He read my face. “There's never been more than one First Layer Awakening in a two-hour period. You can't get to them all,” he said grimly. “Send the five coordinates. Alexander's unit can split to two sites. I can bribe three of the Ophidians to take a third. Dagfinn, O'Leary, and Price can alert Marsg—”
“There are twelve,” I whispered, new information overlaying each previous piece in milliseconds of upending, changing data.
He breathed in sharply. “Twelve?”
“All over the globe. The magic...the wards on the layer are stretching. Too much is happening beneath them. I don't know if they will hold.” I sent the entire packet of data to everyone connected to the location device, including the fact that I was going to the second one, since the combat mages were already on their way to the first.
I pushed aside the panic I could feel from everyone, and concentrated on Constantine who was contemplating the consequences of knocking me out and tucking me away.
“Strategically spaced?” He narrowed his eyes and I felt ghostly fingers align to pinch my consciousness. I wrapped my hand around his wrist in soft warning and charged defense.
“A trap. I know,” I said. “But I'm going anyway. Twelve feral mages, Con.”
“One Origin Mage, Ren.”
I whistled, and the book flew through a black-and-white patterned hole in space a moment later with Guard Rock dangling from its lower corners. Guard Rock dropped onto my shoulder. The book looked on edge, but it opened its pages, awaiting instruction.
“You don't need the book to travel.” Constantine's mental fingers released me with difficulty, like an arthritic grip letting go, then hesitating on the edge.
“No.” I swallowed. “But if it's a trap, the book can help.” I tucked Guard Rock into my hood.
“So can I.” Constantine slipped his arm beneath mine.
We blinked and a moment later we were standing on a beach in Honolulu. Swirls of wing-shaped magic swept upward on a sweet plumeria breeze. A girl with aviator sunglasses perched on her crown and an airplane logo embroidered on the breast pocket of her shirt, reached toward the sky.
The tip of her finger was extended as far upward as she could manage, and I could see magic swirling down to her, as if the cosmos was stretching toward her in response.
Behind her, wicked delight painted the face of the hunter who was lifting the device that would incapacitate and drain her magic.
I wasted no time concealing my presence. I shielded the Awakening mage with a pull of magic and shoved her into the Second Layer at the same time I blasted the hunter into the ocean.
Magic rippled outward in a hungry wave.
“Ren—”
“No time.” I looked at Ori, grabbed Constantine, plotted the coordinates in my mind, and skimmed the layer to Botswana.
Fallon Lox, Mars Ramirez, and Camille Straught looked up sharply as we appeared.
They were surrounding a young girl overflowing with warmth and fire. Her magic reminded me, achingly, of Sari Tarkovar, the girl I had saved on Bloody Tuesday, who made everyone around her feel warm and secure.
I darted my gaze between the attacking units—even the Department mages were being influenced by the new feral. Even they were throwing kinder magic—nets and capture spells designed to incapacitate rather than kill.
There were more Department mages here than at any other Awakening.
I reached out a hand and curled my magic around the glowing fire and warmth of the girl, ready to push her through space—overwhelming magic jumping to my command, as if starving from the absence of its use in the past few days.
Constantine grabbed me, twisting the magic and cutting it off.
The layer rippled out again, causing everyone to wobble on their feet.
The three combat mages didn't wait, they used the distraction to open a vortex that looked surprisingly like one of Constantine's, and, grabbing the girl, the four of them jumped inside.
I considered pushing Constantine in with them, but the layer was wobbling again, and I grabbed the fabric of it, smoothing it and sucking the two dozen hunters into the holes as I knit it all back up.
Constantine was suddenly in front of me.
“Ren.” Constantine cradled my cheeks in his palms. “You have to calm down. The First Layer—”
But too many communications were streaming through at once—everyone jammed over one comm like the world was screaming together.
“Everyone in the Department who handles First Layer concerns and hunts has been mobilized to respond to the Awak—”
“Samoa and Jakarta have been secured by allies—”
“The Asunción mage was taken by hunters—”
My fist curled at the loss, and I blocked the rest of the broadcasts. Seven to go.
I grabbed Constantine's arm and ported us to Xi'an.
Axer was already there, by himself, protecting a boy with purple-stained fingers and the blank, internal mixture of joy and terror that Awakenings produced.
“Get her out of the layer,” Axer demanded furiously, whipping a tail of magic that cost him half a container. One hunter collapsed, another hissed as a slice of crimson nearly cleaved him in two, and a third barely made a headfirst dive behind a car.
Constantine's fingers slipped from my wrist as he threw an exploding marble at a hunter aiming at us. The hunter was knocked off his feet, but another lobbed his own magical grenade in our direction. Axer lifted the dirt around it as it landed and threw the wad of earth and explosive back at the man.
Spike. The long chain of Awakenings squeezed like a set of stomach contractions. I clutched my stomach, feeling like it was rupturing.
“Something's wrong with one of the Awakenings,” I gasped. “Worse than the others.”
I grabbed Guard Rock from my hood and threw him at Constantine’s back. “Help them.”
“Ren.” Constantine pivoted sharply as Guard Rock latched onto his cloak. His hand reached for me, and I saw Axer's magic fly my way.
In one fluid move I shoved my bag into Constantine's hand, deflected Axer's magic, and opened space, concentrating on the point that called, and folded myself inside.
I could feel the end of Constantine's shout. But I couldn’t think about the fury and terror I could feel from him. This Awakening felt worse than all the others. Like something terrible had already happened.
I appeared in a hallway in Santiago, and the timbers of the sidewalls splintered.
There was nothing there, though. Strange. In each of the previous Awakenings I had ported next to the mage. What had I done wrong this time? I concentrated and pulled the location to me again.
Little zips of magic pulled into view, traveling along the blue and silver damask of the wallpaper, and connecting to a bedroom a few steps away. I carefully opened the door.
The Awakening mage was slumped over, cradling a tawny haired boy against her chest. Magic was zipping around her—a tempest of electricity.
The boy wasn't breathing.
A zip of magic traveled slowly past my face as time stopped and I stared at the scene for an eternity. I moved forward, and the zip snagged onto the timestream, disappearing in a blur. I touched the girl.