“Of course, I did. She stopped my father.”
And I could see his memory of it—Axer’s mother, who I’d only seen in memories and feeds, taking Stuart Leandred’s magic until he could no longer connect his rage.
Constantine laughed without humor. “He was so very sorry after, too. As if it excused any part of it. As if I wasn’t actually at fau—”
“You weren’t at fault.” Axer’s voice was grim. “No matter what he made you believe. Your only failure was in pushing away the people who wanted to help you.”
“How could I look at you?” Constantine said bitterly. “Whole in a way that I would never again be. It’s taken years to shed a portion of the damage from the life hooks.”
Magic rippled over him and I inhaled sharply. A set of crisscrossing patterns twisted across Constantine’s face in a mass of disfiguring violet blooms. I remembered those patterns. Back at my birthday celebration in the First Layer where we’d been attacked, one of our attackers had thrown something at Constantine that had caused them to appear. They had been worse then, rawer, but they were still there.
Physical scars?
“Those wounds are far deeper than physical, darling,” he said, answering the question I hadn’t asked out loud. “They make a lovely reminder when I need one, though in the face of your stupidly dogged determination, I have forgotten too many times to keep them fresh.”
He said nothing for a moment, then, “It was you, wasn’t it?” he directed at Axer. It was more a statement than a question.
“Yes. I let him know what would happen if I ever felt your life force being ripped apart. And then I cast upon him the closest equivalent of each spell he had triggered on you before anyone could stop me.”
He said it casually. As if he hadn't just admitted to torturing Constantine's father.
“And it was while fixing the wounds I gave Stuart that my mother realized what else she could fix, and that I realized what I could become, if I wasn’t careful. What everyone fears.”
“We can do this alone,” Constantine said abruptly, standing straight. “You know we can. We don't need Ren to go.”
“If anybody is staying, it's the two of you,” I said in disbelief, pushing against whatever was forming inside the crumpled paper. “I'm going.”
“What would be worse—her being a thousand miles away, or a room over?” Axer never altered his gaze from Constantine. “Which do you think will be less trouble?”
“Hey.” I frowned at him.
He turned to me. “You have the capability to be more powerful than anyone on this planet right now. Paint drips from you—opening portals and remaking life.” He gave the storage paper a pertinent glance. “You grow more powerful every day with fewer outlets available to process your magic. Recognizing the outcomes if Kaine and Stavros find you is not an aspersion on your character.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“But she can't use magic,” Constantine said flatly.
“Neither can you,” I said grimly. “We are all wanted mages now. We'll all show on a scan. A bullet point in favor of leaving you behind and me going it alone.”
“The difference is that I can stroll through an orphanage without needing to do something,” Constantine said, pointing at me. “You'll be in a place oozing with magic. You'll want to use yours. Something will happen, we'll get in a bind or someone innocent will, and you'll turn on the fireworks.”
“I won’t.”
He closed his eyes, then as if closing the conversation, he pulled another batch of magic from his bubbling cauldron and resumed communications with the others. “You always do.”
Chapter Eighteen: Three Man Sneak
It had taken an additional twelve hours to prepare.
Another ping sounded, and I looked at the dome. “They are close to breaking through.”
When next I entered, this small world would look nothing like this. The dome would be swarmed, and the magic twisted into something else.
“You’ll make another,” Constantine murmured.
Our supplies and personal menagerie were assembled, and the three of us looked nothing like ourselves. We now wore the downtrodden forms of three mercenaries who were far beyond their prime.
“Ready?”
I gathered them close, then took out the marble and threw it into the air. A shimmering field fell like a released curtain, and we stepped through, into the scientists’ empty tent—empty, since all hands were working on the dome.
The marble that I’d kept in my pocket for months cracked, expelling a cascade of spells. It had been designed that way—as a one-way trip that hastened all other spells, but it still felt like the loss of a lucky totem.
“We are in! We are in!” Came the excited and fearful calls of the men breaching the dome.
There was no flash of gold, but I knew Raphael was out there.
*
We drove the Ophidians’ vehicle to a tense rendezvous with hooded combat competitors from the Second and Third Layer who replenished the weapons combat mages normally carried, then drove to an even tenser meeting with members of Patrick’s extended “family,” who provided us with additional supplies we would need.
We had then navigated through the water mirror on a harrowing trip which stretched far deeper than I’d been led to believe, and were finally at the “easy part.”
Right.
I wiped the dripping sweat on my brow along the cuff of my sleeve, and hung on for dear life to the edge of a mountain.
I wasn't used to being the worst at something. Socializing, maybe, but I felt that was improving nowadays with me smiling and nodding and generally keeping my mouth shut.
But as Constantine reached for another good hand hold way above my reach, I sighed and resigned myself to making two moves to his one with a quick scramble not to be left behind.
“You coming?” he said lazily, right fingers tucked into a healthy crack on the face of the mountain we were free climbing without the aid of internal magic. The null cuff glinted on his wrist as his knees bent in an upward lunge, right hip pressed against rock, left fingers hanging loose at his side, waiting to extend skyward.
“You suck,” I said morosely, through the passive, closed-loop, silent communication that he had set up between the three of us while we climbed. Even the mountain rats couldn’t hear us speak, though one was eyeing me judgmentally as I resignedly looked for my next hold.
Constantine looked down, eyes glinting silver with the spelled lenses he’d made that allowed us to see in the dark. “You're short.”
His amusement over my vertical predicament seemed to have eased the last of his anger.
“You're lazy,” I shot back. “I'm doing twice the work.”
“Efficiency is more than a state of mind, darling.”
My right toes slipped as the hold crumbled beneath my shoe and sustained weight. Constantine's spelled eyes widened, and his right fingers let go to grab a memorized hold further down as his left fingers reached to grab me. My reactive magic surged against the barrier of my cuff as I scrambled to shift my weight.