فصل 14

Chapter 14

CALL WOKE SUDDENLY, gasping. He was in the Infirmary. Master Rufus was speaking to someone, probably Master Amaranth. She liked to drape snakes around her shoulders, but she was an excellent healing mage.

“I didn’t think the test took so much out of him. Are you sure he’s going to be all right?” Rufus asked.

She sounded as though she’d answered this question before. “He’s fine, just exhausted. Both boys using their magic at once like that — I’m not so sure you should have allowed them to continue being each other’s counterweights. What happens if they both go too far?” “I will take that under consideration.” Call felt Master Rufus’s hand go to his shoulder and he kept his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. “It’s our job to keep him safe. We have to keep them all safe or we’re doomed to repeat the past.” “Well, at least he’s not as foolish as young Alex Strike over there. Managed to fall into a bunch of stalagmites. I swear, the Gold Years get sillier the closer they get to the final gate.” “I heard about his accident,” Master Rufus said noncommittally, but there was something in his voice that led Call to think that maybe he knew more than he was letting on.

Master Rufus squeezed Call’s shoulder and then departed the Infirmary. Call could hear his footfalls all the way out. He kept his eyes shut. Somewhere across the room, Master Amaranth was humming, doing something that involved clinking glass.

I’ll count to thirty, Call thought. Then I will pretend to wake up. That way she won’t know I was faking in front of Master Rufus.

He began to count … but he fell asleep instead.

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The next time Call woke, Tamara was standing over him. When he tried to speak, she put her hand over his mouth. She smelled like sandalwood.

“Can you stand up?” she whispered. “Nod or shake your head.”

He shrugged and she, exasperated, took her hand away. “Don’t wake up Alex and don’t give Master Amaranth any reason to come in here. It took forever for her to leave.” “I won’t,” he whispered back and swung down off the bed. His legs held him up. He felt pretty good, actually. Rested. He was still wearing the clothes he’d passed out in on the highway. “What happened?” “Shhhh. Come on.” She led him out of the Infirmary and into the hall. Call gave a last look back before the door closed. Alex appeared to slumber on, a bandage over his shoulder. Master Amaranth was nowhere in sight.

Aaron and Alma were waiting for them in the hall. Like Tamara, Aaron was in his school uniform. His eyes lit up when he saw Call, and he stepped forward to clap him on the back.

“You okay?” he asked.

“A little sore, but yeah, better,” Call said. He glanced at Alma, who was wearing a flowing cotton dress. Her arms were swathed in bandages.

“Are you totally covered in fox bites?” asked Call.

Alma’s face darkened. Aaron shook his head and made a throat-slitting gesture at Call behind her back.

“We will not speak of it!” Alma said, glowering.

“Okay.” Call wondered if Alma regretted throwing the truck door open. It was pretty much all her fault that he and his friends had almost been killed by bears. “So what are you doing here, then?” “You fulfilled your part of the bargain,” Alma said. “All is prepared for me to fulfill mine.” That meant Jennifer was somewhere nearby. She had to be. Call shuddered at the thought — he wasn’t at all sure he was ready to see another dead person talk. It reminded him too much of Verity Torres’s head and the riddles. That was serious Evil Overlord business.

Aaron’s face looked as if he was having some of the same doubts. But Tamara seemed determined.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Alma began to march down the hall. They followed her. Unlike Alex, she didn’t seem interested in doing any fancy air magic to conceal them. It must have been late, though, and the corridors were pretty deserted. They stuck close to the walls and took advantage of the shadows.

“Is Alex okay?” Tamara asked.

Call felt his skin prickle. It was normal for her to be concerned about Alex, he told himself, even if she’d never paid attention to him before. It didn’t mean anything. “I heard the Masters talking earlier,” he reported. “Or at least Rufus talking to Amaranth. He’s going to be fine. So you know, you can tell Kimiya that.” Tamara looked puzzled. “She doesn’t know he got hurt.”

Call gave an airy wave. “Well, you never know what you’ve missed when you’ve been passed out, right?” “Shh,” said Alma, gesturing for quiet. They had entered the part of the Magisterium where the Masters’ rooms were. They made their way down it in silence to Anastasia’s room.

Alma knocked on the door with three rapid taps, paused, and knocked again. A moment later, Anastasia threw the door open. She wore a white crepe dress with a long cape thrown over it, embroidered with black thread. Her silver hair was twisted into an updo. She gestured for them all to come in.

They stepped into her room and Call almost gasped. The whole place was spotless, as it had been before, but on the bare marble table in the middle of the room lay Jennifer.

She looked like she was asleep. Her long black hair puddled around her head. Her feet were bare, and she wore the same bloodstained dress she’d been wearing at the party. Her hands were folded over her chest.

“Her body has been held by the Collegium since the murder,” said Alma, locking the door behind them. “They have preserved her against decay, for the time when she might be needed as evidence.” Call wondered if that was how Constantine had preserved Verity Torres’s head all those years ago. He felt as though no matter what he did, he veered closer and closer to Constantine’s life and Constantine’s decisions. It was like being on a collision course with himself.

“Aren’t they going to notice her missing?” Aaron asked.

“We will have the body back before anyone at the Collegium is looking for it,” Anastasia informed them.

Call thought of how fast elementals traveled and of the Assembly member’s particular skill in controlling them. If Anastasia borrowed one of the elementals from the Magisterium, she probably could get Jennifer back to the Collegium pretty quickly. But if Anastasia and Alma could steal a body out of the Collegium, then the spy could have probably managed a lot of sneaky things, too.

After all, he or she was the greatest Makar of their generation.

“I will explain what we must do,” Alma said to Call and Aaron. “You’re going to have to learn a fairly difficult skill and you’re going to have to learn it quickly.” Call remembered Alma trying to teach them about the soul tap. It was hard to learn how to do something from someone who understood the theory and had seen it done but had never done it themselves. It had taken him and Aaron hours to learn. Call wasn’t sure they had hours this time.

“And you,” Anastasia said to Tamara. “You need to prevent anyone from looking for Callum or Aaron.” “What?” Tamara asked.

“Master Amaranth is likely to check on her charges before we’re done. Go back and let her know that Callum has returned to his rooms and that he will visit the Infirmary tomorrow if she likes. We need to be sure that the whole school isn’t up in arms, looking for Call while we’re in the middle of an illicit magical experiment.” Tamara sighed. “Fine. I’ll be back.”

“Shouldn’t one of us go with you?” Call asked. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of any of them wandering around the Magisterium alone with the spy on the loose. He glanced over at Aaron to see if he was thinking along the same lines, but Aaron was staring at Jen’s body on the table, his face white.

“I’ll take Havoc. At least I’ll be doing something this way, not just standing around watching. I hate not being able to help,” Tamara told him, heading for the door. Then she turned back, braids swinging. She was smiling. “Good luck talking to the dead.” Once Tamara left, Call felt very alone. It was just him and Aaron and two crazy old ladies and a corpse.

“Okay,” he said. “What do we do?”

“As I understand it,” Alma began, reminding Call that she probably wasn’t all that sure, “you have to imagine the chaos magic running through the brain of the deceased, like blood. You have to send chaos energy through it, activating the mind.” That sounded hard. And not very specific.

“Activating the mind?” Aaron echoed. He looked as baffled as Call felt.

“Yes,” Alma said with more certainty. “The chaos magic approximates the spark of life, allowing the dead to communicate.” Anastasia gestured toward Jen’s body on the table. “Call and Aaron. Come closer and look at the girl.” They moved toward the table uncertainly. Jen’s eyes were closed but there was a smear of blood on her cheek. Call remembered her laughing at the awards ceremony. It seemed incomprehensible that she would never smile or flick her hair or whisper a message or run through the corridors again.

This was what Constantine had wanted to stop, he thought. This feeling of wrongness. The going away of life and meaning. He tried to imagine if it were someone he really loved lying there, Alastair or Tamara or Aaron. It was hard not to understand where Constantine had been coming from.

He wrenched his mind back to the present. Understanding where Constantine had been coming from was not what he was supposed to be doing. Finding the spy was.

“Reach for each other,” Alma instructed. “Use each other as counterweights. You carry within you the power of chaos, of ultimate nothingness. What you are reaching for is the soul. Ultimate existence. Use that to reach Jennifer.” That made a little more sense, Call thought. Maybe. He exchanged a quick glance with Aaron before they both closed their eyes.

In the dark, Call balanced himself. It was easier, now that he had practiced, to fall into that inner space. It was like everything rushed away, even the pain in his leg, and everything was black and silent, but in a comforting way, like a familiar blanket. He reached out and felt Aaron there. Aaron’s self, his Aaron-ness, cheerful reliability layered over a darker core of determination and anger. Aaron reached back for him, and Call felt strength flow into him. He could see Aaron now, the outline of him, bright against the dark.

Another dim outline seemed to float up toward them. Hair that looked white, like a photo negative, streamed behind her.

Jen.

Call’s eyes flew open, and he nearly yelled. Jen hadn’t moved on the table, but her eyes were wide-open, their black irises filmed over. Aaron was staring, too, shocked and a little sick.

Jen’s mouth didn’t move, but a flat voice issued from between her lips. “Who calls me?” “Um, hi?” Call said. When she’d been alive, Jennifer had always made him nervous. She was one of the older, popular girls. He’d had enough trouble talking to her then. Talking to her now was nerve-racking on a totally other level.

“It’s Call and Aaron,” he went on. “Remember us? We’re wondering if you can tell us who murdered you?” “I’m dead?” Jennifer asked. “I feel … strange.”

She sounded strange, too — there was a hollowness in her voice. An emptiness. Call didn’t think her soul was present, not really. More like the traces of it, the memory of what was left behind when it departed. Just hearing her talk freaked out Call so much that he was afraid he might start laughing from panic. His heart hammered in his chest and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. How was he supposed to break it to her that she wasn’t alive anymore?

He reminded himself that it wasn’t really her. She didn’t have feelings to hurt.

“Can you tell us about the party?” Aaron asked, polite as ever. Call gave him a grateful look. “What happened that night?” Jennifer’s mouth twisted into the shadow of a smile. “Yes, the party. I remember. I was having fun with my friends. There was a boy I liked, but he was avoiding me and then — then the lights went out. And my chest hurt. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. Kimiya! Kimiya! Stay away from him!” “What?” Call demanded. “What about Kimiya? What happened? Who’s she supposed to stay away from? She’s not the one who did this, is she?” But Jennifer seemed to be lost in the memory, her body thrashing around, her words turning to one long, continuous scream.

Call had to focus on the magic. He closed his eyes and tried to go back to seeing that dim outline of Jen, that photo-negative version. In the dark, he saw her, faded and tattered. If he wanted to, he knew he could make her speak words that were not her own. But he needed her to have her own voice, not his. So he chased those shining leftovers of a soul, glad she was preserved only a short time after the soul’s departure. He channeled more chaos magic into her, to shore them up.

When he opened his eyes, her features had gone slack.

“Jennifer, can you hear me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her voice flat and affectless. “What do you command?” “What?” Call looked over at Aaron. He had gone very pale.

“Oh no,” Anastasia said. Her hands went to her mouth, one clapped over the other. Alma’s eyes had gone wide and she reached out as though she could stop something that was already over. “Call, what have you done?” Call looked down at Jennifer and she looked up at him, with eyes that were beginning to swirl.

“Call,” Anastasia whispered. “Oh no, not again — not again.”

“What?” Call was backing away, shock spreading through him. What? seemed to be all he could say or think. “I — I didn’t — I’ve never done that before —” But I have, as Constantine. I’ve done it a hundred, a thousand times.

Jen sat up on the table. Her black hair flowed down around her bone-white shoulders. Her eyes were swirling fire.

“Command me, Master,” she said to Call. “I wish only to serve.”

“It is you,” said Alma, looking at Call with a dawning horror. “Little Makar — why did no one tell me?” Aaron moved to block Call from the two women’s horrified looks, from Jennifer’s staring, blazing eyes.

“You should never have suggested we do this,” he said angrily. “It’s horrible. Stealing her body, that was horrible.” “Go, both of you,” Anastasia said. “We’ll deal with this.”

Call felt Aaron’s hand on his shoulder, and a moment later he’d been guided out of the room and was back in the corridor. He pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands. He was freezing, shivering all over.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said. “I was only trying to hang on to her soul.” Aaron’s eyes softened. “I know. It could have happened to either of us.” “It couldn’t have,” Call hissed. “I’m the only one of us who’s the Enemy of Death!” Aaron squeezed Call’s shoulder and let go. “You’re not the Enemy,” he said. “And the Enemy was just a Makar once, like me. Maybe the first time he did it was by accident. There’s a reason,” he added, in a lower voice, “that they’re all so afraid of us.” Call glanced back at Anastasia’s closed door. Oh no, not again, she’d said. Did she think Call had done it before, or did she just mean Oh no, not another Constantine?

He started to walk back in the direction of their room, limping. Aaron followed him, hands shoved in his uniform pockets.

“I think Anastasia knows,” said Call. “Who I really am. Maybe Alma, too.” Aaron opened his mouth as if to say, You’re Call, and then closed it again. A second later, he said, “She did see you control all those Chaos-ridden animals last night. And you said some weird things before you fainted. I mean, nothing too clear — just some stuff about how the animals should know who you were.” “Hopefully she’ll write that off as incredibly strange boasting,” said Call. “Did Alex hear?” “No. He was passed out.”

Thinking of Alex reminded Call of Kimiya. He tensed all over again. “We have to find Tamara. We have to tell her that Jennifer said something about her sister.” “Kimiya didn’t murder anyone,” said Aaron scornfully. “Also, it’d be pretty weird if she was suddenly the greatest Makar of our generation. Way to overlook that, mages.” “No — I don’t think she did it,” Call said, trying to make sense of the jumble of his thoughts. His head had started pounding. “I mean, if Jennifer was calling for Kimiya or wanted to call for her around the time that she died, then maybe Kimiya knows something. Maybe something she didn’t think was important before.” Aaron nodded. “I wish we had answers, but at least we’ve got a clue.”

“Aaron?” Call asked. He had another question about that night, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to have answered. “Is Jasper’s dad okay?” “See, you do think Jasper’s our friend!” Aaron said.

“Not if his dad got hurt because of us, I don’t.”

“Jasper’s father is fine. We made sure he was okay before we tied him up and blindfolded him. I heard him swearing just before we drove away.” Aaron was grinning, though, as if he’d won some bet. Call was glad one of them could still smile.

They made their way to the Infirmary, but there was no Tamara there, and no Alex, either. His bed was empty.

Master Amaranth, remaking one of the cots with air magic, gave Call a stern look.

“I wish someone around here would listen to me when I say to stay in bed until I tell you that you’re well enough to go,” she said.

“What happened to Alex?” Aaron asked.

“I killed him,” Master Amaranth replied, and gave a dry chuckle at the looks on their faces. “I actually gave him permission to go — I checked over his wounds and they’d healed. He was just fine when he went. Unlike you.” “Have you seen Tamara Rajavi?” Call asked.

“Yes, she came to tell me that you’d moved back to your own room because you don’t like the Infirmary. I don’t know what’s wrong with you boys. The Infirmary is the safest place in the whole school. The elementals here make sure that’s the case.” Call looked around uneasily. He’d never realized there were elementals watching him when he was in the Infirmary. Considering the number of times he’d left it, he guessed that they weren’t commanded to prevent people from coming and going. He didn’t know what they were watching for — illness, maybe — but he felt better about being unconscious knowing that someone couldn’t have just come in and attacked him, at least not without setting off an alarm.

“Did she say where she was going?” Aaron asked.

Master Amaranth gave him a puzzled look. “It’s very early in the morning. I assumed she was going back to your rooms so that you all might get some sleep before classes start. Now, Callum, since you’ve returned, maybe you should consider spending the rest of the night here.” “No,” he said, pretending away his headache. “I feel fine. I am fine.” “Well, neither of you should be roaming the halls this late at night. Go back to your room. Callum, come see me tomorrow after classes so we can see how you’re holding up. And no more chaos magic for a few days, okay?” Call, thinking of the magic he’d already used that night, nodded guiltily.

They headed back to their rooms. They’d reached the door and Call was moving to open it with his bracelet when they heard pounding feet in the corridor. Both Aaron and Call whirled around to see Alex racing toward them. He looked wild-eyed and had a fresh bruise on his face.

He slowed to a stop, bending over with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

“Tamara,” he choked out. “He took Tamara!”

Aaron and Call looked at each other in confusion. “What are you talking about?” Aaron demanded.

“The spy,” Alex said. “He grabbed Tamara.”

Call went rigid. His heart was pounding in his throat suddenly.

“What are you talking about, Alex?” he said.

“Tell us exactly what happened.” Aaron looked as upset as Call felt. “Exactly.” “I left the Infirmary when I woke up,” Alex said. “I saw Tamara heading toward the Mission Gate with Havoc. I went after her because I wanted to thank her for helping me out last night.” He straightened up. “I yelled after her, but she didn’t hear me. She headed outside, and it was already dark. I thought I saw something moving in the trees so I ran toward her. But I didn’t get there in time. Someone grabbed her. I wasn’t close enough to see his face, but it was definitely an adult. I sent magic after them, but he sent a huge bolt of something at me. It knocked me back, and by the time I could go after them, I lost their tracks in the woods.” Alex’s blue T-shirt was stained red where the bandages bunched under it, around his shoulder. He must have reopened the wound.

“I need you two to go after them with me,” he said. “Whoever that guy is, he’s powerful. I don’t think I could fight him on my own.” Aaron and Call exchanged a panicked look.

“We have to tell someone,” Aaron said.

“There isn’t time.” Alex shook his head wildly. “First, we’ll have to convince them we’re telling the truth and by then, anything could have happened to her.” Call remembered the terrible night when Aaron had been taken by Master Joseph and Drew. He remembered the horrible roiling chaos elemental. There hadn’t been time to tell anyone then, either. If they’d waited, Aaron would have died.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They raced after Alex toward the Mission Gate and spilled out into the night. Call was running as fast as he could, his leg screaming in pain.

“That way,” Alex panted, pointing toward a path that led through the woods. The moonlight illuminated it brightly. It was, kind of horribly, a beautiful night, full of stars and white light. Even the trees seemed to glow.

They dashed toward it, finally slowing down when the path turned into rocks and tree branches that made running dangerous. Call tried to imagine Tamara being shoved down this path by a terrifying adult mage, someone who was threatening her, maybe hurting her. Then he tried not to imagine it, as anger almost overwhelmed him.

“Havoc,” he said suddenly.

Alex, who was charging ahead as quickly as he could, turned slightly. “What?” “You said she was walking Havoc,” said Call. “Did the guy grab Havoc, too?” Alex shook his head. “Havoc ran off, into the woods.”

“Havoc wouldn’t do that,” Call said. “Havoc wouldn’t abandon her.”

“Maybe he’s following her,” Aaron said. “Havoc can be sneaky; he’s way smarter than a regular wolf.” “That’s probably what’s happening,” said Alex. “Don’t be scared, Call. We’re going to get this guy.” Call wasn’t scared. He scanned the landscape for Havoc. If his wolf was with Tamara, then surely they’d be able to get away. Tamara and Havoc made for a formidable team.

“You said it was an adult, right?” Call asked, ignoring Alex’s condescending remark. He was older than Call and probably thought he knew better. Maybe he did, but he didn’t know everything.

Call thought of where they’d come from. They’d left Anastasia and Alma with Chaos-ridden Jennifer, so it couldn’t be either of the women. They had a totally separate, totally weird crisis to deal with. Call couldn’t think of any other adult who’d been acting weird. Master Lemuel? Call hadn’t seen him in a year and it seemed uncharitable to suspect him just because they’d never really gotten along.

“Could it have been one of the Assembly members?” he asked. “But why grab Tamara?” The answer presented itself to him as soon as he said the words aloud.

To lure me out of the Magisterium.

“Why did you say it was the spy?” Call said. “We still don’t know who that is.” “Well, it stands to reason,” Alex said. “Who else would it be except someone who’s been trying to hurt you?” “Which means we’re walking into a trap,” Aaron said. “We’re going to have to be very careful and very quiet. Whoever it is knows we’re coming. He probably made sure you saw him. Can you do that thing that makes us invisible again?” “Good idea,” Alex said, lifting his hands. Air swirled around them, kicking up leaves.

Call frowned. That made sense — that it was the spy who’d taken Tamara, that he’d done it to get Alex to get them to leave the Magisterium. Kind of. It kind of made sense. But how did the spy know that Alex would go and get Aaron and Call instead of the Masters?

How would the spy know Alex was there at all?

That had an answer, though. The spy, or whoever it was, would know that taking Tamara and Havoc would bring Call and Aaron out of the Magisterium eventually. They’d come looking for their friend.

Though they could have brought all the mages of the Magisterium with them.

Come to think of it, Call didn’t remember seeing any evidence of a blast of magic being thrown outside. It was dark, but even in the dark, there was none of the telltale smell of ozone or burning wood.

He looked over at Alex and frowned. They were far from the Magisterium now, and it was increasingly dark. The woods pressed in from the sides and he couldn’t see Alex’s expression.

“This is the way to the Order of Disorder,” Aaron said, interrupting Call’s increasingly troubled thoughts. “It’s abandoned, though. Alma said they were forced to clear out when the Assembly started rounding up the animals.” “Maybe that’s where the spy is holding her.” Alex sounded excited, but not like this was a grand adventure and not like he was panicking about Tamara, either. There was an eagerness in his voice that Call didn’t like one bit.

The woods were deep and strangely empty without the Chaos-ridden animals, echoing with their absence. Occasionally, a distant owl called out. The wind was at their back, pushing them along. But Call’s steps had slowed to a shuffle.

Alex was his friend. When Call had first come to the Magisterium, Alex had been nice to him, even though Call was a surly little kid and Alex was smart and cool, with plenty of friends. And then Alex had talked to Call after Alex had gotten his heart broken by Kimiya. He’d really believed that Alex liked him.

But Alex had access. He was Master Rufus’s assistant. He could have gotten Call’s canteen and punched a hole in it. He would have had access to whatever Rufus did to make their wristbands open their common room door; he could have used that to hide Skelmis in Call’s bedroom. Could Anastasia have let him down into the chamber with the elementals when she went there? Call supposed she might have — after all, he was her stepson. Would she have noticed if he slipped away for a moment? And then, last year — he was the one who’d told Call that the mages had decided to kill Alastair, even though Master Rufus had told Call that had never been true.

But why would Alex do any of that? Call glanced at his impassive face as they moved through the silvery dark. They were almost at the village of the Order. Call could see the big clearing up ahead, the shadows of cottages.

He remembered Jennifer’s mouth moving and her last words: Kimiya, Kimiya, stay away from him. But who had Kimiya been near at the party? Who would she need to be warned away from?

Just her friends. And her boyfriend.

Alex. It didn’t make any sense. And yet. Something was still bothering him, had been bothering him since they’d first seen Alex in front of their door. Out of breath, looking panicked, with blood on his blue shirt.

Blue shirt. Cogs whirled in Call’s mind. The image of a ripped photograph, Drew standing with Master Joseph and someone else, someone who was wearing a blue shirt with distinctive black stripes down the shoulder seams.

“I’m cold,” Call said, suddenly. “Alex, can I borrow your hoodie?”

Alex looked puzzled. Aaron looked puzzled. Call wasn’t usually one for borrowing other people’s clothes. But Alex shrugged the hoodie off anyway, and handed it to Call.

Call stopped dead in his tracks. Alex’s blue shirt was striped with two black lines down the shoulders.

The other two boys stopped and looked back at him. Aaron’s expression was worried.

Alex’s wasn’t.

“Alex,” Call said, in as calm a voice as he could manage, “how did you know Drew?” Alex slowly raised his head. “What do you care?” he said. “You killed him.” Aaron stopped dead in his tracks. The wind howled through the branches of the trees all around them. “Why would you say that?” He looked from Call to Alex. “What’s going on?” “Alex is the one,” Call said. He felt numb inside. “He’s the spy.”

Alex took a step toward Call. Aaron flung a hand out, as if to stop Alex from coming any closer.

“Get away from Call,” he warned. “I’m a Makar, Alex. I could really hurt you.” But the older boy ignored him. “Drew was like my brother,” Alex said. “Master Joseph recruited me in my Copper Year. He needed a talented air mage. And there was no one more talented than I was. Until you two.” Call sucked in his breath.

“My father was old,” Alex said. “Barely even noticed when I got into the Magisterium. Joseph became my father. He taught me and Drew together. Gave us extra lessons. That’s why I was good enough to become Rufus’s assistant. And boy, did Joseph laugh when I told him that.” A grin split Alex’s handsome face. “Anastasia was harder to trick. But she fell for it, too, the good-stepson act. She was too busy faking that she cared about my father to pay attention to me.” His eyes burned. “Meanwhile, Joseph told me everything. He told me the truth about the Enemy of Death. He told me about you.” “So you’ve known who I was this whole time?” asked Call.

Alex barely seemed to hear him. “Do you know how ungrateful you are?” he said. “Joseph cares about you more than he cares about anything else. Both of you have power, but you, Call, you’re special. Do you know what it means to be special? Do you have any idea what you’re throwing away?” “If it means being like you,” Call said, “then I don’t want it.”

Alex’s face twisted. Aaron’s hand flashed protectively, fire already growing in his palm, but at that moment shadows exploded out of the woods on either side of them. Adults in black clothing, with black masks hiding their faces. Strong hands and arms seized Call and Aaron.

“March them to the village,” Alex said.

Call was shoved forward, stumbling. He and Aaron were pushed roughly down the path. He had no idea who was holding him — not a Chaos-ridden; Alex couldn’t control one.

Or could he? The greatest Makar of your generation.

No, if Alex was a chaos user, he would have bragged about it, Call was sure. It turned out that one didn’t have to have anything to do with chaos to have Evil Overlord aspirations.