فصل 9

Chapter 9

THE NEXT FEW days passed uneventfully. Call didn’t like their new rooms, which felt more like a hotel than a place that belonged to them. Books, papers, and new clothes were brought to them by the mages — every time Call passed their old door, he saw that it was closed with an iron bar. He tried his bracelet on the lock, but it didn’t accomplish anything. He didn’t like the fact that Miri was locked in there, and so far he hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask the mages to bring him his knife. Luckily, he’d managed to get Constantine Madden’s wristband out by virtue of wearing it above his own, shoved up under the sleeve of his uniform or his pajamas. He knew he should take it off, maybe even get rid of it, but he found that he was having a hard time with the idea of giving it up.

His dislike of the room got way worse when Tamara turned up a photograph, wedged under one corner of her bed. It was a picture of Drew, grinning at the person taking the picture, one arm slung around Master Joseph’s shoulders. Drew was young in the picture — maybe ten years old — and he didn’t look like the kind of person who could have tortured Aaron just for fun. And Master Joseph, in the photograph, looked like one of those older, professory dads who wanted their kids to read picture books in the original French. He didn’t look like a psycho who’d trained an even bigger psycho. He didn’t look like a guy who wanted to take over the world.

Call couldn’t stop looking at the photograph. It was ripped along one side, but an arm and part of a blue T-shirt showed there’d been another person with them. The shirt had black stripes on it. For a terrible moment, Call thought he might be looking at the arm of the Enemy of Death, before he remembered that Constantine Madden had to have died around the time Drew was born.

But it wasn’t just the newness of the room and the loss of Miri and the photograph that made Call uncomfortable. He didn’t like the way Master Rufus was looking at him nowadays either. He didn’t like the way that Tamara glanced nervously over her shoulder all the time. He didn’t like the new, worried frown line between Aaron’s eyebrows. And he especially didn’t like the way that none of his friends would let him out of their sight.

“Eight eyes are better than one,” Aaron said when Call told him that he wanted to go alone to walk Havoc.

“I have two eyes,” Call reminded him.

“Well, sure,” Aaron agreed. “It’s just a saying.”

“You’re just hoping to run into Celia, aren’t you?” Tamara asked, prompting Aaron to give Call another stern look.

Celia’s date with Jasper was that Friday and Aaron thought it would be the perfect opportunity to discover whether she was the spy. Tamara had managed to wheedle most of the details of the date out of Celia. It was going to be in the Gallery, and they were going to meet there at eight o’clock, after dinner, and watch a movie.

“Seems innocent,” Tamara said with a shrug as they sat at lunch, forking up lichen pasta.

“Well, of course it seems innocent,” said Aaron. “You wouldn’t expect her to make her evil intentions known this early.” He cast a glance toward Celia, who was giggling cheerfully with Rafe and Gwenda. Jasper was sitting with Kai and looked as if he was in the middle of an animated story.

“If it’s Celia, how did she manage to get hold of a giant elemental?” Call demanded. “Without it, you know, killing and eating her?” “Elementals don’t eat people,” said Tamara. “They absorb their energy.” Call paused for a moment. He was remembering Drew, who had been killed by a chaos elemental while Call had looked on in horror during Call’s first year. He remembered how Drew’s skin had turned blue and then gray, his eyes going empty.

“… seems weird,” Call heard Aaron say as he snapped out of his reverie.

“What’s weird?” Call asked.

“The way everyone’s looking at us,” Tamara answered in a low voice. “Have you noticed?” Call hadn’t. But now that Tamara mentioned it, he realized that people were staring at them — at Aaron, specifically. And not the way they usually stared at Aaron, with admiration, or with a sort of Look, there’s the Makar expression.

This was different. Eyes were narrowed, voices lowered. People were glancing at him suspiciously, whispering and pointing. It gave Call a queasy feeling in his stomach.

“What’s going on?” Aaron asked, bewildered. “Do I have something on my face?” “Do you really want to know?” said a voice above their heads.

Call looked up. It was Jasper. “Everyone’s talking about the elemental that almost ate Call —” “Elementals don’t eat people,” Tamara insisted, cutting him off.

Jasper shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. Anyway, people are saying Aaron was the one who summoned it. Somebody told somebody that they overheard you two fighting and everyone saw Aaron summon all those chaos creatures last summer …” Call gaped. “That’s ridiculous,” he said.

Aaron looked around the room. When he met other apprentices’ gazes, they looked away. Some of the Iron Years started giggling. One began to cry.

“Who’s saying that?” Aaron demanded, turning back to Jasper. His ears were pink and his expression was that of someone who wanted to be anywhere but where he was.

“Everyone,” Jasper said. “It’s a rumor. I guess because Makars are supposed to be unstable and everything, they figure you tried to kill Callum. I mean, some people think it’s understandable because Call is so annoying, but other people figure that there’s some kind of love triangle situation going on here with you two and Tamara.” “Jasper,” Tamara said in her firmest voice. “Tell people that’s not true.” “Which part?” Jasper asked.

“None of it is true!” Tamara said, her voice rising dramatically.

Jasper held up both his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fine. But you know how gossip is. No one is going to listen to me.” With that, he wheeled away from the table, back toward the food.

“Don’t listen to him,” Tamara said to Aaron. “He’s ridiculous and he gets mean when he’s scared. He’s probably nervous about his date and taking it out on you.” Maybe, Call thought, but something really was going on. People were definitely cheating looks in their direction. Call got up and chased after Jasper, catching his elbow as he’d reached a large pot of cinnamon-and-clove-smelling brown liquid.

“Jasper, wait,” he said. “You can’t just tell us all that and then walk away. Who started the rumor? Who’s making this stuff up? You’ve got to have a guess, at least.” The boy frowned. “Not me, if that’s what you’re implying — although I have to say, it got me thinking. Aaron told you two different stories about his past. That’s pretty suspicious. We have no idea where he came from, or who his family really is. He just shows up out of nowhere and then, boom! Makar.” “Aaron is a good person,” Call said. “Like, way better than either of us.” Jasper sighed. He wasn’t laughing or sneering or making any of his usual pompous expressions. “Don’t you think that’s suspicious?” he asked.

“No,” Call said, stomping back to the table. Fury boiled inside him. Jasper was an idiot. In fact, everyone in the room was an idiot except for him, Tamara, and Aaron. He flung himself down at their table. Tamara was leaning in to talk to Aaron, her hand on his shoulder.

“Fine,” Aaron was saying, his voice strained. “But I really think we should leave.” “What’s going on?” Call asked.

“I was just telling him not to let this get to him.” Tamara was flushed, red spots on both her brown cheeks. Call knew that meant she was furious.

“It’s ridiculous,” Call said. “It’ll blow over. Nobody can believe something this stupid for long.” But Aaron’s expression told Call that he wasn’t reassured. His green eyes were darting around the Refectory as if he half expected people to start throwing things at him.

“I’m going to go back to the room,” he said.

“Hold on there.” It was Alex Strike, his long, lanky form casting a shadow across their table. His Gold Year band gleamed as he held out his hand. In the center of his palm were three round, reddish stones. “These are for you.” “You want to play marbles?” Call guessed.

Alex’s mouth crinkled up into a smile. “They’re guide-stones,” he said. “The Masters are having a meeting tonight. You’re invited.” He wiggled his fingers. “One stone for each of you.” “We’re invited?” Aaron said as the three of them plucked the stones out of Alex’s hand. He looked nervous. “Why?” “Search me. I’m just the messenger.”

“So what do we do with these?” Call asked, examining his stone. Perfectly round and shiny, it did look a lot like a red marble. The big ones that you shot with.

“The Masters have been moving their meetings around to preserve security,” said Alex. “Unless you have one of these, you can’t find the room. The meeting starts at six — just let the stone take you where you’re supposed to go.” image

Six o’clock found the three of them sitting in their new common room with Havoc, staring at the stones in their hands. They were all dressed in their blue school uniforms; Aaron had polished his shoes and Tamara had her hair down, gold barrettes clipped above her ears. Call’s concession to fanciness was washing his face.

“Whoa!” Tamara said as her guide-stone lit up like a tiny Christmas light. Aaron’s followed, flickering, and then Call’s. They all stood.

“Havoc, stay here,” Call told his wolf. After the previous meeting with the Assembly, he didn’t want to give them any excuse to remember Havoc’s existence.

Out in the hall, Tamara was using her stone to navigate. When she turned in the wrong direction, the glow of the stone dimmed.

“Master Rufus should have given us one of these when we went into the tunnels,” Call said as they set off. “Instead of that vanishing map.” “I think that would have defeated the purpose of the lesson,” Aaron pointed out, folding his fingers over his stone so he didn’t have to keep squinting into its light. “You know, about finding your own way.” “Don’t be superior,” Tamara said, making an abrupt turn. All of their stones went to half-light.

“I think you, uh, missed the turn,” Call said, pointing backward, into the large room with an underground waterfall that the stone seemed to indicate they should be heading into.

“Come on,” she said, scrambling ahead, leaving Aaron and Call nothing to do but follow.

She ducked into the small entryway that led to a space with high ceilings and a small group of bats huddled together, making little nickering noises to one another. The whole room stank of them. Call pinched his nose.

“What are you doing, Tamara?” Aaron asked, voice low.

She hunched down and crawled into a tight passageway. Call and Aaron traded worried looks. It was dangerous to explore the caves without a map or a guide of some kind. There were deep pits and boiling lakes of mud, not to mention elementals.

Heading into the passageway after Tamara, Call really hoped she knew where she was going.

The rock was rough under his hands as he crawled along what seemed to be a naturally forming tunnel. It narrowed, and Call wasn’t sure they were going to fit through. His heart began to thud as their only light faded dimmer and dimmer. After a few tense minutes, the area opened up into an unfamiliar but not particularly dangerous-looking room. Their stones brightened.

“Are you going to explain what all of that was about?” Call demanded.

Tamara put her hands on her hips. “We have no idea who’s after you. It might be one of the Masters or someone who knows where the meeting is being held. We can’t go the direct route. There might be a trap. The whole point of stones like these is to make sure we can’t get lost.” “Oh, that’s smart,” Call said, trying to ignore the cold dread pooling in his stomach. He wanted to believe that whoever his enemy or enemies were, they weren’t the current Masters at the school. He wanted to believe it was just some sneaky minion of Master Joseph or some random miserable Makar-hating mage. Or maybe a student who Call had annoyed in a big way. Call knew he could be really annoying, especially when he was putting effort into it.

Call was still mulling it all over when they arrived at the room the Masters had chosen for the meeting. They were late and the session had already begun. A group of Masters in black sat around a semicircle of smoothly polished marble. A long, low marble bench ran across the outside of the semicircle, allowing the Masters to face the center of the room. The stalactites that hung from the ceiling ended in round pendant bulbs of clear stone, each one glowing with a yellowish light.

“Tamara, Aaron, and Call,” Master Rufus intoned as they filed into the room. “Please take your seats.” He indicated three heaps of jumbled polished rocks directly in front of the Masters’ table. Call stared. Were they supposed to sit on those? Wouldn’t the rocks just scatter, depositing them each onto the floor in an embarrassing pile?

But Tamara brushed past him confidently and sat on one of the rock heaps. She sank down slightly and crossed her arms, but the rocks didn’t scatter. Aaron followed and Call went after him, throwing himself down on a rock pile. The stones hissed and clattered as his weight displaced them, but it was like sitting in a chair made out of taffy, though less sticky — the rocks molded and reformed around him until he was sitting as comfortably as his leg would allow.

“Cool!” Call exclaimed. “We need one of these in our common room.”

“Call,” Rufus said darkly. Call had the feeling Master Rufus still thought he knew something he wasn’t saying. “Please restrain your commentary on the furniture; this is a meeting.” Really? I thought it was a party! Call wanted to say but didn’t. Definitely, there couldn’t have been less of a party atmosphere. Master North and Master Milagros flanked Rufus; Anastasia Tarquin, her steely silver hair piled on her head, sat near the end of the table, her dark gaze fixed on Call.

“What’s this about?” Aaron asked, looking around the room. “Are we in trouble?” “No,” said Master Milagros at the same time that Master North said, “Maybe,” and snorted.

“We’re just trying to reason out how this attack could have happened,” said Master Milagros with a sideways look in Anastasia’s direction. “We had so many safeguards in place. We know you’ve gone through what happened before, but can you tell us all one more time, for the record?” Call tried to tell them, tried to focus on details that might be helpful instead of the terror and helplessness he’d felt. Tamara and Aaron jumped in to explain their parts. Call made a particular point of highlighting how helpful Havoc had been, since he was still worried about the view the Assembly had taken on Chaos-ridden animals.

“Someone must be very determined. If anyone has an idea why, this would be a good time to tell us.” Master Rufus gave Call a stern look from across the table, as if urging him once more to confess. After Call had brought the Assembly the head of the Enemy of Death, he’d thought that his secret was safe, but now it felt closer to the surface than ever before. If only he could just tell them. If only they’d believe that Call was different from Constantine.

Call opened his mouth, but nothing came out. It was Tamara who answered. “We have no idea why anyone would want to hurt Call,” she said. “Call doesn’t have any enemies.” “I wouldn’t go that far,” Call muttered, and Tamara kicked him. Hard.

“There’s a rumor going around among the students,” Master Milagros said. “We hesitate to bring it up, but we need to hear it from you. Aaron, did you have anything to do with the elemental attack?” “Of course he didn’t!” Call yelled. This time Tamara wasn’t kicking him for sticking his oar in.

“We need to hear it from Aaron,” Master Milagros said gently.

Aaron looked down at his hands. “No, I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t hurt Call. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” “We believe you, Aaron. Callum is a Makar,” said Master Rockmaple, a short mage with a bristly red beard. Call hadn’t liked him at the Iron Trial, but he was glad Master Rockmaple believed Aaron. “There are any number of reasons those who oppose the Magisterium and what it stands for would attack a Makar. I think our primary concern should be discovering how a malicious elemental gained access to a student’s room and — more importantly — how we can make sure it never happens again.” Call looked over at Aaron. He was still studying his fingers, picking at the skin around his nails. For the first time, Call noticed that they were bit to the quick.

“It wasn’t just any elemental,” said Master Rufus. “It was one of the great elementals. One of those from our own holding cells. Its name was Skelmis.” Call thought about Automotones crashing through the house of one of his father’s friends a year before, eager to destroy Call. Automotones had been another of the great elementals. It was disturbing to think that someone had been trying to murder Call for more than a year and that they seemed to be able to harness the most powerful creatures in the Magisterium to do it. Call wondered if it could be one of the Masters after all. He looked around the table and shuddered.

“Now, we may need you three to answer questions about specifics,” said Master North. “And this may take some time. It is a formal inquest into Anastasia Tarquin and whether she was derelict in her responsibilities as the guardian of the elementals. Master Rockmaple will be recording our findings and sending them to the Assembly.” “I’ve already explained,” Anastasia said. She was dressed in her customary white suit, her icy hair held in place with ivory combs. White-gold rings shone on her fingers. Even her wristband was formed from a pale gray leather. The only color on her face came from her eyes, which were red-rimmed with sleeplessness and worry. “The elemental Skelmis must have been released before I put up the safeguards. There are only two spelled stones that open the vaults to the elementals. One remained around my throat. The other was in a magically sealed vault in my room — locked with three separate locks. I’ve carefully monitored everyone who’s come in and out. You’ve seen the notations. You’ve spoken with the guards. Blaming this on me because it gives you an excuse to push an Assembly representative out of the school doesn’t do any of us any good.” “So because you didn’t notice anyone coming in, no one must have come in? Is that what we’re supposed to believe?” Master North asked.

Anastasia stood, hands slamming down on the table, making Call jump. “If you intend to accuse me of something, just do it. Do you think I am in league with the Enemy’s forces? Do you think I intentionally brought harm to this boy and his friends?” “No, of course not,” Master North said, clearly taken aback. “I am not accusing you of anything deliberate. I’m saying that you can brag about your safeguards all you want, but they didn’t work.” “So you merely think me incompetent,” she said, her voice icy.

“Which would you prefer?” Master Rufus said, stepping in. “Because it’s one or the other. If Master North won’t say it, I will. It was your job to make sure no one released an elemental from the vaults beneath the Magisterium. And yet one got out and nearly killed a student, one of my apprentices. That’s on you, Tarquin, however you might not like it to be.” “It’s not possible,” she insisted. “I am telling you — I would never do anything to hurt Callum or Aaron. I would never let a student be put in danger.” Tamara gave a small snort at being left out of the declaration.

“And yet they were in grave danger,” Master Rufus said. “So help us discover what happened.” Anastasia slumped back down onto her stool. “Very well.” She reached around her neck and drew a chain from under her shirt. Hanging from it was a large cage … and inside the cage was a bronze key, its bow an alchemical symbol for a crucible. “When I took over guarding the way into the caverns of the deep elementals, I made sure the key never left my side.” “What about the other one?” Master North asked. “There are two keys. You said you locked the other up. Could anyone have stolen it and then returned it?” “That’s very unlikely,” Anastasia replied. “You would need to get past three separate locking spells to get into my safe. And the safe itself was brought here with my other possessions. Master Taisuke himself helped me sink it into the stone.” “What kind of locking spells?” Master Milagros asked.

Anastasia hesitated, then sighed. “I suppose I will have to change them now anyway, even though I judge it very unlikely that anyone could have done what you suggest. Fine. The first safeguard is a password, which must be spoken aloud. And no, I won’t tell it to you. I have told it to no one.” For a moment, she stared at her hands and her perfectly manicured nails. She was older than she seemed most of the time, older than Alastair, and in that moment, she looked it.

Then her head rose and her expression resumed some of its earlier sharpness. “The second is a clever little spell, triggered by the password. A hole appears in the safe, but were you to just stick your hand in, a snake elemental would strike, poisoning the robber with a lethal toxin. To bypass that, fire must be cast into the opening.” A small, wicked smile turned up a corner of her mouth.

“Cool,” Aaron said under his breath. Call agreed with him.

“And then, last, there is a final spell, created by me. You are the first people I have told of it and I am regretful that it must be replaced. Once fire is cast, nothing will change visually. At this point, you can reach through the hole so long as you move slowly. Should you jerk your hand out suddenly, alarms will sound and the vault will shut itself up again. However, there’s an illusion of a snake elemental coiling out of the opening and drawing back to strike, so the temptation to withdraw quickly is understandable.” For a moment, they all sat in silence. Call was pretty sure they were marveling over her security, but he thought they might also be marveling at her deviousness, because those were some pretty inventive locks.

“Now, are we finished? There’s something evil at work here in the Magisterium,” said Anastasia, head held high. “We all know it. It’s why I came. I suggest we find the source of it, rather than throw baseless accusations. Before it’s too late.” Master North turned to Call, Aaron, and Tamara. “We want you to understand that nothing like this has ever happened at the Magisterium before and we’re going to make sure it never happens again. You three are excused. We will continue on from here without you, but do not doubt that we will discover what happened.” It was clear that the mages might go on arguing all night, even though they had no actual leads on finding the spy. Call thought, suddenly, of Jericho Madden and how his death had been an accident — an experiment gone wrong. Was there an inquest after that? A lot of people uselessly pointing fingers at one another?

“I still believe that the safest thing would be to teach them,” Anastasia said, the edge in her voice unmistakable. “You may believe me derelict in my duties, but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t neglected yours as well.” “I do teach them,” Master Rufus said, turning his sternest look on her. “I teach them what they need to know.” “Ah,” she said, and it seemed clear that she was no longer upset because she was sure she had the upper hand. “So Aaron and Callum know that they have the power to remove a living soul from its body? They understand how to do it? What a relief, because I thought you were so terrified of their abilities that you were planning on keeping them in the dark, even if it got them killed.” “I have excused our students,” Master North said with unusual heat. “Tarquin, let them go. Defy me again and I will bar you from the school, no matter the Assembly’s orders.” Outside the meeting room, Call turned to Aaron and Tamara. Tamara raised her eyebrows in a gesture that seemed to capture how completely weird that meeting had been. Aaron shook his head. After walking a short way, they saw a familiar path, which was good, since it turned out the stones were only for a one-way journey and they would lead back to the meeting again and again.

Finally, Aaron spoke. “Good thing we got out of there before Jasper’s date. I was getting worried.” “You don’t really think that Celia’s the one, do you?” Call asked. “I mean, not really, right?” “I know you don’t want it to be her,” Aaron said, walking past moss that fluoresced blue when their breath touched it. “I know you think she’s your friend, but we’ve got to be careful. Celia did something odd around the time of both attacks. It could be coincidence. Or maybe not.” “So how is the date going to help?” Tamara asked. “Even if it is Celia, Jasper’s not a target.” “Jasper promised me that he’d say stuff about Call. If she takes the bait, then we’ll know.” Tamara rolled her eyes. She probably thought that Call wouldn’t notice in the dim light of the moss, but he did.

image

They arrived breathless at the Gallery, which was lit up for the night with spangled streamers of moss, glimmering blue and green. Students splashed in deep pools of water that glowed turquoise. Call remembered the first time he’d been there: Celia had invited him during their Iron Year, and it had been one of the first things about the Magisterium that he’d really liked. It had made him catch his breath and realize he was looking at stuff no ordinary person would ever see.

Now he looked around the place with more familiarity. He certainly recognized people — there was Alex, lounging in a corner with Tamara’s sister and another Gold Year girl. Gwenda and Rafe were jumping out of one of the pools of water, splashing each other. Kai was over by the glass tubes that dispensed fizzing candy, digging through a mountain of sweets with one hand and holding up a book with another.

“Look at me!” someone yelled. For a second Call thought he saw a skinny, brown-haired figure in a worn T-shirt, beckoning toward him. Someone whose eyes glowed black in a face that was too pale.

Drew.

Call blinked, and the vision resolved itself into Rafe, cannonballing into a pool. Water went everywhere. People clapped and cheered; Aaron leaned over and whispered to Call and Tamara, “There they are.” He pointed to where Jasper and Celia sat on a big overstuffed purple couch. Celia looked pretty in a pink dress, her hair tied up in a ponytail. Jasper looked like Jasper.

A stone bowl floated between them. Celia dipped her fingers in, and when she brought them out, they shone. She blew on them, and multicolored bubbles spiraled up toward the ceiling. She giggled.

“Ugh,” said Call. “Celia’s staring at Jasper with googly eyes. This is so weird. She doesn’t even like Jasper. Or at least if she does, she’s never mentioned it before.” “She’s leading him into her clutches,” said Aaron.

“You’re both idiots,” said Tamara, sounding resigned. “Come this way.” They crept around the big bar full of snacks and candy, keeping to the wall. It was dark; Call followed the light of Tamara’s glinting gold barrettes. When they emerged on the other side, they were behind the purple couch, much closer to Celia and Jasper. It was Jasper’s turn with the bowl, apparently. He gave Celia a meaningful look, then blew on his fingers. Bubbles in the shape of hearts rose into the air.

“Oh, gross,” said Call. “I’m going to puke.”

Tamara had to slap a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. “It’s a date,” she said when she’d stopped wheezing. “On dates, people are supposed to have fun.” “Or pretend to,” Aaron said, narrowing his eyes at Celia. He really seemed to think she might be guilty.

“How is staring at each other fun?” Call demanded.

“Okay,” Tamara said, giving both boys an unfathomable look. “If you two jokers were taking somebody out, what would you do?” Call watched Celia’s cheeks go pink as Jasper leaned in and said something to her. It was weird to watch. For one thing, it was bizarre to see Jasper be nice to someone. Usually, even when he was in his not-a-total-jerk guise, he had an edge to the stuff he said. But with Celia, he seemed like he was acting like a normal person.

And she seemed into him.

Which was totally unfair, since the only reason that Jasper even asked her out was to cover up what they’d really been doing in the library.

Come to think of it, Celia had always said that Call was overreacting when he talked about what a jerk Jasper was. Maybe she’d liked Jasper! Maybe she’d only been pretending to like Call to get closer to Jasper.

“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “Whatever she wanted to do.”

Call had forgotten the question that Aaron was answering. For a moment, Call kind of hoped Celia was the spy after all. It would serve Jasper right if she were.

Tamara poked Call in the shoulder. “Wow. You must really like her.”

“What? N-no!” he sputtered. “I was just lost in thought! About how Jasper is a total sucker.” Aaron nodded sagely. Jasper and Celia were dipping their fingers at the same time and blowing, causing illusions of butterflies and birds to fly up in the air. Both of them started to laugh, just before one of Jasper’s birds swooped down to eat one of Celia’s butterflies.

That was more like it! Call grinned. He wondered what would happen if he conjured the illusion of a cat to chase all the birds.

“You should just ask her out if you like her that much,” Tamara said slowly, thinking through her words carefully. “I mean, I think she’d forgive you if you explained.” “Explained what?” Aaron asked.

Call overheard Jasper start to complain to Celia about Fuzzball, Gwenda’s ferret. And even though Celia had told Call all about Jasper’s allergic reaction to Fuzzball last year, so Jasper had to know she knew, Celia still totally pretended this was new information. Jasper ate it up. He went on and on about the dumb ferret and how much he didn’t like it and she acted like she was fascinated.

Call wanted to scream.

“Ooh, look,” Celia said when Jasper had finally exhausted the ferret topic. “Alex Strike is starting up a movie. Do you want to go watch?” Alex was an air mage, and one of the ways he deployed his talent was to shift and shape colored air against the wall of the Gallery cave, creating the illusion of popular movies. Sometimes he changed the endings to amuse himself. Call had a clear memory of an Ewok and droid and ghost Darth Vader conga line in Alex’s version of Return of the Jedi.

Jasper took Celia’s hand and helped her off the couch. Together they went over to the west side of the room, where rows of low stools had been set up. They found two seats together just as the light in that part of the cave dimmed and the first scenes of a movie started to play against the wall.

“Here we go,” Aaron whispered. “She’s going to take advantage of the dark to knock him unconscious.” Call suddenly felt tired of the whole thing. “No, she’s not,” he said. “I’ve been alone with her dozens of times. If she’d wanted to hurt me, she could have. We should just give up on this. The only danger on this date is Jasper boring Celia to death.” “Or us being bored to death,” muttered Tamara. “Call’s right, Aaron. Jasper promised to grill her about Call, but I think we can safely say that he’s forgotten all about that.” Shapes moved against the wall, casting strange patterns of light. Call could see Alex sitting in the back, moving his hands slightly to make the images dance. From what Call could tell, the movie was a combination of Toy Story and Jurassic Park, with toys being chased across the screen by velociraptors.

“This is a dead end,” Call said. “But I have an idea of what we could do tonight.” That made Aaron look over in surprise. “What?”

“If someone went down into the elemental prison and freed Skelmis, then there are at least some witnesses. There have to be.” “The other elementals,” Tamara said, realizing what he meant instantly. “They’re imprisoned down there. They would have seen what happened.” “But wouldn’t the Assembly already have asked them?” said Aaron.

“Not necessarily,” said Call. “Most people are pretty afraid of elementals. They don’t think of them as creatures you can talk to. And they’re hard to fight off. But with two Makaris … and an elemental in a cage …” “It’s a crazy plan,” said Tamara, but her brown eyes were alight.

“Are you saying you don’t want to do it?” said Call.

“No,” said Tamara. “I’m just saying it’s a crazy plan. How would we get down there?” “Anastasia practically gave us the whole rundown on how to do it during the meeting,” said Call. “She said she keeps a key in her room, and one around her neck. All we have to do is get into her room when we know she isn’t there and grab the key.” “And the guards?” said Aaron. “What about the guards at the door?”

“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Call said. “The spy got in. There must be a way. And if we don’t do it tonight, she’s going to change all her locks. We won’t have this chance again.” Aaron gave Celia one last suspicious look and nodded his head. Together, they crept out into the hallway. As they started toward the area where the Masters’ rooms were, Call realized there were three complications to his plan. One, he wasn’t sure which room belonged to Anastasia Tarquin. Two, he didn’t have a way in. And three, once they were inside, they were going to have to guess her password.

How hard can it be? he asked himself. Her password was probably something completely obvious. Something they could figure out just from looking at her stuff.

And her room might be obvious, too. He glanced over at Tamara and Aaron. They seemed ready to be convinced that this was a plan that could work. Maybe they’d already thought of a way. And at least they were all doing something, not just waiting around for the spy to strike again.

Call sighed. If the Masters and the Assembly couldn’t be relied upon to solve this, then it was down to them.