I carefully touched the shield that was doing the equivalent of a First Layer countdown, only there was no countdown number attached, just a trigger—me.
I looked at the paint in the air around me and it rippled, but didn't part. And even though I could see points where I might break through it, something in me said I shouldn't. Axer had trained me far better than to just lash out without thinking through the variables. And something that was a mixture of a male and female voice said, Not yet. Not without incomprehensible loss.
I had always had my shields and my own untainted magic to rely on, but something within me that I had yet to identify was slowly eating it away.
“Come on, Origin Mage. Let's see your great powers now. My bet is on you taking out at least two layers. Enton set the seals up to obliterate each town they are in when destroyed by a regular hand. By you? Well, let's see what you do.”
I carefully looked around me while I stored his words, letting them percolate into a pattern in the back of my mind. It looked like I was still in the Basement, and yet I could see nothing of the boys, Marsgrove, Stuart, the Baileys, or the others.
“This is a painted layer all its own.” I could see the world-building elements. Could see the care that had been taken at first, then hastily finished by a less gifted hand. “Do you live here?”
“An in between, courtesy of your predecessor. And I live everywhere,” Kaine said, slithering to the side, watching me carefully.
The jar tucked in my cloak shuddered with fear. I swallowed and held still, taking in more data, trying to act unconcerned.
The Basement was replicated around us—only small changes modifying the view in any way. But Mussolgranz was the only person in view—hazily in view, attached to Table One. I didn't know what it meant that only he could still be seen.
Kaine followed my gaze. “Ah, my lovely master, caught in the crossfire. We can't have that.” He flicked his fingers and Mussolgranz flipped, still attached to the table, into our reality.
Kaine could do simple Origin Magic. My hands curled into fists to keep them still.
Mussolgranz flexed his arms and magic and the straps fell away. He looked at me dispassionately—a sterile scientist without feeling—and then paint rose from the floor, slithering up his body and reforming Mussolgranz into a form I knew far better.
“Take care of our guests, Archelon,” Stavros said, painfully clenching his teeth, furiously cold gaze fastening on me. “Release the beasts and destroy the facility, if necessary.”
Kaine flicked his wrist and the side of the room morphed into a long hall. He strode down the hall, the wall reforming behind him.
But not before I saw the swirl of it. The paint. A manipulation I knew. There would be other corridors, too, corridors I could take. I touched the flipped ward on me.
No! Not yet, not yet, millions lost, the scared voices said.
I swallowed. “We meet again, and yet not, Prestige Stavros,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. It was absurd that in all of this, it was a good thing that this was a Stavros facsimile, for I wasn't ready. With a bomb attached to my chest, it would have been Raphael's perfect scenario. But I couldn't afford the fallout. I started looking at the edges of the painted world, the hidden divots and thin valleys, looking for an escape without using magic. “Once more, a puppeteer from afar. You said when next we met, it would be face-to-face, and yet, here you are once more.”
He bared his teeth. “You've made a liar of me time and again. I don't much like it, Miss Crown. I am a man of my word. But that isn't to say I can't do you some damage for all that you've caused me.”
His hand whipped through the air, catching paint like it was frozen rain and throwing it at me. I automatically lifted my cloak, but with none of the protections that usually kept me functional, the paint shot through it and my shirt, sizzling as it splashed against my skin. I stumbled with the pain, contorting to try and get away.
Paint came again, and this time my body automatically reacted to the threat and raised an external shield. Paint rippled around me and there was a crackling boom in the distance. I could hear people scream—I could see a flicker of the boys and some horror swooping down—then silence and emptiness. I dropped the shield and stumbled backward.
“Why are you stopping?” Stavros said derisively. He flung another hand along a line of putrid green, and I dropped to the ground, but half of the splatter caught me anyway, sending electric shocks through me.
A cadaver consuming a body from afar, but he was powerful, and he was turning Origin Magic against me.
“You don't think I stole Kinsky's life and soul from him without taking the keys to the empire of his mind at the same time?”
My body went rigid under the next blast, but the painted world shuddered, and for a moment, I could see figures fighting around me, in the world on the other side. Axer had used an orb of my magic. I felt the echo of the pulsation as it exploded.
Wait, wait, the voices said.
Yes, okay. I could deal with pain. It took a moment, but I pushed myself roughly to my knees.
“I’m not sure if I’m displeased or impressed that you are this resilient,” Stavros said. “It has cost me, and that forfeiture will cost you. You are in my kingdom now, Miss Crown.”
There was another blast. Another orb. Stavros bared his teeth, pacing angrily as he looked at the shimmer vibrating around us. “All that I've built, and you think...you have the gall...”
Pain lanced through me again.
“You stupid girl. It was almost a good plan, too. If I wasn't completely prepared for such an eventuality. Such a loss.”
I wiped the blood from my mouth and felt grim satisfaction as another orb vibrated the world around us. I couldn't feel Axer, who was probably trying to bridge my powers and connect, nor Constantine, who was probably having a complete cow. But I knew the magic was mine. Could identify the vibrations of it.
I pushed myself to my knees. “Quite a collection you had going, too, Prestige Stavros.”
He smiled tightly. “It isn't gone yet, despite the loss of your little ferals.”
“You are why there hasn't been a feral at Excelsine in so long.” My breath issued harshly from my nose as I rose. “You take the strongest ones as soon as they come online. There haven't been enough to populate.”
He smiled. “Is this a banal attempt at distraction? Waiting for your friends to save you? Well, as it happens, I also require a few minutes, and I do love to see the rage and realization of the unfairness of the world as it appears, and it always does.”