in a middle row on the right suddenly moved, its top swinging along a tube in the ceiling. It contained a giant fire-spitting lizard.

Five technicians with blank gazes worked around the space. None of them raised a gaze to us.

Hollowed out by Stavros long ago, do nothing to raise them yet, Raphael warned.

One punched in a code. The lizard suddenly froze in its cell and its body was pressed back against the glass. The cell tipped back to rest on one of the work tables, then melted downward, pressing the creature against the table, immobile. A small kit of tools raised into place at its right and I could see the spells that would exchange one tool for another with a flick—probably for one on the newly placed shelf behind.

I shivered. It was a far too elegant solution for containing something living and transporting it immobilized to work upon—tools already in place. I imagined that when they were done experimenting, the reverse would occur, neatly containing the creature in its cell and returning it to its spot in the grid.

I could imagine Raphael upon that table.

Months, I spent upon Table One, Butterfly. Be a love and destroy it for me, will you?

I was shaking. Constantine looked at me sharply, lips firmed, and stroked a hand over my hair. I smiled in reassurance, and he and Axer mentally debated next steps.

I felt Raphael disengage from the others so that it was only the two of us again. Promise me. Raphael's voice turned commanding. Promise me, Butterfly, that you will destroy it before you leave. Without emotion. Destroy it. Promise me you will do it without emotion.

I wanted to destroy everything I saw, but even with the truth imbuing our connection now I couldn't trust—

If you feel any emotion for the task, do nothing, he said seriously. But if you can do it without emotion, you must promise.

That seems unlikely, I said. Emotion was overwhelming me right now.

An unlikely task then.

Very well.

I could feel his triumph as he sealed the vow, then abruptly disappeared from my mind, like he had done all he needed to do.

Unease swept me. I looked at the empty faces of the workers in trepidation, wondering, while Axer and Constantine plotted out trajectories and strategies—Constantine pulling items from his cloak and slipping them into his roommate's cloak with activation spells and ownership.

This was not a place where normal people worked. The regular mages in the Department who sought security to ensure happiness in the Second Layer worked elsewhere. This was a slave driven hive of an operation. The empty faces spoke to those without emotion or soul.

And so, it was, when a man without a blank gaze strode into the room—a man with a face I had just seen in a painted memory, I felled him immediately with a blast of container magic pulled from Constantine's belt. And when I lifted the man's body, it was to Table One that I secured him with straps. Three dozen straps.

At the first hit of my magic, Axer had vaulted over the crates and immediately taken care of every blank gazed grunt in the room in coordination with the boys' quickly laid plans.

The automaton-like mages didn't put up a fight, which was even creepier. They were as still and empty in repose as their gazes had been in simulated life.

As Axer worked as quickly as he always did to secure a space, Constantine looked at Table One, then at me, eyebrows raised.

“We might need all of those straps,” I said.

“Riiight.”

Axer's container magic swept the man strapped to the table. He looked up at us with a glittering gaze. “Oler Mussolgranz. Not so dead after all.”

I closed my eyes, but could feel the excitement moving through them.

“Get his magic,” Constantine said, moving swiftly toward the table, pulling two containers from his cloak.

A cell moved from a holding area, its motions on autopilot, and was raised into place in the newest and shortest row, next to another familiar face.

Rosaria pounded on the glass, screaming, her voice and motions completely silent in the eerie stillness of the Basement.

Samuel and the girl with stars in her eyes pressed their fingers against their glass, watching her, and watching me. Magic zipped along the edges of their cells. Alive. And there were two dozen others of similar age around them. The Awakening mages since I’d come online.

Alive.

The relief was almost crippling. We'd made a gamble—let them take Rosaria, pinned with spells, to follow them to where we'd hopefully find the rest. All the rest. To the Basement. And Rosaria, our baited sacrifice, was still alive.

I was in front of her cell, hand raised, barely remembering having moved.

Rosaria pounded silently on the glass between us, her lips forming two words. “My brother?”

I pressed a hand against the glass of the mage I had failed last. “Alive. Safe.”

I had put a thousand remote wards around that hospital, and Marsgrove had moved him to a secure location that even I didn’t know.

“You saved him,” she said, a silent sob forming around the words.

“No. You saved him,” I said quietly.

She pressed her forehead against the glass, but I could still see her mouth. “I killed him. For a moment, I—”

I pressed my palm more firmly against the glass. “You killed no one. A lit bomb was placed in your hands. You aren’t responsible.” I closed my eyes, then looked over at Samuel. “And you will learn how to make that bomb into something else.”

Samuel stepped sideways and touched the wall separating him from Rosaria, his other hand reaching to the girl with stars in her eyes, and suddenly I could hear them. “We are all connected, do you not feel it? We will help each other.” Magic zipped along the cells.

“Makali Hōkūlani,” the girl with stars introduced herself softly. “And I feel it.”

“The man with death in his chest said he will destroy such connections,” Samuel said, gaze pinned on me.

I immediately turned to find a release valve.

Constantine's hand gripped mine, pulling me into his chest. “Wait.”

“What? I can't—”

“Ren,” Constantine hissed. “You can't just release them. Any of them.”

“He's right,” Axer said grimly, still studying Mussolgranz.

I struggled. “I'm not leaving them like this.” Asking me to leave the Awakening mages was asking me to cut off body parts, and I certainly wasn't going to let the tortured beings and creatures stay. “We aren't leaving them here. In the Basement.”

Constantine turned me, so I was facing the last of the cage aisles. “Those in the front are still Awakening, and their magic needs stabilizing still—but worse, look at the brain scans of the ones in the back.”

My gaze went to the monitor of one cell on the far left of the feral grid, far from the new mages. Symbols and magic swirled in patterns I didn't know. I called up one of the translation spells that allowed for alternate fields of study to be interpreted by laypeople. There was one for medicine related fields, gifted to me by Greyskull, and included in the “emergency pack” that Axer, Constantine, and Olivia had put together before I'd been expelled.

Symbols started translating in my mind as the spell took hold. And I could see what the boys were grimly pointing to.

“There is nothing registering in that cell, or the one next to it,” Axer said. “And that's not to say what will happen when the creatures above us are released from hell?”

My gaze darted up at the myriad of creatures pinned to the ceiling. I licked my dry lips—short, quick open breaths drying them faster than I could moisten them. My hand shook. What would I do if I'd been sensory and magic deprived for weeks, months, however long they'd been here? Lash out, die of shock, overload...

“We can't leave them,” I said.

Constantine released me. “No.” He looked at Axer, gaze intense. “But we have other options. One, in particular, that it's time to take. No more hiding.”

I hesitated, hand shaking uncontrollably, then nodded my consent.

“Okay,” he said with a strange cocktail or relief and resignation, as if he thought I'd argue. “Don't touch anything while I do this.”

I stared at the pinned bodies above, the caged mages in their cells, and my hand twitched toward the console. I shoved both hands into my cloak.

“Are you sure?” Axer asked him, stepping around the table.

“Yes.” Constantine put on his ultra-game face—which let me know exactly who he was calling—and turned his head.

Axer immediately started opening wards using Mussolgranz's magic.

Cognizant of the many stares—some surreptitious, others not—from the hundreds of trapped gazes, I turned and walked to the tool aisles. Guard Rock jumped to the ground and padded alongside me. If I returned to the Awakening cells, I was going to release all of them, and damn the consequences. I looked over the assembled horrors. Jars, devices, incubators, conduits, and tools were lined up on shelves. I wandered through the first aisle of shelves numbly.

Dark shadows danced along glass containers and terrarium domes in the second aisle. Shadows like Kaine's. I peered closer. Each vessel contained something slightly different—experiments at different stages of completion.

I wondered if this was how Kaine had been created. Had he been one of these small shadows? Had they fused a shadow onto a child's body? Had he been created from nothing? Had he grown from a shadowy wisp into the monster that he now was? Or had a Shadow Mage been taken as a child and experimented on?

My hands trembled in my pockets at what Stavros and Mussolgranz were capable of. Of what they had bred or destroyed to make Kaine. At what they would be doing next.

I closed my eyes and let the emotions come. Let them happen. When I opened my eyes, one of the jars on the lowest shelf had clattered closer, as if it had felt my emotions and was reacting to them.

A small shadow was inside. Thin, almost ephemeral. But there was something about it...

I crouched to peer closer. It pressed its tendrils against the glass with small, thin arms. The appeal in the gesture was apparent. It was a bad idea to reach out, but natural curiosity and empathy pulled me closer.

Guard Rock gave the glass a tap with his pencil.

The shadow pressed harder against the glass, pleadingly.

I looked at the other shadows growing and shifting in jars above and around it—malevolently or seductively pressing against their containers. Spiky, empty. Maybe replacements for Kaine. Maybe new beings to add to his army.

I looked back at the one that had captured my attention, and realized I was looking at my palms, and the container had somehow found its way into them. My fingers cradled the glass. Small, trembling tendrils pressed against the glass, reaching toward the heat of my palms and entreatingly toward my face.

I looked at Guard Rock, who shrugged and nodded.

“Ren?”

“Yes?” I called over my shoulder. The tendrils of shadow picked up speed, pressing, reaching for me, begging.

“They've arrived.”

I stared at the jar, at the pleading tendrils. I tucked it into my cloak as I rose. “Coming.”

Axer stared at me as I rounded the shelves, an expression on his face like he knew that I had touched and taken something. I swallowed and looked to Constantine, expecting him to start yelling, but he was focused on the entrance.

Stuart Leandred stood in the doorway. Grim-faced, he walked inside the space, ten mages wearing hazard gear trailing behind him.

Bellacia and Roald Bailey entered next. Bellacia's eyes were half-lidded and triumphant as she locked gazes with me. “Ren, my dear, dear, overpowered magelet.”

Her fingers ran along my arm as she passed, spells flying to absorb every detail. “This, well, I will be processing this debt to you for years.”

Her gaze paused on Constantine, then moved on. “You have your vow on that front and then some, as well,” she said to me, without a second look his way, already working through fifteen different stories as she walked.

Roald Bailey studied me with dark, intelligent, dissecting eyes, and I felt a sense of unease.

“Now, Daddy, what did I say?” Bellacia called, without looking back.

“I'm still uncertain this is the way to go, Bella.”

“Trust me,” she said, gaze taking in everything. “Trust me.”

He gave me one last look and followed her, powerful recording magic flinging from him in a burst of light.

Marsgrove came through next. Several officials followed in his wake, and immediately scrambled for defensive spells when they saw me, then scrambled even harder when their gazes landed on Axer. Marsgrove absorbed their spells in one raised protection spell and sighed. “Why are you still here, Crown?”

His voice implied that we should have disappeared the moment we opened the doors.

My eyes strayed to the Awakening mages. “I...I can't... We are going to stop whatever Stavros is doing, but I need...I need the Awakening mages safe.” I needed to be able to think of other things, knowing they were safe.

“We will gather them,” Marsgrove said, voice far quieter than I had heard it.

“But Stavros—”

“Stuart,” Marsgrove called over his shoulder, looking steadily at me.

Stuart Leandred turned from where he was engaged in a tense conversation with Constantine. “Phillip.”

“Permission to move the Awakening mages to Itlantes. They have facilities freshly prepared by some strange accident of fate.”

Stuart's gaze went to Axer, who looked back with a calmness that was entirely false.

Stuart's eyes grew distant for a moment, “Permission granted by a 5-2 edict from the Council, though the two dissenting members are scrambling to repeal the decree, citing that we have been bamboozled by a Conquering Mage.”

Marsgrove turned unimpressed eyes on Axer. “You've been upgraded. Congratulations.”

Axer looked at him steadily, then turned to watching the proceedings. I noticed that he had removed his cuff.

Marsgrove flicked his fingers at an assistant, who was now punching codes in the console. The cells around the Awakening mages flickered and started to move.

I raised my hand, and Rosaria, Samuel, and Makali raised theirs. The cells turned, lined up end-to-end and shot through a tube.

There were a few tense moments, then, “Arrival complete,” Stuart reported.

“They made it,” Axer affirmed, gaze connected to mine.

Tension uncoiled in my gut and I gave a high-pitched laugh. “All of them?”

“Every single one.”

Saved. I wrapped my hand around the edge of a shelf and let my chin drop to my chest, closing my eyes and letting the dark spots creeping over my vision blend into full black.

“Ren?”

“It's okay. Do your thing.” I opened my eyes once the blood rushed back and focused on the floor. I could feel Axer casually step closer anyway.

They'd be fine. They'd be fine. Everything was going to be okay. The ferals were saved. Saved. And Stavros and his Basement unmasked.

“Crown. You did... You did well.” Marsgrove touched my shoulder, then slipped away to supervise.

“Ren?” Olivia demanded.

I slid to the floor as all the Bandits' voices cut back in—Marsgrove's people raising communications to the outside world—and overriding the “mute button” that I hadn't realized I'd engaged.

“They are safe. Saved. Alive.”

“We know,” Olivia said softly. “You did it.”

“We. We did it.”

The Bandits commenced celebrating loudly over the comms as the authorities began systematically processing, recording, moving elements, and shooting us incomprehensible looks.

I saw Julian Dare enter, his eyes glittering with, I didn't know what, as he looked around. He looked at Axer and tilted his head. Axer tilted his head back, then nodded to an area of the Basement that Julian immediately headed for. I wondered why he wasn't going with his uncle, but then saw the conversation he was eavesdropping on.

Stuart and Constantine were having a low, tense argument in one corner while Axer remained near—alert to everything that was happening with the Leandreds and with me. Guard Rock jogged over to stand on Axer's boot, obviously deeming it the best guard spot.

Axer flicked a finger at me and suddenly I could feel the boys' connection and hear the conversation between Constantine and his father as if they were standing next to us.

“This will go a long way to rehabilitating your name, Constantine. But Stavros will blame this facility on Mussolgranz—magic knows how he survived and has stayed hidden—working in secret.”

“Stavros won't be able to hold that argument for long.”

“He doesn't need long. He has the Crelussa containers. He is hiding them legally, and it will take days—maybe weeks—to retrieve them,” Stuart said grimly.

“Then you have plenty to work on. As do I,” Constantine said. “I'm not coming with you.”

“At the very minimum then, it shouldn't be hard for you to leave Alexand... You forgave him,” Stuart said in a nearly disbelieving tone, looking at something on Constantine, some tie or magic that was visible to him.

“That is none of your business,” Constantine said coldly.

I could see the anguish in Stuart Leandred's eyes. The desperation to be forgiven as well. To have his son back. But how did you forgive the unforgivable? What was involved in mending a relationship that was irreparably broken?

The despair on Stuart's face made me look away, unwilling to witness it.

“You... If you stay with them, you'll be dragged down with them,” Stuart said. “You will be destroyed.”

“Then there will be a lot more goodwill for you to do around the layer,” Constantine said, unfazed. “Sad and tragically. All will benefit from your benevolence and sorrow once more.”

I remembered what Constantine had told me about his parents. That Sashia had made Stuart want to be a better person—that he had changed from a greedy industrialist into a philanthropist. That change of heart had tripled again in the wake of her death, his psychotic break, and the destruction of his son. Like fixing the world might give him the clemency that he sought—trying to gain through the world what his son would never allow.

“You know that is not what I want,” Stuart said tightly. “I did all I could for you. After... After I destroyed the son I had.” He closed his eyes. “I will never be able to take back my actions or grief, and I deserve all the hate you give. But I will to protect you now as I have tried to in the past six years, as I should have always protected you.”

“You loved mother more than you loved me.” Constantine said it distantly. “I always knew that.”

Stuart looked down at his hands. “I've only ever been capable of loving one thing. Power, greed, your mother, then you. All consuming. And the emotion consumes me before the next target takes hold. It was only after—” He broke off; looked at the ground. “After my grievous actions that I took the steps to become other.”

“You are saying that there's hope for me. That I might love more than one thing?”

“You already do,” Stuart said with an edge of wistfulness as he looked at the connections streaming around Constantine. “You already broke the first part of the cycle. You are in charge of your choices. As I am—now after so much work.” He shifted. “Leandreds are masters of all minds but their own, until they choose, or are forced to a choice. You have shifted naturally. It took me the aid of mind healers to do so.”

I stared at him and a lot of loose pieces abruptly made sense. How Stuart Leandred had gone from what was essentially a crime boss, or the nearest thing to it twenty years ago, to a powerful benevolent statesman who the people loved. Like Olivia had said, Constantine wasn't a sudden, rare mage. He had inherited Mind Magic abilities from his father—who could craft himself into whatever he wanted people to see.

If Stuart's focus had shifted completely to Constantine's mother and all her causes—she had been extremely beloved in high society, philanthropic circles—then he would have crafted himself into all that she desired.

And when she died... When someone died and they were all that you placed your emotional stability on...

Christian's death was still devastating, when I allowed myself to dwell on it. But though I'd put most of my energy into my brother's basket growing up, I'd always made it a point to know myself. To be in tune with inner Ren. And I'd had my parents, even though I'd felt isolated right after Christian's death—we were a tight knit family who just needed time.

“I remember well your abrupt switch from torturer to loving caregiver,” Constantine bit out. “I would have rather you stayed consistent.”

“Would you?”

“I do not forgive you.”

“No.” Stuart leaned tiredly on a decorative cane. “I seek no forgiveness from you. Only the chance to improve your lot.”

“Buying favors, losing negative transcripts, and keeping me from expulsion. Yes.”

“It was the only thing I could do. Now, I can do more.”

“For a time, I had hoped I might find the end of your wire. Then it became more of a chore,” Constantine said jadedly.

“Would that you had been less aware, perhaps.” His eyes shifted to me. “Or maybe, it is just a good thing that events fell as they did.”

Constantine smiled sharply. “So glad an Origin Mage fell from the sky?”

“No.” He looked at me. “Just that she did.”

The charged silence that followed made me itch at the elbow.

Constantine's lips firmed and a Molotov cocktail of emotions swirled within him.

“I've hated you for so long...”

Axer stepped toward him, but Constantine held out a hand to him without looking.

“Anger is what I lived on,” Constantine said. “Anger and bitterness. It's in my blood, I suppose.” His mouth crooked unpleasantly. “But so is intelligence. Why haven't you already gotten rid of Stavros?”

Stuart looked away, lips tight. “You think people haven’t had concerns about him? Even without the damning evidence around us right now to prove it? You think I didn't know what he really was under that gentlemanly demeanor? Even with his mind locked far away where I can't reach it, I've always known. Everyone who encounters him for more than a minute, knows, somewhere deep inside. Even without our powers.”

“The old Stuart got rid of those who opposed him. He was good at it. Like the reels show so well. No one stayed in business when you wished it otherwise. Entire operations went up in smoke the next day.”

“Yes, I was once exactly like him, but for the scale and human horror,” Stuart said, looking around the space. “But you know it isn't that simple. The more important question is how has he stayed in power? How did I? Why does the public turn a blind eye?”

Constantine grit his teeth. “By giving them what they want, so they conveniently ignore anything else.”

“By being useful. By giving so much on one hand that people ignore what he is taking in the other. By keeping the monsters from fully breaching the gate—monsters who are always at the gate. So close to the gate, that they don't care that the occasional villager disappears. It usually isn’t a villager anyone knows. Ferals are blips in a sea of comfortable ignorance. He doesn't take the known ones though, such as you and Alexander. He would have taken you both long ago, if he could have.”

“I'm surprised he didn't.”

“All of those parties and social events that Maximillian, Sera, your mother, and I sent you to so early, some far too decadent for ones so young, but they got you both noticed. You can never be anonymous. Society's heirs all know each other by sight and magic. You can't go missing, if you are known. Disappearance costs the government far more.”

“Society is a game. I never noticed.”

“Don't be boring, Constantine,” Stuart said, more harshly than I'd ever heard him. He was usually very conciliatory to his estranged son. “You know exactly why I did it. And you know why Stavros is in power.”

“He protects our interests. And as long as little Apollo is fine, and everyone's companies are faring well, everyone is free to turn a blind eye. No one cares about feral mages who aren’t even of this layer.”

“No matter what kind of dirt you get on Stavros—pinning this horrible place to him—the only way his supporters will care is if he is seen killing an untouchable person in their eyes. And he's too careful for that. People are willing to let a lot of people they don't know die. Numbers on a spreadsheet. However,”—he straightened his fashionable coat—“you save a place like Crelussa Sanitarium and thousands of magicist children with ties that Stavros could never count on defeating... You find plans for his destruction of Tus Onus... Or Gliar Peit. Or whatever culling he’s going to do with all the Awakening magic and a Bridge and Origin Mage at his disposal, and, well, now we have some ink.”

I felt Constantine's echoing shock to mine.

Stuart's mouth firmed grimly. “Selen Vanator was a very close friend before I met your mother. But while I can nail the Department with Crelussa, Stavros will blame it on Helen Price. It will take more to ruin the Prestige.”

“We find this evidence, and you will what?”

“I will make them see.”

Constantine looked at him for a long moment. “Very well.”

Over the comms, Olivia was trying to corral the others into moving into Phase 2, while Patrick was advocating for a little “celebratory time.”

“Stavros's culling isn't going to wait for our celebrations, Patrick,” she said firmly.

“Just one small—”

“What do you make of this, sir?” a tech asked Marsgrove, frowning at the console. “There's powerful magic here, almost like another lab space. But where?”

Axer stepped closer to them, Guard Rock traveling with him.

Another tech was flipping shelves, cataloging the contents of the Basement, and a third was flipping the rows of occupied cells. It was between one of those flips and the next that the Kinsky appeared.

“Con, Axer.” I inhaled sharply.

I could hear swearing, but I couldn't look away, couldn't move.

A Kinsky, previously hidden by rows of shelves, was in full view. A small symbol rippled in the lower corner of the portrait and a heavy beat drummed in its paint, vibrating its frame.

Between one breath and the next, I was suddenly in front of it—like I had been moved by a godly hand from one spot to another.

Priyasha waved me back with panicked motions, pointing frantically at my cloak with one hand while the other pressed against her painted veil. The symbol rippled in the lower corner of her canvas.

“Do you have something else for me?” I asked, already knowing that wasn't the right question.

She motioned again, aggravated strokes of paint even more frantic, her head tilting behind her as she grew increasingly panicked. I started to back away, feet moving nightmare-slow.

I saw Kaine slither behind her a split second before I was lifted from my feet and pulled into the painting. The room turned, flipping in on itself like a moving tessellation—separating me in a clean slide from those running toward me, like I was on a turning face of a Rubik's cube.

I could no longer hear the others. Not the boys, not the Bandits or Olivia. Not Neph.

And I couldn't feel my magic anymore.