I stared at Constantine.
“Give Alexander the coordinates of the Awakenings. As much as he's an irritant, he is...more than adequate at the things he does well.” Constantine grimly watched me wipe another drop. “You worship him for a reason—like everyone else on our blasted campus. Fifteen-minute absences for his merry little band can be covered at Excelsine by Marsgrove and the administration.”
“They'll be caught.”
“I cannot wait to tell him you said that.”
I grimaced. “The Awakenings are triggered, but not precisely pinpointed. The layer feels slightly different around a mage, but it's a large expanse of territory that the difference covers. Which means Stavros can know where a possible mage could be, but not who the mage is. But he has the second most important element in each scenario—time. He is setting off the magic in a targeted area, then immediately looking for grid spikes. So, if he knows he plans to trigger part of the tri-state area, he sends people to the general region, so they can be in proximity ahead of time.”
I looked up. “But that is my advantage. I can feel the layer shift as the mage Awakens. I feel it inside of me—I just know where to go, like a thousand points of data converging into an intuitive leap. I have, at most, a five-minute head start, and at worse, none. Axer can't get there before the Department does without me. And having me there would be a death sentence for him.”
“But all he needs to find you is a moment of your presence. He can always find you.” There was something dark, almost wistful in the words. “And you've already developed something to help, haven't you?”-
I rubbed a finger along a groove in the table, my other hand reaching into my pocket to touch a spelled chip there. “How—”
“Your flaws, while humorous, are always overcome by guilt, darling. You want to save the pawns yourself, but you know their long-term rescue outcome and the stability of the non-magical layer will increase if you remove yourself from the equation.”
I shut my eyes tightly. “Don't refer to them as pawns.”
“You are a god now, darling. Everyone is a pawn.”
“That isn't funny.”
“But you can do anything,” he said lightly, sending tendrils of darkness curling around me in gentle mockery. “You started thinking those exact words in the hall.”
“That's not—” I blew wisps of hair and darkness from my face, then reluctantly pulled my hand from my pocket, curled fingers letting the spelled chip drop like a weight on the table. “The First Layer won't survive the praetorians. I know this. But...”
Christian. Every person like him. One last Awakening pod.
“I know.” Constantine's voice was far more understanding than others would give him credit for. He gently pushed the glowing device toward me again. It was pulsing with his magic, waiting to spread its net.
I activated the holotalk with a mixture of sadness, trepidation, relief, and joy.
Chapter Four: Reminders
Nine people appeared around the space as if they'd been there the entire time. Maybe they had been waiting—waiting to see if I'd escaped, having seen only the Department's version on the news.
Will jumped to his feet from the cross-legged position he'd been sitting in.
“Ren!”
My shoulders loosened. “Hey,” I said softly. I had gotten so used to having them in my head at school that it had been a blow to lose the connection when I’d left. Frequencies were too easily tracked, though. And too easy for the Department to point to for complicity. I’d tossed mine on the second day of my exile for the safety of everyone.
“Did you get him?” Olivia demanded, arms crossed over her chest.
Constantine's magic shaded each crevice. It was a trick of the mind, device, and magic, that each of them looked as if they were in the room with me, but I knew that if I tried to touch one of them, my hand would only encounter a facsimile of flesh.
“Yes. Liam.” I settled into my own cross-legged position on the floor. With the device active, the room around us could change into whatever view the participant wanted, but a bare interrogation room seemed appropriate on my side. “And I stickered the grunts.”
Will gave a thumbs-up and immediately bent over a square device with Dagfinn and Asafa.
“I almost didn't get them attached this time. The praetorians came.”
Silence greeted that pronouncement, stilling the movement in the holo like old tech frozen on a screen.
Then movement suddenly reinstated itself.
“If the tracking doesn't work, we'll tweak again,” Dagfinn said, voice assured in the way of someone whose code always—eventually—worked, while dutifully ignoring the elephant in the room. Everyone at Excelsine had experienced the terror of the praetorians on campus, and no one wanted a second meeting in a place where the enforcers had no restrictions. “Someone is going to make a mistake on their side, or we are going to get a hit.”
It was a slim hope—that the hunters would lead us to the ferals, or to a secret facility, or to Stavros himself. Julian Dare and his contacts had already checked all the facilities that were known to the public and many that were not.
Not that I would trust Julian suddenly “finding” the ferals. There was no way Stavros thought Julian on any side other than Axer's. And he knew Axer was on mine.
Any discovery of the ferals that wasn't made by us through trickery and stealth was going to be a trap.
“The praetorians have been given emergency powers,” Olivia said. “It's all over the feeds. Any time you show up in the First Layer, or anywhere else, they have permission to take you with excessive force. Your interaction today was broadcast throughout the layer and was used to consolidate support for the emergency action.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed a hand over my elbow, where I'd been hit, then down my leg. “Yeah. I, uh, I think I might ask for help in the rescues.”
Some of Olivia's grimness faded. “Good.”
Constantine's smugness pulsed in the corner and I studiously looked elsewhere.
I lifted the chip imbued with the spell I'd been reluctantly working on. “I designed a device—where I could appear briefly, then pull one of Will’s pads to the position. Like a First Layer GPS locator and portal, but with protections against outside tracking. The receiving side comm needs setting, though.”
Dagfinn looked up from the tracking program and motioned eagerly. “It's not something coded directly into your magic this time, is it?”
“No. I got yelled at enough the last time.” I flicked the edge of the chip's specs with my fingers, sending the package shooting around the sides of the holoroom, and watched as it zoomed into Dagfinn's palm. He opened the packet and looked through it—Will eagerly peering over his shoulder.
A moment later, Will rubbed his hands together and Dagfinn nodded. “Give us an hour,” Dagfinn said. “We can easily do this. Your spells are surprisingly elegant in their chaos, have I told you that?”