“Do you?”
It was times like this, right after painting, that I felt I could set all the worlds to rights. That I could truly do anything.
And it was terrifying.
I started packing my supplies into the magic canvas wraps that Constantine, Stevens, and I had created for them. “I have a duty—”
“You have no duty but to yourself,” he said fiercely, suddenly, emotions switching from sorrow to fury. “I don't care what the Thirdies try to shame and guilt you with. Or what you feel you owe them. You don't owe this world or the Third Layer anything.”
I looked at my fingers—at the power that ran beneath my skin, highlighted even more now that I had given it outlet. “I owe them for taking in the ferals. For taking on the danger of dealing with me. For—”
He leaned toward me, tension vibrating through him. “All I need do is to stride the halls we came from to see the evidence of what you have given them. That structure was a gutted installation, barely serviceable when you first came.”
“I didn't fix it by myself. Others came to help.”
“Pulled there by you. By the power of you.”
I looked at the power in my hands. “And that is a responsibility all its own. People will come. Scientists, societal magicians, architects. My abilities, my...title. Both hold power.”
“Mmmm. The way you are speaking is what I've long wanted for you.”
But there was a weird coil of something that I couldn't identify in our connection, like Constantine was displeased by his own past thoughts.
“I can fix the Third Layer, Con.” Surrounded by its broken pieces and the essence of the break, it hummed jaggedly in my ear every night trying and failing to find its tune. It called to me, to everything in me, to fix it.
Like a jigsaw puzzle that was missing the final tenth of its pieces. So close.
“More than just the Department will call for your blood once they know you’ve started. Even in a school predisposed to progression, you heard vehement arguments against such a prospect. Seconders don't want to give the magic back any more now than we did seventy years ago when blessed with the bounty. The Fourth Layer will declare war as well. The dwindling people who still live in the Third might want their layer fixed, but they lost the right to that magic years ago. Might makes right in this world, darling. In all the worlds.”
I looked up at him. “If that is true, then I have the right, do I not?”
I felt his thrum of shock vibrantly through our connection, before he schooled his expression to contemplate me more closely.
“If you want to rule the worlds, I will not say no.” He examined the magic around me carefully. “If anyone can build it into a better one, it will be you. But such a strategy needs a different start point.”
“No.” I crossed my arms, slumping. “You know I have no wish to rule. But the worlds need fixing. I can fix it. Mendable things make my fingers and magic ache, and I'm tired of the squabbling over what magic is whose.”
“Taking the magic back will provoke war. A war between three layers. The non-magical world, at the very least, will not survive that intact.”
The same feeling of truth rose in me. I held up my palm and let the magic swirl into the bubbled, recycling layout I had brainstormed with Will weeks ago. Domed cities with safe corridors between efficiently used the magic and recycled it across the entire structure—the layer pulled tightly over the whole like Saran wrap over mounds of rice. Constantine lifted the magic, cupping the image in his palms. He had examined the parts weeks ago.
“It is brilliant,” he murmured, then gave a little twist so it whirled back to me. “A compromise that might work. But it won't please the magicists in any layer.”
“I know it will work,” I said aggressively, compressing the idea and magic back into my skin. “And they can get with the times as I fix this entire blasted layer into something better.”
My eyes caught on a sudden shimmer on the floor. I tugged a cleaning cloth from the canvas bag. I couldn't leave anything behind.
Constantine regarded me for a long moment. “Of that, I have no doubt. In that single moment, you will be brighter than anything I've ever seen.”
“A single moment, before it all breaks?” I carefully captured the paint in the fibers of the cloth, using a tendril of magic to get the whole drop.
“A single moment for you to choose.”
Another drop of paint shimmered a few feet away. When had I gotten so messy?
I wiped a hand across my eyes and crawled over to it. “I told you when we returned to campus after rescuing Olivia that we were going to fix it.”
And then I'd done other things for months, pretended to be normal. Look how well that had gone.
“I remember it well. Watching you ride a wave of adrenaline so fierce that you didn't sleep well for days. With that blasted marble in your pocket, then that demon in your chest.”
My hand drifted down to rub my chest. I could still feel the hollow Stavros's presence had left inside, like a desiccated hole that I couldn't fill.
“I'm going to kill him,” Constantine said blandly.
“I believe Grey mentioned there being a queue for that,” I said, trying to alleviate the darkening mood.
I reached over to get the last drop of paint. It was too risky to leave even a tiny splatter point. As I reached it, the drop thinned and spread in a line, slithering along a path. I stilled.
Constantine came to stand next to me and followed my view as we watched the line become thinner and thinner, trying to reach its endpoint.
“Either there is a sudden tilt to the floor, or your paint is on a quest,” he said humorlessly.
“I should probably wipe it up,” I said, not moving.
“Why spare us whatever world ending event is going to happen?” He didn't move either, but I could feel his emotions and magic gather into a focused point. “It just gives me ammunition against that irritating demolition mage who is always hoping you are in the process of ending the world for him to witness.”
“I need new friends.”
That sparked a small curve of Constantine's lips. “Unquestionably.”
Ten different spells curled beneath the skin of each of his finger pads, ready to be released, whichever spell was needed—held there by a force of will that people rarely realized Constantine possessed. Or rather, the discerning did—and the Bandits knew far better than most—but many mages at Excelsine saw him as a vindictive playboy and nothing more.
I followed the paint drop on my knees as it flowed around one board in particular, then stopped. The trail of paint gathered so that it was outlining the wooden floor board. There was nothing overtly interesting or odd about the board—it was one of hundreds in the room—but when I touched it, I could feel it brimming with possibility. Reaching out to touch the board, I called the magic of the paint to lift it.
I directed the board to the side, settling it on its neighbor, and peered beneath, lighting a small cloud of magic and letting it hover over top.