I looked at the magic around us, already seeing the wilt at the edges of the world that would happen when it was breached; a world that wasn’t yet ready for mages. “Two days. Maybe less.”
“Ren put in a safeguard against herself in her lovely test case that allows the scientists to enter once they chip their way through,” Constantine said idly, gaze on his project. “Just like she did with the compound. She is such a thoroughly helpful enemy of the state.”
Olivia looked as furious with me as Constantine felt.
“No. It’s my turn,” I said. “Don’t think that I’ve been sidetracked either. What mishaps?”
“There was a faulty retrieval. It doesn't matter. I just pinged their frequencies, so a few should be here soon. I have some troubling news, though, if you haven't seen the reports.” Her brows pinched together. “Alexander Dare is missing. He shut off his links, even to the combat mages. We think the Department might have gotten him.”
“Unfortunately,” Constantine drawled without looking up. “Not so much.”
“He's with us,” I confirmed, crossing the arm that wasn't holding anything across my chest as if it could save me. “We couldn’t use magic. I guess he shut down that system. Not that he’s a robot—I mean, he’s good at control—I’m not, but I promise to try not to end the world again—but not a robot, and he knows how to save up, and he had to use some of it to save Const—”
“Darling.”
“Right,” I cleared my throat. “Anyway, he’s with us.”
Olivia stared between the two of us, then she looked slowly around the space she could see in the warped view of the glassy ball. I raised and tilted my palm, and I could see when she finally spotted him.
I pulled my cupped palm back to rest against my stomach. “The three of us are...on the run?” I said, still unable to make statements without question marks when I knew they would disappoint.
She focused back on me. “No.”
“Yes?”
“No. In my reality, this type of thing doesn't happen.”
That cracked a reluctant smile. “Yeah. It's, um, a little messed up.”
“That's entirely unfair, darling. I haven't killed him yet.”
“Dare's going to bring you more trouble,” Olivia said, as if she too understood that volatility was more perilous than cold dislike.
“You know, Price,” Constantine said, leaning back even more, his roiling emotions calming more than they had in hours. “I think, someday, I might not dislike you.”
“Whatever, Leandred. If I could peel you away from Ren, you'd already be sticking to a waste receptacle somewhere.”
“Likewise.”
For a moment, they both felt oddly serene and in entire accord.
I could feel Axer doing the mental equivalent of an unamused eye roll, and I sent him a feeling of concordance.
Olivia pinned me with her gaze again. “What happened two days ago? I know only what I've seen reported—which might as well be the screams of terrified Tremming rats—and what I got from your tracker.” She watched me as she said it, reading into every twitch and wince I displayed.
“Stavros taunted me about capturing the Awakening mages, then about my brother, I got angry, tried to kill him, didn't succeed, tried to end the world, Kaine ate the praetorians.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “The Origin Book—”
“Kaine ate the praetorians?” Her gaze went to Constantine's for confirmation. “The news said you killed them. There's blurred footage.”
Blurred footage of you trying to end the world, she didn't say.
I rubbed my hand along my throat. “No. Kaine ate them, like Raphael ate Kaine.”
“I want memory balls of everything,” Olivia said, posture tense. Raphael mentions made her tense, too, but for different reasons than Constantine. I decided against mentioning that he was probably a few dozen yards away. And that he had maybe helped us for unknown reasons.
No, silence was probably best here.
“Footage, Ren. Kaine eating.” She made a tense motion.
I shuddered as I pulled the memories to the front of my mind. After trying a few things, I could shoot miniaturized representations around the hologram in my palm. Axer reached over my shoulder and touched the magic, pulling a duplicated thread before moving back. Olivia looked at her own copies with an expressionless face, then carefully put them into a box to revisit.
“I don't know what Stavros and Kaine are doing”—it had kept me up thinking about it—“but the praetorians—”
“Will surely show up again, somewhere else, pieced together in an even more horrific fashion,” she said grimly.
Golems of shadow and malice pieced around human flesh instead of clay. I shuddered again. “Kaine said something about being an Elite soon.”
Axer stiffened mentally in concert with Olivia's body. I grimaced. I had obviously forgotten to retell that part.
“He said that?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
She grimaced. “Origin Elites are mages capable of manipulating existing Origin Magic in small amounts. The Triumvirate, the ones who handle Origin Magic tweaks for the Second Layer, are all Elites. There are five in the Department currently—three handling the magic at any one time—mages who fix and tweak the layers. Think of them as people who apply Band-aids and ointments versus you, a surgeon. They are highly regulated and tracked. It is not a position one seeks lightly. The Equilibrium Society...”
She tapped a finger against her lower lip. “Let me do some digging. The society isn't pleased right now, and are tentatively putting you back on the hit list, but knowing that Kaine is trying to become an Elite might change their tactics. The Praetorian Guard, destroyed, was enough to move a segment of public view against you. But if we could blame it on the soulless Shadow Mage who seeks to control the layers—”
Will, Neph, Asafa, Patrick, Loudon, and Dagfinn stumbled into the room. Relief fully bled through me. Neph dove toward Olivia, fingers curling around hers on the viewing ball and I clutched mine closer to me like it had physical form.
“Delia, Mike, Lifen, Kita, the others?” I asked desperately, using my shoulder to carefully dab away the paint that suddenly formed at the corner of my left eye.
“All accounted for,” Saf said gently. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Brilliant.” Loudon breathed out the word, like they had run a long distance and he was still catching his breath. “You had it. I could see it—the end of the world. I couldn't stop smiling as they ques—”
Will elbowed him sharply. “Sorry we were detained, but we are here!” Will's smile was a little too bright. “The others will be here soon, too.”
“Detained how?” I frowned, unease turning into something else. “Who questioned—?”
“What did you find, William?” Olivia asked him briskly, cutting me off.
Loudon gave me a double thumbs up, pointing at his grin and some mark on his arm. Then mimicked electrocution, tousled curls shaking.
“They tortured you?” I asked in a too-high voice.
“What? No!” Will's eyes were too wide though. “Marsgrove would never let that happen on campus grounds. They simply threa—”