فصل 5

Chapter 5

THERE WAS A loud explosion. “Everybody out!” barked Master Graves, who had climbed onto the War Room table. One of his hands was raised, and fire glimmered in his palm. “Now!” Master Rufus’s face was lined and haggard in the blue light. Call wondered if he’d known Jen Matsui, what it was like for him to see a student die. He’d been Constantine Madden’s teacher — he’d seen many students die. Call wondered if you got used to it. From Master Rufus’s expression, he guessed not.

Rufus raised his palm. Light shone from his fingers, illuminating a pathway to the doors. “Move,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. The other Masters and several of the Assembly members surged forward, helping to herd the panicking, weeping, and shouting guests out of the War Room.

People poured into the hallway and then into the great hall. Anastasia Tarquin was there with several Masters, including Master Taisuke. They began directing people toward the stairs that led out of the Collegium. Call saw Celia disappearing up the steps with her moms and wondered if she was okay. Alastair, who had a hand on Call’s shoulder, pushed him in that direction, gesturing for Aaron to follow.

Looking back, Call saw Tamara in some kind of intense conversation with her parents and the deWinters. Mrs. deWinter didn’t seem happy and neither did the Rajavis. Mr. deWinter’s expression was strange, though, like he was pleased and didn’t want to show it. The crowd parted around them as it moved toward the exit. Assembly members apparently didn’t have to follow orders.

“We didn’t even get to say good-bye to Tamara,” Call told his father.

“Not now,” his father said, pushing with more force. “We need to get out of here before —” “Alastair,” said Master Rufus. “Wait.”

Alastair paused. Call could sense him tensing with anger. He turned slowly, and so did Call and Aaron. The floating ropes had risen around them, cordoning off Aaron, Call, and Alastair.

“You can’t just leave,” said Master Milagros. “Call was attacked, and Jennifer murdered. Our apprentices need to be somewhere where we can keep them safe.” “Since you can’t even keep the children safe at a party, I think it’s a stretch to promise they’ll be safe anywhere else just because you’ll be there.” Alastair’s voice was cold.

“School begins in three days,” Master Rufus said. “I expect to see both the Makaris there and so does the Assembly. We will keep them safe — you’re going to have to trust us.” Alastair turned to Rufus, some of the rage Call remembered from the Iron Trial lighting his face.

“It’s been a long, long time since I trusted you, Rufus,” Alastair said. “And look what happened then.” His hand shot out, and the ropes surrounding them fell away to ash. Sparks curled between his fingers. Call looked at Aaron with wide eyes. “Let me know when you have found the person who did this, because until then I’ll trust you as far as I can throw you. Come on, boys.” Call and Aaron scrambled to follow Alastair as he stalked toward the staircase. Amazingly, people shifted aside to let him pass, even the members of the Assembly. Probably because everyone thought he was the person who’d chopped off Constantine Madden’s head and he looked about ready to chop off one of theirs.

Call and Aaron exchanged wide-eyed looks as Alastair dragged them toward the steps.

“Wait!” Tamara said, running up to them, pulling Jasper behind her like a tugboat. Her parents were still where she’d left them; they’d detached Alex from Kimiya and were comforting their daughter themselves. “I’m coming with you. We both are.” “What?” Jasper said. “No! I didn’t think you were serious. Your hot sister needs a shoulder to cry on. I volunteer myself. I would be much better at that than staying in whatever hovel Call and his weird dad —” Tamara kicked him savagely and he lapsed into a sullen silence.

Alastair regarded them both with surprise. “Well, you’re welcome, but I don’t think your parents would stand for it. I’ve know them for a long time and I’d be surprised if they agreed to let you out of their sight.” Tamara firmed her jaw, determination writ in every line of her face. “We have to take shifts watching over Call. I told them so and they agreed with me.” “Shifts?” Aaron said.

“Someone tried to kill Call,” said Tamara. “That means we can’t ever let him out of our sight. Someone has to be watching him constantly, twenty-four hours a day.” “Even when I’m sleeping?” Call asked.

Tamara fixed him with a gimlet eye. “Especially when you’re sleeping,” she said. “You’re defenseless then.” Call wasn’t thrilled about the plan. “What? No! I don’t want Jasper watching me sleep — that’s creepy. I don’t want anyone watching me sleep!” “We can discuss this later,” Alastair said. “If you want to come with us, Tamara, Jasper, we’re going now.” Call looked over at Aaron, but he wasn’t paying attention to the discussion. He was staring past them, down the hall at the War Room and beyond, where Jen’s body was floating. Call thought about their carefree summer of building robots and running through sprinklers and wondered if he’d been foolish to think that just because he’d tricked the mages into believing things had changed, they really had.

“Come on,” Tamara said to Aaron, touching him on the shoulder and pulling his attention back to the here and now. Call allowed himself to be herded by his father toward the stairs. They passed the drinks table, now overturned, where Jen had handed Call the note.

When Alastair got to the stairs, he lifted Call in the air, moving him to glide swiftly and easily just above the steps of the staircase. He did it in a distracted, effortless manner, the same way he’d burned away the velvet ropes, as though he wasn’t even really paying attention to what he was doing. Call was shocked. His dad had avoided using magic for so long that Call didn’t think he really remembered how.

They reached the top of the steps and Alastair set Call gently down. He began striding ahead of the four kids, along the jetty, back toward where the car was parked.

They had just passed the giant weird statue of Poseidon when Jasper noticed Alastair’s Rolls-Royce Phantom. He gave a long, appreciative whistle that ended abruptly — in a choking noise — when he realized that the car he was admiring belonged to Call’s father.

“Not what you expected?” Call asked as Alastair opened the door and ushered them into the spacious backseat.

For once, Jasper didn’t seem to have anything to say. They all piled silently into the car, Call crawling into the front seat beside his dad. As they pulled away from the boardwalk, Call looked back to see a group of mages standing at the edge of the ocean, near the Collegium entrance. As he watched, one of them walked into the water and disappeared.

“Water mages. They’re retrieving the girl’s body,” said Alastair in a grim tone.

Call looked away. It was hard to believe that cheerful Jen, who’d teased him when she handed him the message, who Jasper had wanted to meet, was dead. The evening was supposed to honor the end of the war and somehow that made everything that had happened that much more grotesque. But could there ever really be peace, Call thought, when the Enemy of Death wasn’t dead?

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Somehow, back at the house, Alastair found enough pillows and blankets for all of them. Aaron abdicated his military cot so Tamara could move it into the den, because he was like that. Jasper claimed the couch, though he complained bitterly that it didn’t fold out, and accused Havoc of giving the couch fleas. Call, who knew perfectly well that Havoc was flea-free, was back to hating Jasper. Aaron took a pile of blankets, made a makeshift bed on the floor at the foot of Call’s, and went to sleep.

Call was almost asleep himself when there was a knock on his door. It was Tamara, looking faintly embarrassed. “Do you have anything I could sleep in?” she asked. “All I have is this” — she indicated her floaty dress — “and, yeah, I probably shouldn’t …” Call realized he was blushing. He wished it could be totally uncomplicated, having a girl best friend. It should be just like it was with Aaron. It shouldn’t matter that Tamara was a girl. Still, he felt clumsy and stupid as he fished around in his T-shirt drawer until he found an oversize shirt that read WELCOME TO THE LURAY CAVERNS on it in Day-Glo yellow. He handed it over silently.

“Thanks,” Tamara said. “I’ll wash it and give it back to you —”

“That’s fine, you can keep it —”

“— And, Call?”

“I mean, I’ve never worn it anyway, it’s too big, and —”

“Call,” Tamara said, again, looking at him with big, serious eyes. “We’re going to keep you safe, okay?” Call wished he could believe it. “Okay,” he said.

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They sat out in the yard the next day, Tamara back in her yellow dress, Jasper in a strange combination of Call’s clothes and his own. It was brightly sunny, and Alastair had made them lemonade out of powder, which Tamara was giving the fisheye. Call suspected she didn’t drink a lot of reconstituted things. Jasper was looking around haughtily at Call’s small backyard and slightly overgrown grass.

Not that Alastair seemed to notice. He was seated on a rock, tinkering with a broken alarm clock. Even though there were digital alarm clocks and cell phones nowadays, people would pay decent money for old-fashioned phones and other gadgets that had been fixed up to run well.

“So what does it mean?” said Tamara. “If someone’s trying to hurt Call because he’s the …” She swallowed.

“Enemy of Death?” Jasper volunteered.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go around saying ‘Enemy of Death’ a lot,” said Aaron. “We should come up with a code name. Like Captain Fishface.” Havoc barked. Call agreed with him that the name sucked. “Why Captain Fishface?” “Well, you have a fishy look,” said Jasper. “Plus, no one would ever guess what we meant because there’s nothing scary about it.” “Fine, whatever,” said Tamara, sounding as if she thought the whole thing was a waste of time. “So who might know Call is Captain Fishface?” “I refuse to be called that!” Call said. “Especially in light of recent events.” Tamara groaned as though this conversation was tormenting her even more than it was tormenting Call. “Okay, what do you want to be called?” “How about Commander Pinhead?” Aaron asked. Jasper laughed, spitting out his lemonade.

Call put his head in his hands and took a deep breath, drinking in the smells of summer — the perfume of warm earth, cut grass, and machine oil. There was no winning. He was going to wind up with a dumb name no matter what. “Captain Fishface is fine.” “Good,” Tamara said, rolling her eyes. “Now can we talk about who might know about Call?” “His father,” Jasper said, and they all glanced at Alastair, who seemed oblivious. He was whistling a jaunty tune in a slightly off-key manner.

“My dad is not trying to kill me,” Call said. A year ago, he hadn’t been so sure of that, but he was sure now. “And I don’t think any of you are, either. Even you, Jasper. Who else?” “Did any of us tell anyone?” Tamara asked, looking around at them.

“Who would I tell?” Jasper asked, and then blanched at their prolonged stares. “No! Okay? I didn’t tell anyone! It’s too big a secret, and I would get in trouble, too.” “Me neither,” Aaron said.

Tamara sighed. “I didn’t. But I thought I’d better ask. Okay, so then there’s Master Joseph. He’s got to be pretty mad at Call.” “I thought he needed Call,” said Jasper. “Isn’t Captain Fishface, like, his whole reason for being?” Aaron grinned. “I think he hoped that either Call would be a lot more obedient than he is or that he could use Call to bring back Captain Fishface with all his memories intact.” Call, who thought pretty much the same thing, shuddered. “He might blame me for Drew’s death.” “He probably blames me, too,” said Aaron. “If it makes you feel any better.” Drew was Master Joseph’s son. He’d gone to the Magisterium, pretending to be a regular student, but his real reason for being there had been to get close to Call. Drew had even helped his father kidnap Aaron and then swung him over a cage with a chaos elemental inside. The same chaos elemental that, ironically, wound up killing Drew. But Call had to admit that he’d had something to do with it as well. “Okay,” Tamara said. “Top of our suspect list — Master Joseph.” Call shook his head. “I don’t know. If he is out to get me, why not use the Alkahest? And, well, I just don’t think he’s ready to give up yet. He tried to save my life back in the tomb. I think he’s still got hope that I am going to turn out … more like Captain Fishface.” “What about Warren?” Aaron asked. They all just stared at him for a long moment.

Call looked at him the way that Tamara had looked at her lemonade. “You think a lizard is trying to kill me? And he faked a note from Celia?” “He’s an elemental! And he was in the service of the Devoured who gave us that creepy prophecy.” Aaron sighed. “Okay, it was a pretty out-there theory.” “It’s okay,” Tamara said. “We have to think outside the box. No matter how unlikely, we’ve got to put all our ideas on the table. Or at least on this stretch of grass.” “We don’t have any suspects,” Call said. “We don’t have any ideas. We don’t even know why I was being targeted. Maybe it was because I’m a Makar. Maybe it had nothing to do with being Captain Fishface. Maybe the person who tried to smoosh me with a chandelier was the same person who let out Automotones to kill all of us.” “That’s what the mages are going to assume.” Tamara sighed. “I guess it could be true.” “We’re just going to have to stick together,” said Aaron, smiling up at the blue sky. “And we’re going to figure this out. We’re heroes, right? We’ve got medals. We can do this.” Eventually, Call got out a pack of cards and they played a couple of rounds of a game that involved slapping one another’s hands. They talked about going back to the Magisterium and what they hoped to accomplish that year. Havoc chased several bees, snapping at them until they buzzed lazily out of his reach. As the afternoon wore on, Stebbins arrived with suitcases for Tamara and a message from her parents that could only be delivered in private. Jasper called home on one of Alastair’s restored chrome candlestick landline phones and then glumly reported that his family would send his things directly to the Magisterium. Call wondered if he’d tried to convince them to rescind permission for him to be there. Call wondered if his parents had forced him to come along in the first place and then quickly pushed away the thought.

“What are you looking at?” Jasper asked him gruffly when he noticed Call staring in his direction.

“Nothing,” Call said. The last person he needed to be worrying about was Jasper.

That night, Alastair grilled steak and they ate it outside, on paper plates, along with buttered corn, snap peas, and cold slices of watermelon. Tamara threw watermelon at Aaron, who got seeds down his shirt. Havoc stood on top of Jasper when Jasper refused to give him a piece of steak. They took turns seeing who could make the sparks above the banked coals on the grill dance. It was almost like a party, except for the specter of Jen’s death, which kept them from laughing too loudly or forgetting for too long that they could be next.

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Two days later, Alastair drove them all to the Magisterium. Call sat in the front seat, gazing out the window, while Aaron dozed in the backseat. Tamara was listening to music on her phone and Jasper was reading the most recent comic book he’d found in Call’s room and gotten obsessed with. Havoc was stretched out across their laps, dead asleep.

“You let me know if you want to come home,” Alastair said to Call for what must have been the millionth time. “You’ve done enough. You know plenty of magic — enough to control your abilities. You don’t need the Magisterium.” Call remembered the way Graves had insisted that Master Rufus give the Assembly updates on how Call and Aaron were doing. He remembered all the references to countries where mages with the ability to control chaos were killed or had their magic bound — even though the party was supposed to be in their honor. While Constantine Madden had been alive, Makaris were awesome. They were desperately needed weapons. They meant the end of the war. But with Constantine Madden dead, Aaron and Call were just a reminder of that war and how it could happen again. Call doubted he would be allowed to quit attending the Magisterium, no matter what Alastair thought.

“It’s okay, Dad,” Call said. “I’ll be fine.”

As they neared the Magisterium, the roads grew narrower and more winding. They were completely unmarked: Only those who knew where the Magisterium was could find it. Call had often wondered what magic kept hikers and ordinary townspeople from nearby from happening across it. Something advanced, he guessed. Something to do with the earth. The trees grew thick along the sides of the road. Call couldn’t help thinking about the Order of Disorder — it was clear that the Assembly knew about them and tolerated them, but he couldn’t quite figure out why.

There was a beeping sound up ahead, bringing Call’s attention back to the road. They pulled up into a clearing, where a school bus had already arrived. Students were pouring out of it, carrying suitcases and duffel bags. The main gate of the school was open: Call could see mages in their somber black, and various students already wearing their uniforms — red, white, blue, green, and gray — mixing with kids who had just arrived and were still wearing jeans and T-shirts.

Aaron woke up and he and Jasper and Tamara started poking one another, leaning out the windows as they recognized friends from previous years — Celia threw them a guarded smile as she headed through the gates with Gwenda, who was in her apprentice group with Jasper. Alex Strike was talking to Anastasia Tarquin, who had pulled up next to the school bus in a white Mercedes. Call had seen the car before: She’d picked up Alex from the Rajavis’ last year. Call had nearly forgotten: Anastasia Tarquin was Alex’s stepmother.

Anastasia emerged from the car, looking elegant, as usual, in a white pantsuit. Alex was gesturing at her, looking annoyed, as a black van pulled up beside them. The back opened and two muscular young men leaped out, much to the delight of quite a few of the students of the Magisterium. They began carrying large pieces of furniture through the gates — a desk, a lamp, an immaculately white sofa.

“What’s going on there?” Alastair wondered aloud as they all piled out of the Rolls. Call stretched to get the kinks out of his muscles. So did Havoc.

“The Assembly posted Anastasia at the school to keep an eye on things,” said Alex, who had abandoned his stepmother to come say hello. He high-fived Call and Aaron, and smiled at Tamara. “She’s moving into Master Lemuel’s old office. She takes this stuff really seriously and, well, she also overpacks.” “Is she going to be looking for the spy?” Alastair asked.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking about that,” said Alex, looking over at Jasper worriedly. “I mean, no one is supposed to know.” Alastair raised his eyebrows. “Good thing she’s being so discreet.”

Alex looked back at his stepmother, who was supervising the carrying of several large steamer trunks into the caves. They were covered with old-fashioned stamps from faraway places — Mexico, Italy, Australia, the French Riviera, Provence, Cornwall. “She’s got a cover story about making sure everything goes smoothly ridding Chaos-ridden animals from the forest.” Call put one hand on Havoc’s back in what he hoped would be a reassuring manner. Havoc looked up at him, tail beginning to wag. A wave of anger passed through Call at the idea that anyone would want to hurt Havoc.

They better not, he thought.

Alastair turned to Call. “If you change your mind, you know how to get ahold of me,” he said, then hugged Call tightly — a little too tightly, actually, making Call worry for his ribs.

“Bye, Dad,” Call squeaked. Even if he had been squeezed a little too hard, this was the first time his father was okay with his attending the Magisterium. It was a great feeling.

Tamara had gone over and found Kimiya and was laughing with her. Jasper had headed toward Celia and Gwenda. Only Aaron had waited for Call. He gave him a slanted smile and Call wondered how hard it was for Aaron to be around other people’s families all the time.

“Give me that,” Aaron said, slinging Call’s duffel bag over his shoulders and lifting his own luggage in his other hand. He started toward the school, seemingly not even weighed down a little bit by what he was carrying. Call walked behind him, stiff-legged from the trip, and thought about all the ways that life wasn’t fair.

The caverns were humid but cool. Water dripped down from the jagged icicle stalactites to the melted-candle stalagmites below them. Sheets of gypsum hung from the ceiling, resembling banners and streamers from some long-forgotten party. Call walked past it all, past the damp flowstone and the pools shining with mica, where pale fish darted. He was so used to it that he no longer found it to be particularly creepy. It was just the place he went to school, as familiar to him now as the bang of metal lockers and the squeak of his sneakers on the gymnasium floor had been three years ago.

He wondered if they’d spot Warren, potential assassin, and if he’d have something creepy to say to them, but the little lizard was nowhere to be seen.

Call used his wristband, with all its new stones, to wave his way into their rooms. Aaron set down Call’s luggage on their couch with a groan that made Call feel a little better about his own abilities and a little more guilty about Aaron’s generosity. The room looked smaller than it had the year before and it took him a moment to realize it was because he’d grown, not because the room had shrunk.

The door opened and Tamara marched in, dragging her suitcases behind her. “I didn’t know where you two had gone! You just wandered off!” she announced. Which was completely unfair, because she was the one who had wandered off, Call thought. She turned to Aaron. “And you know we’re not supposed to leave Call alone!” “I didn’t,” Aaron pointed out.

“Hmph,” Tamara said before she stomped into her room. Call went off to his bedroom, which felt cold and dusty and unused, the way it always did at the beginning of a school year. He flung his suitcase open and put on his uniform — blue for third year. He snapped his cuff shut and looked at himself in the mirror on the wardrobe. There was a time when he’d been short enough that he could see himself completely in the glass; now his head passed the top of the frame and he had to crouch.

He went out into the common room and found Aaron and Tamara waiting in their uniforms. After promising Havoc some leftovers, they trooped off to the Refectory for dinner. Everyone but the Iron Year students — who were coming from their Trials and usually got to eat in their rooms — were settling in to their old tables and choosing from among the culinary options. Tonight’s menu was a purplish mash, large mushrooms cut up so they seemed almost like slices of bread and slathered with some yellow paste, and three kinds of lichen — bright green, brown, and dark red. Call piled everything on his plate, along with a cup of liquid with a thin film of algae on it.

It was creepy how delicious the lichen was to Call. He forked it into his mouth like a starving man and wondered if it was possible for the lichen to have some sinister purpose. Like brainwash him into eating so much of it that he would become an entirely lichen-based life-form. Was that a thing that could happen? He gave his next forkful a long, suspicious look before shoving it into his face.

Jasper sat down next to Call, as though they were friends or something. “So, what’s the plan?” “What are you talking about?” Call asked.

“Oh, never mind,” Jasper said with a roll of his eyes, then turned to Tamara. “I don’t know why I even bothered asking him. What’s the plan?” “We can’t talk here,” she said, leaning in and dropping her voice. Call couldn’t help noticing that the cut under her eye was still visible, a thin scabbed line. Every time he saw it, he thought of her fingers on his jacket, pulling him to safety. He thought of what he owed her.

He owed all his friends so much. He didn’t know how he’d ever pay them back.

Aaron, who’d been talking to Rafe, another Bronze Year student, about the robots he and Call had built over the summer, seemed to notice something important was going on and broke off his conversation to join theirs.

“Tomorrow,” Tamara said. “After dinner, let’s meet in the library. We can discuss then.” “What are we talking about?” Celia asked, sitting down across from Call, her plate full of purple mush. “Is something going on?” “No!” Aaron and Jasper said at the same time.

“Sure, that’s not suspicious or anything.” She stood back up. “If you didn’t want me to sit here, you just had to say so. I’ll go somewhere else —” Call sprang to his feet. “Don’t,” he said before he could think of how to persuade her to stay. “We were just talking about the Gallery. But we hadn’t decided to go. But I mean, we could. Go, that is.” “Are you asking me to go to the Gallery with you?” Celia inquired, her expression unreadable. The Gallery was where two people went when they were on … A date. She is talking about a date. She thinks I am asking her on a date.

“I … don’t know?” Call stammered.

“Well, maybe you should figure it out,” Celia said, tossing her blond hair and stalking off to sit with Rafe, Kai, and Gwenda.

“The gauntlet is in your court, buddy,” Jasper announced the moment she was out of earshot.

“You’re mixing your metaphors,” said Call. “It gives me a headache.”

“Can we talk about saving Call’s actual life instead of saving his love life?” said Tamara, looking fed up. “Until tomorrow night, one of us stays with Call at all times. It’ll probably have to be either me or Aaron because if it’s you, Jasper, everyone will think it’s weird, since you don’t like Call.” “Sure he does,” said Aaron, looking surprised. “We’re all friends.”

“Whatever,” said Tamara. “Tomorrow, after dinner, library. Bring some good ideas.” She glanced over. “Alex Strike is gesturing at me. I’ll be right back.” She stood up and caught hold of Aaron’s sleeve. “Come on. He probably wants to say hi to you, too.” “What —?” Aaron began as he was yanked off his feet and tugged toward the table where Alex, Kimiya, and their other Gold Year friends were sitting. They seemed like a somber group. Call couldn’t blame them. Losing a friend like that — “So do you like Celia or not?” Jasper asked, gnawing a piece of lichen. He had gotten a new slick-looking haircut before the awards ceremony, and a piece of dark hair fell into his eyes.

“How is that your business?” Call asked.

“Maybe I’ll ask her out,” said Jasper. “Did you ever think of that?”

Call hadn’t. He goggled. “Do what you want,” he said finally.

“I guess you don’t care.” Jasper’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Maybe because you like Tamara?” “Jasper —”

“Do you? Like Tamara?”

“She’s my best friend,” Call said between his teeth.

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Jasper twirled his fork between his fingers. “People like each other all the time in apprentice groups. Look at Kimiya and Alex Strike. Or, you know, me and Celia. You could totally like Tamara —” “What does it matter?” Call exploded, to his own surprise. He glared at Jasper, and in a low voice said, “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter. She’ll always like Aaron better.” Jasper’s eyes widened. “Whoa,” he said. “Looks like I hit on an awkward truth there.” Call’s head was swimming. Dimly, through the crowd, he could see Aaron and Tamara coming toward them. They were laughing together, like they always did.

“What I just said” — Call looked at Jasper — “don’t repeat it.”

Jasper leaned back in his chair. “Don’t worry, Callum,” he said with a sneer. “I keep all your secrets.”