“I'm not looking to give more—”
“Everyone looks for more. It is in a mage's nature.” She held up her hand, silencing me. “Look at you. You cannot stop your flights to save the Awakened.”
“You would have me leave them?”
“They are traps. Traps wrapped in multiple forms. You aren't so blinded to see this. And each time, Enton Stavros comes more prepared. And his preparation is for you.”
I lifted my chin. “I have survived each encounter and have saved every feral. I refuse to allow him to take even one more—”
“Child, we do not want Enton Stavros to have your powers under his control, and neither do we desire him to do whatever you think he is doing with the ill-Awakened children. But by running out to save them, you do yourself no favors. Each action you take is reported—reported to Second Layer citizens as the Department desires. Each destination is noted. The Department and their media do not care for the plans and goals you deem worthy. They only care about stripping you of your magic and power, and punishing all who support you. This is evidenced by today's news. With the support of nearly the entire Second Layer Council, the Department is petitioning to attack the Western Territories. An attack against innocent people in the Third Layer who have contributed nothing to the terror in their world.”
Murmurs rose around the room, reverberating dread and guilt within me. As interconnected as many of the people of the Third Layer were, the outlaws and people of the Western Territories were solitary survivors, working with what they had, instead of trying to get back that which they no longer possessed.
Everyone in this room knew a Third Layer zealot intimately, but the leaders here weren't the warmongers.
These people had sheltered me, which made them prime targets. I would repay their kindness a thousand-fold.
“They can't touch you.” My fingernails pressed into my palms. I inhaled deeply through my nose and let it slowly emerge between a tiny crack in my lips as I looked around the cavern at the gaunt faces and the soft, precious magic that they kept wrapped close, like the last knit scarf they possessed.
“I am working wards everywhere,” I said. “With magic that I recycle from off-Layer use. I will protect you. I swear this. And every feral I bring in adds an additional piece to the protection ward. I will protect you.”
She smiled. It was a smile that was far older than her eighty years. A smile drenched in suffering and memory.
“We knew when you came to us that death was a possibility and we accepted that risk. Origin Mages have the best intentions. Always. And to bathe in the light, in the hope, even for a small moment, is something that even the most wretched and most pragmatic of us can't resist. But for all their power, all their vision, Origin Mages always forget what it means to be human. To be without.”
I frowned. “I will protect you.”
She looked at me sadly. “But, Child, how will you protect yourself?”
Chapter Three: Of Angels and Devils
I shuffled from the room, far more tired than when I had entered. Puzzling words and blatantly disguised warnings made my head hurt. To be without what? Magic?
My shield cracked, allowing the overabundance of said magic to bleed around the edges and between the cracks.
I could hear hushed whispers curling around the edges of the cavern as the large doors closed slowly behind me.
“She is trying—”
“Frost Viper, you will learn. Learn to balance hope with fear in such times. The more powerful, the messier and faster they end. And this one—”
The door clicked shut.
I leaned against the wall and let the back of my head hit the corner, so I could stare blankly down the long corridor, watching the bottoms of the walls melt into the floor in overlaid patterns. I felt the marble in my pocket—felt the way that it connected to the project that would prove I could fix everything. I felt how my magic reached for the fragments of the world around me. I felt the addition of Liam and the eight other ferals I had saved.
I felt all those things connecting beneath the protections I had painstakingly placed upon the complex. Seals and containers creating a dome and inverting it to be invisible. Flat.
Safe.
I closed my eyes and felt my power. It was a deep well beneath the top layer of abuse it had taken today. But it was there, and I could mend the top, just like I had mended it before.
Why couldn't the Council see what I could? I could fix this world.
I forcefully wiped a new drop of paint from my nose. I could save the ferals. I could do any—
“There she is.”
My gaze jerked open to see a mob of refugees—people from throughout the Third Layer who had been unhoused and disenfranchised during the ongoing war between the terrorists of their own layer and the authorities of the Second.
They started rushing down the corridor toward me. Protective magic coiled in my palms instinctively and patterns sharpened. I had nowhere to go except through them.
“My village—”
“My town—”
“You must help us—”
“Our people—”
I pulled my hood forward and down as far as I could and overrode every instinct telling me to blast bodies and run.
I strode briskly through the press of bodies, letting my magic nudge them to the edges of my personal field, and tried not to let their emotional cries strike like the daggers they were.
“You—”
“You did this—”
But even worse were the ones who reached out to touch my cloak with reverence as I passed.
“Blessed.”
“Blessed.”
“Magic's honor.”
I shuddered and continued pushing my way through the throng, letting the darkened interior of the cloak shield me in more ways than one.
“You should be doing more,” a woman called out.
My cloak brushed my ankles as my steps slowed. A dozen hands reached out to stroke the fabric over my arms.
“You are the Magus Angelus,” she said. “You should be doing more.”
I gripped my fingers into fists and kept moving. I was almost to the intersection in the hall.
“You are the Magus Angelus,” she called out more loudly.
The title brought forth conflicting cries from the crowd.
“Origin Mages bring prosperity.”
“Origin Mages bring death.”
“Kinsky made the Second Layer stronger. It is now our turn. Our turn!”
“Or it is their turn to die.” I looked up to see a woman with fanatic eyes standing at the intersection. “A death demon. Like Flavel Valeris.” She spit out the long dead Origin Mage's name like a curse. “She will bring ruin to them, like he brought ruin to us; it is promised in the scriptures of Erthamus, that one will come who will end the wor—”
The woman's eyes went abruptly unfocused, as did the gazes of those around her.