“Can't you hear them? They said I look like a furemu on its first legs. What the Beethoven is a furemu?”
“Everyone experiences magic differently,” I replied. “I know a music conductor who can change the fabric of the air using sound.” I thought wistfully of school.
“You can't hear them? Is it because you eat paint? Consumed too much lead?”
My senses were starting to spread far too often to the entire layer system—which was a dangerous path to travel. One wrong sneeze and I could blow First Layer Chicago into Second Layer Antarctica.
It was best not to provide too much information about myself to the newbies, though.
“I don't make mine with lead. I think a furemu is a kind of horse,” I said instead. “Like a blue and gold deer horse with antlers and a magic-swept mane. Majestic, I'm sure.”
But he wasn't listening anymore. “The music...I can feel it in my blood. Driving the rhythm of my body. Am I dying?”
“You are Awakening. You will get used to magic quickly. A week in the chamber is going to be both fun and very upsetting.” I pushed him toward the identified spot.
“Chamber? Week?” He stumbled against me, violin case and backpack—miraculously both still attached to him—hitting against my side and arm. “My family—”
“Will eventually be happy to learn that you are alive,” I said grimly, physically propelling us toward the flat bit of empty land, one that would survive for a small bit of time as scorched earth. “What's your name?”
I always had to ask, even though it would likely serve me better letting them remain anonymous like Axer did, not knowing, not talking to them at all—just existing as a strange, brief specter during their entrance to the magical world.
“Liam.”
“You can't see your family, Liam. Not for a while.” Perhaps never again, though it was the part I refused to say. The counselors who assisted transitions were far better equipped for that task.
“They'll be worried. And my quartet—”
“You are a danger to all of them and yourself until you can control your powers.” I swallowed and looked down, fishing one-handed in my pockets for what we needed for our exit.
Ren, you can never go home.
“What's happening to me?” he asked, fingers shooting sparks that waved into measures of music—the color so like Christian's blue lightning—but the magic safely within the shield that was serving to protect him. The shield helped regulate Awakenings—not dim them—and the excess magic was stored in the lining of the shield for use later.
I had been very specific in the requirements in the crafting of the shields.
“Magic,” I said, grabbing Will's latest portal pad design from my cloak. I threw it down on the ground as the lengthening evening shadows started to hook their claws and form into shapes.
I had yet to figure out how to evade Second Layer tracking after I used my magic. The problem with Origin Magic was that it was obvious. As much as my cloak hid me from visual view, my magic was a beacon to Stavros and the devices he used to register it.
I'd chosen a bare spot in a neutral territory of the Second Layer. No one would miss the five square feet of space we needed.
The pad started to scorch the earth around it and I tugged Liam forward.
“Time to go,” I said.
Kaine, always the first one on site in the layer where he ruled, formed from the darkest shadows of the pit. Liam tried to scramble away, and I had to use a magic-enhanced grip on the back of his shirt to keep him in place. The kid’s instincts were good. Kaine was legitimately terrifying.
But Kaine wouldn’t make it to us in time. And if he did, he’d be in for a rude awakening. Ever since Raphael had tangled with him in a portal pad, I'd put safeguards on ours. Kaine hadn't tried to follow me in a pad—or anything else of my creation—since our first encounter post-Raphael. Kaine had had some healing to do.
Come and get us. I smiled grimly and tossed Kaine a rude hand gesture as I pushed the kid forward.
“There’s a demon. That's a demon,” Liam yelled, squirming beneath my magic-enhanced grip. “What are you doing?”
“Taking a long step into a different existence. Welcome to your new world, kid.”
“What do you m—argh!”
I pushed us both into the gaping black hole.
Chapter Two: Of Magic, New and Old
Liam's screams didn't abate as the pad spit us into the Third Layer and into a traveling closet.
The pad dropped from the ceiling, its function completed, and Liam swore and leaped away. I scooped it up and stuffed it into the cleaning pocket that Dagfinn, Delia, Will, and Constantine had created through a combination of communication, materials, traveling, and delinquent talents. The cleaning process wiped the pad's trail, to protect the user from being followed.
Not that anyone other than Raphael, Will, and I had portal pads that worked between layers, but it was only a matter of time before remnants of our technology found their way into the Department's hands, and with their vast resources, they'd be able to reverse engineer the design.
A drop of something hit the floor and started steaming.
“Your nose is bleeding, and it’s not red,” Liam murmured, and a measure of melancholic notes tentatively wrapped around me. His focus turned quickly to the swirling notes and the music soared into a feeling of awe.
I quickly wiped the paint from my nose—a streak of violet this time—and patched the floor before anything emerged.
It would be just my luck for our combined magic to create a musical monster in a closet.
“Come on,” I said, pulling my cloak fully around me before I opened the door to the traveling cupboard.
With no other option, Liam followed me as I exited.
Stares followed our progress as we walked through the compound. I pulled my hood further down, and tried to tamp the power that was licking against my skin, waiting to be used.
Always waiting, now.
The shield shimmered around Liam and he bumped into a wall twice while staring in wonder—awe overtaking fear. His attention split between his own magic and the magic happening around him—like the small creatures and mechanical wonders climbing the walls and skittering around us.
As we moved further without attack, he grew bolder and started peppering me with questions.
“What is that?”
“Where are we?”
“Who are you?”
“What's with the blue shield?”
I answered that one. “It's your magic hitting mine.” The shields always manifested as blue during Awakenings. Christian's blue.
“Yours?”
“The shield is preventing you from exploding, killing anyone, or attracting the wrong kind of attention.”
His eyes widened. “Exploding?”
“Congratulations!” I pushed him toward the lab chamber. “You're magic!”
“That...that isn't helpful!”
He planted his feet in the hall, blue sparks swirling faster under the shield. I tapped it. “Don't worry. That shield protects ninety-nine percent of mages.”
He looked anxiously at his arm. “What about the other one percent?”
“Better hope you’re average.”
“That's not funny.”