Watching someone who had hidden a talent for so long—shaky at first, then growing stronger and stronger until flares of gold and blue were the only things I could see.
Axer used the combination of Mind and Bridge Magic and pulled from the mages in front of us, then the ones behind us, taking over their connections, searching and grabbing the ones that directly led back to Excelsine, then the ones that led to those, then to others, connecting them into a web that not only pulled on school, but that also pulled on the four thousand mages overflowing with power before us.
And he funneled it all directly into a container he was touching—me.
The thoughts of thousands of different mages were incomprehensible, but their feelings ground me. I knew exactly what to do with a streaming red room, and I had been schooled every day at Excelsine in how to handle chaos for a finite period.
Neph’s magic swept through the pathway created just for her—and soothing magic fell upon the entire chaotic web.
Axer was looking down at me, and suddenly, it all seemed easy.
“Give me everything anyone knows about Crelussa,” I said, and opened myself completely.
And he used my magic to stretch effortlessly across the layers, pinpointing each mage through the connections already set, like our very own Priority Five. As soon as the point touched, he created bridgeways into their magic, and Constantine pulled the thoughts from their minds and Neph soothed the roughest edges left behind.
We took from all the techs, the workers, and mages who had graced these halls here and at Excelsine.
And I absorbed it, like the book had, like the red streaming room at Excelsine demanded, and knitted the experiences and knowledge together.
One of the revived techs looked at us in wonder and terror—and in absolute certainty that she was only temporarily discarding the latter as she extended her hand toward us. Connections bloomed across her palm and we grabbed them. The brightest one whispered that it connected to one of the engineers in charge of Crelussa’s ward maintenance. And Axer pulled that connection into the bridged web, then pulled another dozen attached to that engineer, then a dozen more—while Constantine copied the knowledge from their minds.
I could feel the shock and fear as each person’s knowledge was given to me. But a weird thing happened in the seconds that I started to rebuild Crelussa. Like the tech, there was a moment of stunned silence, then everything became a whirlwind as people actively began pushing anything they knew.
Excelsine was first. Always. They had hardly taken a moment to feel shock before they were joining in with everything they had.
The mages in Crelussa—both the Awakening ones and workers left behind—had joined in the terrified way that anyone seeking life sustaining aid would—completely and unreservedly. There had been little conscious choice at first. But when they seemed to realize what was happening, when they saw the tech extend her hand, the actions became deliberate. People began shoving their parents, their families, their neighbors, anyone they had ever touched into the mix.
It was those people that took the longest to grant full, unrestrained access. Not all of them did grant access—some had to be forcefully taken—but the majority contributed all that they could.
We had ten seconds counting down as we pulled the last stone on the mountain into place, but it felt like an eternity had passed.
I could feel the paint stirring in my blood, the blood seeping from my nose, and the secrets of the world sparking the air around me.
Axer let out his breath, his eyelids sliding shut and his hands loosening. It was the pose of someone who had done something so utterly satisfying that they didn’t know how to express it. Like every stoppered urge held for a millennium had been finally relieved.
Constantine was staring at him like he'd been asked a question for which he didn't know the answer.
“Congratulations,” Olivia said grimly. “There's now a tie for the most terrifying mage in the world.”
“The bounty on you both just tripled.” Loudon whistled. “Niiiice.”
“Are you okay, Neph?” I asked desperately.
“Yes,” Neph answered softly. I felt her stroke the pulsing connections. I closed my eyes and clasped them gently.
“She is lit like a sun flare. The entire campus is pulsing. Now repeat what you just did and delete everyone’s memories,” Olivia said grimly. “Including ours.”
Constantine was already reaching back out.
“No,” Axer said.
“Dare—” Olivia tried.
“We aren’t hiding anymore.”
Constantine’s hand was hanging in the air and he was staring at Axer, that same incomprehensible look on his face.
“There is no way anyone will let the three of you live freely after that,” Olivia said grimly.
“We’ll see,” Axer said, never breaking eye contact with his roommate.
“Leandred?” Olivia asked sharply.
“I’d like to see someone try at this point,” Constantine said, but his voice lacked its usual languidity, as his hand slowly lowered.
I looked down at the complicated magic web in my hand, then walked to the tech who had opened her hand and connections first. There was no feel of Stavros on her—I’d gotten used to identifying the mages he had implanted. And none of the successfully revived techs had it. The initial techs had picked well after the evidence of Axer’s death spell had become apparent.
She backed away as I approached, her hands open downward in a “don’t shoot me” mage gesture. I grabbed one of her hands and looped the ward structure around her palm.
She looked at it in shock and terror. I was surprised she still had the capacity to increase both emotions.
“This one controls the entrance wards,” I said, indicating the bright yellow in the web. “Don’t let anyone enter the facility until you have assurances of safety from the countries with Awakening mages here—from the engineers and security forces—not the Department. Tell all of them that the facility will fall unless a contingent containing a representative from each country that has an Awakening mage here is present to step across the threshold.”
She swallowed and nodded shakily.
“Will it?” Delia murmured.
“No,” I said solely through the connection, so that the tech couldn’t hear it. She needed the ability to voice that statement as truth.
“Sending that detail to Bailey, as well as the surveillance recording of you saying it,” Olivia said. “Going live wide in 3, 2, 1, done.”
“Department security forces securing the perimeter were just stopped by outside military forces,” Asafa reported.
“We are at a twenty million spread for the news. Thirty million. Sixty,” Dagfinn said.
“Twelve delegations already indicated arrival in ten minutes, 01. One hundred delegations. Two hundred.”
I looked at the tech. “Each Awakening mage gets a representative.”
“I understand.” And she looked like she really did.