“With little regard for life or order—”
Numb anger pulsed, filling the emptiness in a rush, and I stared at the magic around the reporter which telegraphed a location in the Second Layer. Tweak the ochre line two degrees left, push the apricot square into a hypercube, flip the ginger spiral, array it all to black-and-white...and I could make a sand wyrm appear next to her.
I could make her eat those words.
The book fell from my arms and I dove to where Axer was rising to his feet. I grabbed his cloak. His arms wrapped protectively around me as we crashed to the ground.
I thrust my hand into pocket after pocket of his form fitting cloak, frantically searching for what I needed. He stilled my motions—clasping both of my wrists in one of his hands. He stared at me for a long moment, then slowly withdrew a heavy cuff from an interior pocket. I squirmed free of his hold, grabbed the cuff, and snapped it painfully around my wrist. Magic immediately dampened, taking everything with it.
My forehead hit his shoulder, and I stared blankly at a singed patch of his coat while the world dulled.
“You can’t wear it for long,” he murmured.
“We’ll see.” My shoulders shook as I blindly pulled the empty book back to me.
“Stupid girl.” Constantine’s fingers splayed over my spine and magic from a dozen familiar, precious sources started to flood me—a different type of healing. There was a lot of emptiness to fill. His cheek dropped to my crown as the magic started winding through me faster, physically bouncing back to me from each of them. The heavy cuff gave me no power to push it away.
Which was a relief, because I didn’t deserve it, but I wanted the comfort.
I gripped a torn piece of paper in one hand, cradling the book against my chest as the three of us huddled in the hall listening to reporters along the walls argue and speak over each other trying to deliver the news.
“At first, the apocalyptic event just affected the First Layer with the Origin Mage using Awakened ferals as the lodestones to break the seals on the wards holding the magic in place—or the magic out of place, as it were. Then when the Department shored up the seals, she began breaking pieces of all the layers.” A dozen recorded events rotated around his hand with each delivered point. “Even the Third Layer, home to terrorists and dissidents, expressed shock and dismay, as they, too, were targeted.”
The First Layer problems hadn't been caused by me—not at first. But I had enveloped it into my revenge—I had enveloped everything into my rage.
The broken red threads to my first home fluttered untethered in the air between my knees.
Check on them, the threads whispered.
I closed my eyes, refusing to act on the desire to seek out my parents—suppressing the feeling with long practice. The wards on their house had been one of the first things I had checked after my expulsion from campus, doing so from far afar, on a deliberate route elsewhere, in case I was followed. My gaze had swept across everything for twenty miles, so that a sweep across their house wouldn't register as anything pertinent. The wards were intact. I had to trust in them. In my own work, in Olivia, in Raphael and Marsgrove.
I had seen enough movies. I knew that the moment I went there with fear driving me, they would be found. Staying away was the best protection I could give.
I pressed my chin against the top edge of the book’s cover and turned my head just enough to focus on one of the reports.
“Two hundred governments have condemned the Origin Mage’s actions, with thirty already declaring war against her, after her magic was shown coating every affected site. The Origin Mage has extensive knowledge of wards and protection enchantments. She is dangerous, and should not be approached. She is being aided by Third Layer terrorists in the Western Territories. All information should go through the Department terrorist-alert frequency. Any information you have should be given immediately, no matter how small. Any tie that can be made could save—”
Another newsfeed on the wall showed a panel of people involved in a vehement argument. I recognized one of Bellacia's reporters arguing against another.
“The Origin Mage destabilized the entirety of the First Layer,” the other man said. “Every non-magical felt it, and the suppression spell hasn't entirely been able to erase it. Diplomats are working feverishly to blame it on changing environmental factors.”
“She stabilized it again though, John,” Bellacia's man said.
“Maybe. There is a lot of cause to doubt that. And, frankly, who cares if she restabilized it. She destabilized it! That she can do it at any time verifies that Prestige Stavros was absolutely right when he declared last month that this would happen—and he announced minutes ago that this will happen again.”
“Prestige Stavros wants Priority Five invoked. It's no secret. And Priority Five is dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Our way of life—our very lives are under attack! And you are worried about losing a few freedoms? It's being reported by the Department that all but one of the feral mages were killed in the Awakenings. And outside reports are that the praetorian guard was wiped clean by the Origin Mage. That only Praetorian Kaine survives. The guardians of the Prestige wiped clean.”
“But Origin Mages don't kill people—”
“Excuse me? Does your small mind not recall Flavel Valeris and the millions destroyed? Or countless dark ages across layerkind? This is an executed attack. She knows she must take out the Department—our last line of defense—to ruin us, and this is her first step. The longer we go without bringing the Origin Mage in or putting her down, the closer we are to total annihilation.”
“Is there anything we can do?” another reporter asked.
“You can vote on Priority Five.”
A murmur of discontent cascaded through the newsrooms aligned along the feeds on the walls.
The first man held up his hand. “No one wants Priority Five. But want and need are two separate things. What needs to be done to save our world?”
“What's Priority Five?” I asked Constantine and Axer woodenly.
“The Department's ability to hook into any magical signature in the layer and lock it down,” Axer said, voice dark as he finished healing himself and used tender muscles to bring himself further upright without dislodging me.
“What, like they can find any person and freeze them in place?”
“Then they take you, process you, put you away. Or they let you go, of course, if you are innocent,” Constantine drawled from my crown, and I could feel his dark emotions swirling through all of my other friends’ in the cocktail he was feeding me. “Nothing to fear for people who are innocent, as they say. Without considering that the people driving the policy might not be.”
The options for misuse of such power in the hands of someone with ill intentions...