Constantine poked Guard Rock with his boot and kept a judicious eye on the ceiling, where the book soared in tight circles again. Guard Rock retaliated, stabbing his pencil through Constantine's boot, forcing the material to expand around the pencil's tip, before the self-healing material shoved the piercing object back out. Guard Rock flipped behind Constantine and stabbed him in the ankle. Constantine trapped him against the wall with his heel.
They had a weird relationship.
Constantine's relationships, in general, didn't fall along standard lines.
“I want you to be safe,” I said, resuming the previous conversation.
“Not much use for that on campus if I die of boredom.” I heard his boots scuff against the tile and the sound of his heel hitting the floor.
“Don't hurt him.” I didn't bother to look behind me.
“He's a rock.”
“I wasn't talking to you.”
“Charming.”
I pulled out a piece of paper and grabbed some charcoal from the mess on my work table. I sketched out some quick mind maps—pulling data from today’s Awakening and spreading it on the linen in visual form: where Liam had been found, how he might have been activated based on what I had seen in his magic, what his powers were, and the numbers and attack patterns of the hunters.
Releasing my breath, I let the feelings and magic from the fight reorient through the muscle memory of drawing.
My hand shook. A drop of paint fell and sizzled on the page.
I heard Constantine sigh, and from the side of my view, I saw him punt Guard Rock into the air. The rock flew; arms and legs extended back for maximum air time, then flipped to land on the table. He ran along the diameter line of the table, then screeched to a halt amidst the papers at the end, curling their edges into the air as he assumed a warrior’s pose.
Constantine threw him a sharpened pencil. Guard Rock caught it and thumped the lead against the table. The magic shot from the tip along the papers and up into my arm.
My hand stopped shaking.
“Better?” Constantine asked, sounding bored, but tension vibrated along our connection.
I stared at the table. In the live holos, I could see Axer pause, turning his head just a fraction. Neph’s hand went to her chest, head bowing forward.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Our mutual sharing was something I was still coming to terms with. Constantine now possessed a vial full of Neph's dancing magic. Somewhere in the way that I had connected us all during the showdown with Stavros on campus had allowed us to use our individual magics from afar when our friends were in need.
Constantine could pull on Neph, Guard Rock could channel Axer, I could—sometimes—pull on Olivia's measured deliberation.
Permission-based pulls made stronger by each of us contributing to the community pot.
“It's fine,” I said.
“It looks fine.”
“It is.”
He lifted a shoulder and dropped into a chair. “Fine.”
“I'm fine.”
“Unarguably.”
“You are arguing it right now.”
“Debatable.”
Ori chose that moment to swoop down again and slice my cheek with the edge of a single page. I glared at it and pressed my finger to the paper cut, healing it.
Constantine eyed the book narrowly. “When did this begin?”
“It is...feeling cramped.” I didn't react physically as the book buzzed my head again. It had been doing this for the last week. “I keep telling it that I can't go off on adventure. I'm getting plenty of adventure already. It doesn't take refusal well.”
That wasn't the only reason for the book's reactions, but I kept that part to myself.
Axer's feed disappeared, as it always did when he was done fighting. Constantine had made a quip about hooking his feed up to the showers instead. But Axer was almost always training in some way, and Neph dancing, and Will experimenting, and Olivia plotting, and when Constantine wasn’t dogging my steps, his holo always showed him creating something diabolical.
Those five usually surrounded me while I worked, just like they always had—with other friends swarming in and out of view alongside them.
Viewing the holograms made me less lonely, which was sadly amusing, since I was inside a compound full of people.
But the people here were awed and terrified of me, and I wasn’t Ren here.
I looked at the feeds from Excelsine with longing. I could no longer go anywhere near campus—even the Midlands were off limits. In order for Excelsine to remain free of repercussions following my expulsion, Marsgrove had been forced to install alert wards against me.
And for their own protection, I had cut communications with all of them outside of shielded areas. No more frequency or armband comms—no friendly or mischievous outside voices in my head.
The book fluttered its pages and Guard Rock took a stab at its binding as it flew past. The book had been keeping just inside the edge of outright mutiny, but it wouldn't be long before it rebelled completely.
Constantine looked and felt irritated as he watched the book, his emotions matching up for once. “Tell it to leave. I'm still surprised it didn't drop you the second you were off campus.”
I pulled a clammy hand along my forehead. “I've told it it's free. It feels its debt hasn't been paid.”
The line of green was far more in my favor now. Releasing it from seventy-year-old chains made quite an impact on all the bargains we'd made in Excelsine’s library.
Constantine reached out and touched the skin in the hollow at the side of my throat, then my temple. “You have a fever,” he murmured. “Didn’t you paint two days ago?”
I swallowed, pushing the question—and answer—down. “Stavros is going to declare war on the entire Third Layer because of me. He's going to use me as an excuse to collapse the layer. He got praetorians into the First today.”
All things I couldn't control, even with all my power. Not yet, at least.
“I know,” he murmured, darkness rolling through him, allowing the change in subject—for now. “I came as soon as the first image was shown. They almost got you.”
“But they didn't.”
“Not today.” His expression was unreadable, but his emotions—dark and heavy—were not. “But the praetorians have been given discretion. The Department gave the council edited versions of all your fights in the past two weeks. Damning edits. The vote was nearly unanimous—the timing, no mistake. Even with Excelsine, and the power behind the students there, on your side, the Department knows what it is doing. They have been spinning a negative campaign web against you for months now.”
Constantine's father was on the council—at least for the moment—and he was the only one who was remotely on my side. Or more precisely on his son's side. Though, it was hard to tell, sometimes, what his views were from the way he played the political and emotional game in the press.
“They are going to attack this layer with weapons they have been building for thirty years—powerful weapons you can’t begin to comprehend—as soon as the trigger they are waiting for is depressed. They are doing everything they can to get you in their grasp and you make their job easier. You risk yourself further every day.”
I leaned forward, arms pressed against my stomach. “I know. The territories also want me to remain hidden, to rise slowly with the rise of the layer. They aren’t wrong, but I must… I need to save the ferals,” I whispered.
Like I hadn't been able to save Christian.
“And I need to save you,” he said blandly.