The Rise of Ren Crown (12 page)

I didn't want a new roommate. I didn't want to leave our room. But I also couldn't stay in our room right now, surrounded by the moroseness that was swallowing me. It was unhelpful to action. I needed to get out. To plan.

“Absolutely. See you soon, Crown. Saf out.”

The others called in their agreements, and I gripped my tablet fiercely and walked from our room toward the underworld below.

Chapter Eight: Relationships with Thorns

The medical ward under the Magiaduct was bustling with activity and magic. Carved slightly into the interior of the mountain, the “recovering” ward was more easily able to access the magic that circulated throughout the mountain, allowing the patients to get the benefit of the rejuvenating magic swirling around from so many powerful mages living above it.

Especially now, with none of us able to leave, the circulating magic was heady and thick.

The pass that the mage had shoved into my hand, along with the supplements, had gotten me inside the level without having to resort to more nefarious tactics.

The long, wide corridor stretched forever. Every dozen feet there were small arches in the wall that led to other areas, and other wards. Unlike campus proper, the arches were labeled clearly here. No freshman hazing for the medical students. Healing people was serious business in the magic world.

Patient rooms, labs, sitting areas, and offices lined the four-mile corridor loop on each side.

A number of the windows were darkened, but many were clear and allowed the viewer to see through to the “windows” on the other side of the rooms. Charmed windows displayed views of fantastic landscapes—deserts, oceans, mountains, and forests, all filled with beasts and magic—for the recovering patients to enjoy. Some displayed environmental cross sections, like a Midlands’ puzzle, stitching together multiple landscapes.

As I walked the long corridor, a haphazard grid of crisscrossing color snapped into place, overlaying my view with their hues. It was like looking at ward lines, but these weren't wards—they were active magic trails.

In the different rooms, and through the corridor, tools and magic flew through the air. Their long arcs of color trailed their path, and thinner rays of light showed where the magic was headed, with the intention of the caster connected to the destination of the magic.

I blinked, but the paths remained for a few moments, fading like tracers after their mission was complete. Being able to see the trajectory of magic was new for me. Something to examine later.

Rubbing the inside of my elbow, I stopped in front of the room to which my crippled magic had led me.

Constantine wasn't awake to have chosen a landscape, so someone had visually perched the room on a cliff overlooking an ocean. The slight tang of sea spray and soft sounds of gulls completed the full-sense illusion.

I wondered idly what view he would have chosen. A jagged pit surrounded by beautiful flowering meadows to entice the naïve?

I put my hand against Constantine's window.

“Ren Crown.”

I turned sharply to see a Medical mage striding toward me. She was looking at a tablet in her hand, which had to be displaying my name, and probably my medical status.

“You shouldn't be in this wing. Your pass is for the scanning and regulation section with...”

Her gaze took in my hand against the window, then traveled to the ceiling. I looked up at the crisscrossing lines, but I didn't know what she was observing or why her expression looked suddenly conflicted.

“Wait here.”

I hadn't been planning on going anywhere else, so I did as directed.

As soon as she disappeared into a doorway farther down the corridor, though, I withdrew my picks and picked the magical lock to Constantine's room. I could feel the wards testing my depleted magic, looking for my intentions.

I entered the room and the wards welcomed me in.

I immediately strode to Constantine's bedside and touched his forehead, painfully “asking” his magic if anything harmful had been done to him since I'd put the painted spell in place while he'd been laying broken on the battlefield.

I didn't have the medical knowledge that Doctor Greyskull contained in his pinkie finger, but he had given me a very positive demonstration when he'd fixed my broken toe. The medical practitioner helped tweak the magic of the patient into fixing itself. It felt like ages ago that I'd watched in awe as he worked to patch me back together.

The paint I had placed on Constantine had strengthened the link between us. I could feel him stirring toward consciousness, reaching toward my stroking fingers. He was unable to block the new connection, at least while in such a deep state of recovery.

He would be...displeased about that.

But it allowed me to see that everything seemed to be positive about his healing.

I had very little magic available to me—unless I used a device to pull it out of the Earth or air and set the northern hemisphere on fire.

Or unless I had
paint.
Awakening paint.

I hesitated for a second, finger tracing his forehead where I'd placed the painted line, then gave into the urge and directed my limited energy to go to Constantine, working through the echo of his painted skin.

It was second nature for me to give whatever I had, and I directed the energy hovering beneath his skin to dive in and fix him. I pulled the zigzagging wards that were gently filtering through the air into view. One of the lines zagged toward me, tapping against my chest in polite question. I opened my twisted magic in permission and the healing field in the room hooked into me, then connected to Constantine's forehead.

The process would sap more energy from me, before it would eventually return in the continually circling feedback loop, but I'd deal with that. I always did. I put my head in my hands for a moment.

Looking back up and around the room, I noticed that Constantine's scarf—Bryant's scarf—was nowhere to be seen. Someone had taken it too. I grimly sat in the chair next to his bed. It was likely that they had them all.

People were filing past in the hall. More than one person slowed as they saw me inside the room. I located, then fumbled with, the spell connected to the outside window. The glass finally dimmed.

A few moments later, the door opened and I stiffened, but didn't rise. Settled in the chair next to the bed, I tried not to look up as the familiar presence approached.

“Miss Crown. You aren't supposed to be in here.”

“Oh?” I looked up. “Good evening, Doctor Greyskull.”

He looked between me and the door, his gaze unsurprised, but still calculating. “How did you get in?”

I shrugged. “I opened the door.”

“The door was locked.” He gave me a half smile. “And no one is allowed inside. The wards are very specific.”

“I won't hurt him,” I said, not answering his implicit question of how I'd gotten past the lock.

Greyskull looked at the ward lines around the room. “No, I don't think you will. The wards are showing that your presence is helpful. Very unusual.”

He pulled up a chair next to me. “But you are used to the unusual, are you not, Miss Crown?”

I'd probably pay for the proof that my presence was helping rather than hindering Constantine. All of those very long looks from the medical staff probably didn't precede anything good, but the Band-Aid had been ripped from my anonymity hours ago.

“It is a good thing you are here, in the medical ward,” he said. “An Administration summons would have been issued otherwise.”

“I'm fine,” I said with a smile. “I've been worse.”

“You were far less untruthful last time I saw you.”

I let my smile slip. “It is hard to determine where truth should be placed these days.”

He tipped his head. I could see his tattoos moving along his skin, peeking over the collar of his coat as if peering at me before retreating again. “I am in charge of this room's wards. I can do your examination here, though it would be better to do it in another space.”

“I'm fine here, without an exam.”

“Are you?”

I couldn't answer in the positive again.

“Come then,” he said gently. “Let's take a look at what has been done to you.”

A tattoo slithered down his arm and wrapped his pointer finger in dark coils that ended in a point at the tip. The tip touched my skin and the tattoo rotated forward, like a screw being drilled into my flesh. I could feel the magic, the familiar foreign energy searching and examining blocked pathways.

Scanning me.

“How does that work?” I asked, slightly breathless and trying to control natural panic.

Even if my magic weren't working as well as it normally did, I could still trace the path of his. It flowed down the twisted routes, mapping the blocked paths rather than trying to heal them, navigating the knotted coils, as if trying to flow through a garden hose that had been yanked into a series of knots that was stopping the water from going further down the tube.

It was pretty bad.

“Someone used a leech on you today, and poorly,” he said, almost absently. “Multiple leeches.”

I tensed and couldn't prevent my gaze from going to Constantine, who was still out cold and doing his best impression of Sleeping Beauty on the bed.

I tore my gaze away and met Greyskull's. “Godfrey. He had...something.”

“
Mmmm.
You have remnants of other leeches too, but those have been able to naturally unwind themselves. You could file a report with the Magisters, if you desired,” he said casually. Too casually—I could tell he was angry on my behalf.

Still tense, I replied, “No, thanks.” I hadn't thought that type of thing would be revealed by a scan. “Is that how my magic got so twisted?”

“It was a contributing factor, but not the only one. You drained yourself, replenished your magic...in some manner...then drained yourself again. This happened a few times. Think of it like stripping a ribbon, then badly stapling another ribbon to its tail. It will hold for a little while. But it will eventually break and leave the ribbon more frayed than before. Do this a couple of times? You can damage the original ribbon more than can be repaired.”

“Can it...be repaired?”

“Yes.” The tattoo slipped from underneath my skin and slithered back up his finger, disappearing beneath his sleeve. “I would recommend a healing coma. However, you would be out for a minimum of three days and the Department's healers would have a look.”

“No.”

He nodded, as if my response had been expected. “With this level of damage—internal damage, repeatedly battered—natural, slow healing is the best method. With therapy, you will be good as new.”

“How long?”

“Two weeks.”

“
Two weeks
?”

He tapped the knuckles of his left hand. “As long as you don't overtax anything, yes.”

I stared at him. I couldn't wait two weeks for my magic to work itself back to normal.

That I could maybe now get into the Library of Alexandria without worry was an unwelcome and idiotic thought under the circumstances.

“Can I do anything to...speed that up?”

“There are always methods for speed. They are usually not in line with a healthy path.”

I'd made sacrifices before. I could cut a few corners.

“If you make those choices, your magic may never work quite right again,” he added idly.

I looked at him sharply. “Like overtaxing it now could make me not a specific type of mage anymore?”

“No, much of
that
is incumbent upon the way you view things and your mental processes. It might just never let you do something again with the ease with which you've become accustomed.”

There was going to be a balance here, a tightrope that I would have to walk. I didn't have to be at full strength to go after Olivia. I didn't have to use the full extent of my magic to do so either, if I focused on cleverness and cunning rather than brute strength and overwhelming magic.

“Things that are already drenched in my magic...could I, like, bathe in those?”
Could I dump an entire tube of paint over my body and let it work its magic?

He looked amused. “You could. And while you are waiting for the paths of magic to reconnect between the “drenching” and your cores, you can enjoy excruciating pain while watching some very pretty world-ending fireworks.”

“So...that one goes in the “break only in case of emergency” category?”

His smile slipped. “There are many things that go in that category.” His gaze lifted slightly—to my crown, where everyone who knew Raphael's magic well always looked—then dropped to meet my eyes again.

I recoiled from him, immediately and sharply.

I'd had an “older man, awesome, safety crush” on Doctor Greyskull since he'd gotten my Ewok reference when I'd been recovering from Death #1. I'd never questioned my instinctive liking of the man and how my magic hummed alongside his when he was fixing me.

But now... Now that I was looking for it, and with the very large clue he'd just given me, I could see it. The same sorts of magical connections that Marsgrove and Raphael had, and that I was sure I'd find on Stevens, now that I knew where to look. Affectionate threads that were worn, frayed, and aged.

Another mage who had been friends with Raphael at school.

He sat back and held his hands down and away in a position meant to reassure me he wouldn't attack. His gaze was steady, honest, and infinitely accepting of my horrified reaction. “It is beyond time that you knew. Do you have questions?”

“You...you were friends?”

“Yes,” he said, voice steady. “Very good friends, at one time.”

Doctor Greyskull had been nothing but helpful to me, and the pained look he had given as he'd scanned my magic, told me he wanted to fix all that was broken within me. But...

“I can't trust you,” I whispered.

He smiled. It was a little sad. “It is best you trust yourself. Know that I will
always
help you here in Medical and on campus.”

“That is...awfully specific. And if we are off campus?”

“Something you don't need to worry about for a few years, no?”