“Opening Exit AH,” Dagfinn said. “I can’t believe you crassetars got all the way through the alphabet, then down to H again.”
“I can’t believe Dare made us create fifty-two exits, and that we’ve exhausted thirty-four.” Kita sighed. “The only thing that sucked more than planning all of those was watching all of them disappear.”
“We can use that exit to get us to Verrange,” Axer said.
I inhaled and nodded.
“Now?” Mike said sharply. “We aren’t going to regroup?”
“All eyes will be here, on Crelussa. There is no better time. And one of the natural routes Peoples shared can get us most of the way there.”
It had been hard for Delia to give those routes to Axer. I could feel the lingering uncertainty in her. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t trust him.
“You’ve got the site and coordinates, Comms?” Patrick said.
I reached for the lights in my head that throbbed with their presence.
“Yes,” Dagfinn said. “Five hundred feet underneath a nondescript office building for a children’s toy company. The building schematics aren’t going to be of much use, but I’ve got a program running over them. Hacking into all dark site alternative schematic plans for the town that might hint at what is hidden beneath.”
Axer unfurled his fingers and I saw the magical compass in his palm, pointing assuredly west with whatever coordinate Dagfinn had remotely input into it the second the identification spell worked. I saw the phoenix dragon tattoo under his cuff, surrounded by a crown, a sword, and the elements of the universe. I touched my wrist, certain that I would find the same tattoo upon mine.
He looked at me. “We will find all of them now,” he promised.
Chapter Twenty: Secrets of a Canvas
“There is no doubt that it was the Origin Mage who was at the site today. Even the conspiracists cannot deny it, as her active magic was registered all over the site and every detector in the four magic layers of the world indicated her exact position. Furthermore, surveillance feeds show her giving the wards of the Crelussa Sanitarium to—”
I took a deep breath as the small boat pushed away from the broken dock. We had to be dark on comms for this initial portion of the journey, but Constantine had set up a small passive feed to receive news as we navigated the extremely swift underground river that traveled a natural path from Crelussa to a small ski town where we’d find our next transport.
“Also, it was definitively proven today that Alexander Dare is a Bridge. In a stunning and terrifying display, he and the Origin Mage connected the site to thousands of minds in the layer.”
I looked down at my fingertips. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry that I hadn’t been able to do it on my own; that he’d been forced to reveal himself.
“I’m not.” Axer was holding steady to the spell that commanded all the oars while surveying the river banks. Defensive spells were ready on his fingertips, hidden beneath an identity signature stolen from one of the techs on our way out. He was multitasking our real escape as paper butterflies carrying wisps of our magical signatures flew south.
“But you—”
“You don't like to risk others,” he said softly, looking at me. “It is a testament to your caring nature. But this is a fight that was already in play before you were born, a fight you didn't design, a fight where all of us were already at risk.”
I fought tears and looked at Constantine, who was mending a string and pretending that the cat sitting on the floor of the boat wasn’t watching the actions with mesmerized eyes. He’d gone from wide-eyed shock in Crelussa to blankness by the time we’d hit the tunnels.
“You had that whole speech about the orphans. And you were the first to drop your cuff. You were going to sacri—”
“You are obviously a bad influence,” Constantine said darkly, but at the same time he stroked the bond that was all the brighter between us. “And you”—his gaze lifted to Axer—“I don’t know whether to murder you or run from you. What in the scarping whole of the Second Layer were you thinking?”
“That finally, finally I’m free.”
“Free? You have never been more chained. You exposed us both. After years of hiding.”
Axer shrugged, gaze on the shoreline, as if a life changing event wasn’t being discussed. As if he could hide the tightness of his shoulders. “They will blame me. They will say that the powers of a Bridge are even worse than anticipated, or they will say that they are worse combined with gifts from the other side of my parentage. They will say that I caused so much duress that people simply gave me their knowledge.”
“Why?” Constantine demanded, shaking with rage and something more complicated.
Axer looked at him finally, gaze zoning in. “Because I don’t want to hide anymore. Today just made the choice easy.”
I remembered the look on his face back in fall quarter, back when he was facing down the Bone Beast. He had been ready to expose his powers to save campus, but his expression had been resigned. There was none of that resignation now.
Constantine seemed to sense the same thing, tense in a way I hadn’t seen him before. “Why?”
“Because hiding has felt like acid eating away at my soul since Salietrex. Because I am caught by regrets that even time hasn’t softened. Because even though I’ve long wished to feel any other way, I will always try and save you,” he said quietly. “That was the one thing I never regretted about Salietrex. Even when I wished that I had been the one left behind instead, and in the bitterest years afterward.”
Constantine looked away. “With you in his possession, Verisetti could have wrecked the whole of Asiatica. Farther even. And you'd already be Stavros' pet, because Verisetti is careless with his toys.” Constantine tried to shield his emotions, but not before I could see the ones he couldn't visually hide. “And you've saved a million others since then. Mages who would have died without you being free.”
“But I didn't save the first,” Axer said, gaze connected. “Nameless faces, but not the one I knew, not the one I cared for.”
Constantine's jaw worked. He closed his eyes, then something—some weight he'd been carrying—dropped, along with his shoulders. “Mother understood. She knew what would happen, should either of us be taken. She wasn’t a powerful mage, just a...good one. She understood the stakes. And she wanted you safe. Us safe. She always wanted that. She always chose loved ones over herself. She was never going to leave either of us behind.” Constantine’s fingers worked over the string almost blindly.
“Why did you?” Axer asked quietly.
Constantine’s fingers curled, then he looked at Axer. “I knew something fundamentally had broken in me with the use of the hooks and the sustained mental torture. Something that disconnected me from humanity. You kept trying to share it. You kept trying to share my pain. It was for your benefit as much as my own to break every tie I could.”