“Too right,” I said, tugging him back into motion. “I need to process you, let's go.”
I could see the horrible notions of what that might mean going through his mind.
I nodded and stifled my smile. “There's a grinder and everything.”
“What, no! Let go. Are you even human?”
It was an answer that not everyone agreed upon.
I tilted my head up so that he could see my face, and I let solemn promise infuse my voice and connect to the magic of the shield. “You will be safe. You will learn to use your magic. And you can then decide what you will do with your life. Nothing bad will happen to you here, I promise.”
He frowned, then nodded almost unwillingly, visibly unsettled by why he suddenly believed a stranger. “Why then did you say—”
“If I can't add a bit of humor to the situation, it sucks twice as much,” I said.
Twelve steps down the hall, though, I tugged my cloak tighter.
“They are all staring at you,” he said.
“Yup.”
“Did you grow horns under there?”
“No.”
“Because even that guy with a tail back there—he had a tail—was staring at you.”
I didn't answer.
“What are you, some kind of magical messiah?”
“No.”
The further we progressed through the tunnels, the more silent he grew and the more his Awakening magic began to react. He flexed it unconsciously. “Where are we?” he asked again.
“We’re in the Third Layer of the world. There are five. You will get the run down on all of that soon. Suffice to say, this one kind of sucks at the moment, but that's my problem to deal with and you will be safe here until you get a bead on your power.”
I pushed the red button to the chamber rooms.
“None of that made any sense,” he said, as I pushed both of us inside the main console area, a somewhat cramped space surrounded by fifteen individual chambers—like an overworked nursing station for mages. Ekaterina, a mage that I had rescued days before, was exiting from her chamber as we entered. Yvette, another new feral, still brimming with the light she'd Awakened with the week before, was reviewing something on the console with Betony, the grizzled lady who ran the ward. Both Awakened mages paused and stared curiously as I pushed Liam toward one of the last two empty chambers.
He started to say something to them, but I pushed him inside. “No time to make friends now. You are going to burst.”
I surreptitiously wiped at the paint I could feel pooling in the corners of my eyes.
“That isn't something you say to make someone feel better,” he said, voice going high.
“What if you are going to burst with unicorns and happiness?” I asked as I swiped the paint into the vial that was already pulsing at its seams.
“Am I?”
“Let's think positively.”
As I started dismantling the shield around him and connecting him to the room and privacy controls, I tried not to think about there being only one empty room left.
The chamber was a neat combination of a stripped-down battle room and containment area. It allowed newly Awakened mages to explore their powers in a safe environment—safe for themselves and for others. In exchange for housing them, the complex funneled and used their Awakening magic. Everything in the Third Layer was reused or bargained for, and Awakening mages required a lot of upkeep, but also generated a lot of interesting, powerful magic.
The chamber was everything I wished that Christian and I had upon our Awakenings.
I pushed aside my sadness, swallowed the paint that was rising in my throat again, and concentrated on the present. “You will be here until you get through your Awakening safely. Lots of others are here to help and you will be assigned a mentor,” I told Liam.
I wouldn't trade Draeger for anything—but the human element was important, too. I’d had Will, and eventually the others, to help me with the aspects a construct couldn’t give.
Like real hugs.
I rubbed at my forehead as my mind provided five other random tidbits of interest that weren't pertinent. This was why I wasn't a counselor in this operation. “You can request a virtual mentor, like an AI, tailored to you, as well. That information will all be explained in the briefing.”
And above all, the recently Awakened mages would be the best source of help for him.
Still, I couldn’t help but add, “But if you do try the virtual route, consider letting your brain choose. Never know what's going on up there.”
He looked at me. “Thanks?”
I smiled faintly. “Your best question yet. You can have a bright future in the magic world, Liam, regardless of what you’ve just experienced. Magic is what you make of it.”
He frowned. “Is that how it is for you?”
My smile slipped, and I forced it back into place. “You have a lovely talent. One that can make the world a happier place.”
I looked at his violin. Now that the shield had been stripped away completely, and his Awakening was stretching its arms, music notes were growing in force, melding together in the air—funneling beautifully around the instrument and his body.
I pulled a strip of ribbon from my pocket that was imbued with three complicated runes and tied it to a clip on the case. I had to reach through his funnel of magic to do it, and the melody was breathtaking—overloading my mind for a moment and tempting me to stay.
I pulled back. “I think you will enjoy magic once you have harnessed it. Good luck.”
“Wait—”
“It's best if I don't stay.” But I paused at the door with my fingers on the handle. “But don't let anyone treat you differently. You are as much a mage as anyone who Awakened earlier. Remember that.”
I slipped from the chamber without looking back.
*
I dropped the device containing the magical packet of information I had gathered on Liam during the rescue—recordings, thoughts, data—into the hands of the console guardian. Betony merely nodded her head, but I could read the thoughts in her expression as her gaze slipped to the final free chamber.
Time. Time was not my ally.
Another drop of paint dripped from my nose, but I quickly pressed a handkerchief hand-stitched by Delia against my skin. The handkerchief was imbued with a collection enchantment that I'd connected to a storage vial in my tower. A nearly full vial.
Visual patterns flashed across my vision, overlaying everything. People veered around me, but they appeared only as tracers of light and geometrics. I needed to paint again—to exchange that which was seeping from me. At the beginning of my exile I’d only needed to paint once a week, then it had increased to twice a week.
I’d last painted two days ago and the need was building within me.
Images of destruction flashed through my head.
I gripped my fingers into fists. I needed to find a remote location to work. Somewhere safe so I could organize all the information that was zipping around my brain and strangling it.