فصل 11

Chapter 11

HAVOC, QUIET! SHHHHHH!” Call said, but the wolf kept on barking, shoving his snout into the gap between the barn doors and scratching the wood with his paws.

“What do you see, boy?” Aaron asked. “Is there something out there?”

Tamara took a step toward the wolf. “Maybe your dad came back.”

Call’s heart gave a wild thump. He ran to the door that Havoc was nosing at and pulled it back, opening the barn to the cold air outside.

Havoc darted past him. The night was quiet. The moon was a sliver in the sky. Call had to squint to see his wolf dart across the trampled grass toward the lines of wrecked cars, looking humped and unnatural in the darkness.

“What’s that?” It was Jasper, his voice a scared whisper, pointing. Aaron stepped forward; they were all crowding around Call now, in front of the open barn door. Call looked where Jasper was pointing. At first he saw nothing; then, staring harder, he caught sight of something slipping around the side of one of the cars.

Tamara gasped. The thing was rising, seeming to grow from moment to moment, swelling right before them. It gleamed under the moon — a monster made of slick metal, dark and wet-looking, as if its surface were rubbed with oil. Its eyes were like two massive headlights, flashing in the darkness. And its mouth — Call goggled as its massive jaw unhinged, lined with rows of sharklike metal teeth, and then closed on the hood of an ancient Citroën.

The car made a horrible crunching sound. The creature threw its head back, swallowing. It bulged outward as the car disappeared into its vast maw. A moment later the car was gone and the creature seemed to grow more gigantic.

“It’s an elemental,” Tamara said nervously. “Metal. It must be drawing power from all those cars and junk.” “We should get out of here before it notices us,” Jasper said.

“Coward,” Call chided. “It’s an elemental on the loose. Isn’t dealing with it our job?” Jasper threw his shoulders back and glared. “Look, that thing has nothing to do with us. We’re supposed to defend people, but I don’t want to die defending your dad’s hoarding. He’ll be better off without all these cars — if he’s not executed for being in league with the Enemy, which is a big if — and we’ll be better off out of here!” “Shut up,” Aaron said. “Just shut up.” His hand rose from his side. The metal on his wristband glowed. Call could see what looked like a shadow starting to rise from his palm, half enveloping his hand.

“Stop!” Tamara grabbed Aaron’s wrist. “You haven’t been taught to use the void properly. And the elemental’s too big. Think of the size of the hole you’d have to open to get rid of it —” Now Aaron looked angry. “Tamara —”

“Uh, guys,” Jasper interrupted. “I get that you’re arguing, but I think it just noticed us.” Jasper was right. The headlight eyes were gleaming in their direction. Tamara let go of Aaron as the creature began to move. Then, unexpectedly, she whirled on Call.

“What are we supposed to do?” she demanded.

Call was too surprised to be asked for instructions to answer. Which was fine, because Aaron was already talking. “We have to get to Mrs. Tisdale and protect her. If that thing has just stumbled on this place, then maybe it will eat some cars and go in peace. But if it doesn’t, we have to be ready.” “Metal elementals are rare,” Jasper said, grabbing up Tamara’s pack. “I don’t know a lot about them, but I know they don’t like fire. If it starts coming for us, I’ll throw up a fire screen. Okay?” “I can do that,” Tamara snapped.

“It doesn’t matter who does it!” Aaron said, exasperated. “Now come on!” They all started to run toward the farmhouse, Call lagging slightly behind, not just because his leg was hurting but also because he was worried about Havoc. He wanted to call out to him, make sure his wolf was safe, but he was worried it would call the elemental’s attention. And he wasn’t sure he could outrun it if it came to that. Already, Tamara, Aaron, and Jasper were outpacing him.

The creature was still moving, sometimes half-hidden by cars, sometimes horribly clear. It wasn’t moving fast, more like a cat stalking its prey. Slowly it came, growing with each mouthful of metal it took.

As Call got closer to Mrs. Tisdale’s house, he realized that something was wrong. Light was spilling out of the farmhouse, not just from the windows but also from the whole front. The door and part of the wall was missing. Wires and wood hung in the gaping hole that remained.

Aaron ran up the steps first. “Mrs. Tisdale!” he called. “Mrs. Tisdale, are you all right?” Call followed, leg aching. The furniture was knocked over, a coffee table splintered. A love seat was on fire, flames rising from a blackened corner. Mrs. Tisdale lay on the floor, a terrible gash across her chest. Blood soaked the rug under her. Call stared in horror. Mixed in with the blood were gleaming bits of metal.

Aaron dropped to his knees. “Mrs. Tisdale?”

Her eyes were open, but she didn’t seem to be able to focus her gaze. “Children,” she said in a whispery, awful voice. “Children, they’re after you.” Call remembered a little bit about healing magic. He’d seen Alex use it to heal Drew’s broken ankle once, drawing up binding and healing powers from the earth. He bent down next to Aaron, trying to summon up what he could. If he could heal her, then maybe his magic was good for more than Alastair thought. Maybe he was good for more than Alastair thought.

Maybe he was good.

Pressing his fingers gently over her collarbone, he directed energy into her. He tried to feel it coming up from the ground, tried to think of himself as a conduit. But after a moment, she pushed his hand away.

“It’s too late for that,” Mrs. Tisdale said. “You’re the ones who can still get away. You need to run. Call, I was there the night you thought you lost Havoc. I was the one who chained him up. I know what’s at stake.” Call pulled back from her, reeling.

“What is she talking about?” Tamara asked. “What are you talking about, Mrs. Tisdale?” “It’s just an elemental,” Aaron said. “We can get rid of it. We can help you.” He looked up wildly at Tamara and Jasper. “Maybe we should call for help from the Magisterium —” “No!” the old woman gasped. “Don’t you know what that creature is? Its name is Automotones — it is an ancient and terrible monster — it was captured by the mages of the Magisterium hundreds of years ago.” Blood had appeared at the corners of her mouth. She drew a ragged breath. “If it is here now, it’s because those — those — mages released it to hunt you down. To kill you!” With a shudder, Call remembered Master Rufus’s lecture on the elementals trapped beneath the Magisterium. How terrifying they were. How unstoppable.

“To hunt Alastair down, you mean?” Jasper asked.

“It broke into this house,” she hissed. “It demanded that I tell it where you were. Not Alastair. You four.” Her eyes fixed on Aaron. “You had better run, Makar.” Aaron’s face had gone blank with shock. “Run from the Magisterium? Not the Enemy?” Her mouth curved up into a strange smile. “You can never outrun the Enemy of Death, Aaron Stewart,” she said, and though she seemed to be speaking to Aaron, she was looking at Call. He stared back at her as her eyes went blank.

“Look out!” Tamara screamed.

The metal monster — Automotones — lurched into the house through the broken wall. It was truly huge now. It smashed upward with its flat, manhole-size hands, ripping away at the ceiling, tearing a hole between the upstairs and the bottom floor to clear a space for itself. Call yelped and fell sideways, narrowly missing being smashed by a falling dresser. The piece of furniture broke open on the floor, scattering clothes.

Suddenly a sheet of fire appeared, like a living wall of flame, scorching the floor and igniting what was left of the ceiling. Jasper was holding the fire in place with obvious effort as Automotones roared and snapped.

“Go,” Jasper said to Call. “Run! I’ll follow.”

Call felt bad about having called him a coward. Pushing himself up from the floor, he staggered toward the back of the house.

Aaron and Tamara followed. Tamara had summoned a ball of fire, which glowed in her hand. She whipped her head back, braids flying, toward where Jasper stood.

“Come on, Jasper,” Aaron called. “Now!”

Jasper released his wall of fire and ran toward them, the metal elemental racing after. Tamara threw her summoned flame at the monster’s maw as Jasper staggered out onto the lawn with Call.

Jasper was clearly exhausted from the effort he’d put out raising the fire screen. He made it a few feet onto the lawn and then collapsed. Call took a step toward him but had no idea what to do. There was no way he could carry Jasper and run; he could barely run without the weight of a whole extra person on his shoulders.

Tamara ran over the lawn, Aaron just behind her. Behind them came Automotones. Rearing and clawing as the flames boiled around it — Jasper’s fire had clearly caught some of the furniture alight, and now the curtains and probably the walls were burning. The whole farmhouse was going to go up like a torch.

“Jasper!” Call reached for Jasper’s arm and tried to at least pull him upright. Jasper made it onto his knees and then let out a yowl of terror. Call spun around and saw the metal elemental rising up over them, blotting out the sliver of moon. Its hands were reaching down. They looked like huge metal crab pincers, about to close on Call and Jasper, about to slice them in half.

Call remembered being in his father’s awful workroom the past summer, remembered the rage he felt and how he’d looked at Alastair and just pushed. Now he tried to summon up all the rage and fear and awfulness he was holding inside and push it at Automotones.

The monster flew back, emitting a noise that sounded like a rusty car being pulled apart. The noise turned to a raging growl as Automotones turned toward Tamara and Aaron. Aaron stepped in front of Tamara, raising his hand, but the monster swept him out of the way as if he were a pesky fly, and grabbed for Tamara, lifting her up into the air.

“Tamara!” Call started to run toward the elemental, forgetting for a second that it was terrifying, that it was huge, that it was deadly. In his mind he saw the metal pincer closing around Tamara, crushing her in its grasp. He was vaguely aware that Aaron was running and yelling, too, that Tamara was struggling but silent in the creature’s claw. All of a sudden, Automotones gave a lurch and a stumble. Tamara pulled free, tumbling onto the grass.

The elemental writhed around, and Call saw that Havoc had leaped onto its back, his Chaos-ridden claws sinking into the metal skin, teeth tearing. The noise of ripping metal filled the night.

But the creature shook itself, and Havoc lost his balance, legs scrabbling desperately at the air. He was holding on by his teeth and then wasn’t holding on at all. He flew toward the house, toward the fire, whimpering as he fell.

Summoning air, heedless of the elemental or the fight, Call focused on his wolf. He concentrated on forming a soft cushion of circling wind to catch Havoc. Dimly, he heard the creature screeching close to him; dimly, he understood that he was putting the rest of them in danger to make sure his pet was unharmed, but he didn’t care.

Havoc fell into Call’s air magic as if it were a net, bouncing a little, his paws flailing, his coruscating eyes wide. Slowly, Call lowered the wolf to the ground, carefully, carefully — That was when the elemental hit him. It felt like being smashed by a giant wave. He heard Tamara yell his name and then he was flying backward, hitting the ground with enough force to send a shock wave through his body. He rolled over, spitting out dirt and grass, and saw the metal elemental looming over him. It looked enormous, as big as the sky its body blotted out. Call struggled to get to his feet, his bad leg wobbling, but fell back into the grass. In the distance, he could see Tamara running toward them, ropes of fire swinging from her hands, but he knew she was too far away to get to him in time. Automotones was already swaying down toward him, its toothy jaws wide.

Call clutched at the dirt, trying to reach into it, to summon up earth magic, but there was no time. He could smell the stink of metal and rust as the elemental opened its mouth to swallow him.

“Stop!”

The elemental jerked its head back. Call swung around to see Aaron standing behind him, his hand outstretched. Shining in his palm was a cloud of oily darkness, spilling upward. The expression on his face was one Call couldn’t remember seeing before. His eyes burned like brands and a grimace pulled his face into something that looked disturbingly like a smile.

The oily black nothingness flew from Aaron’s hand and hurtled straight down Automotones’s throat. For a moment, nothing changed. Then the creature began to vibrate, metal clanking against metal. Call stared. The elemental looked as if it were being crushed by a huge, invisible hand, its metal hide being sucked inward. It opened its mouth and Call saw the oily blackness fuming and bubbling inside it. He realized what was happening. The elemental was collapsing in on itself, each joint and screw, each plate and motor, drawn into the expanding void that Aaron had hurled down its throat.

There was a hand on Call’s shoulder, and Aaron was drawing him up to his feet. The scary expression was gone from Aaron’s face; he just looked grim, watching as Automotones gave a last howl and vanished into a speck of darkness that singed across the air.

“What happens to it?” Jasper asked, running up. “Where is it now? Is it dead?” Call looked back at the burning building, at the wreckage of cars. He didn’t care where Automotones had gone. The important thing was that they were all safe.

“It’s in the void,” Aaron said, his voice flat. “It won’t come back.”

“Come on,” said Tamara. “We need to get away from the fire.”

They began to make their way back toward the barn, Havoc running ahead of them. The air was filled with smoke, and the glow from the burning fire behind them turned the sky as light as day.

“What we need to do is go back to the Magisterium,” Jasper said breathlessly. “Show them what we found. Call’s dad has been in direct contact with the Enemy’s servants, remember? He’s going to bring them the Alkahest. We need help.” “We’re not going back to the Magisterium,” Aaron said. His voice was still the same, flat and rigid. Call had the sense that he was holding back whatever he was feeling, tamping it down hard. “They sent that thing after us.” “After Alastair, you mean,” Tamara corrected. “You don’t believe what that old woman said, do you?” “Yeah, I do.”

“She’s got no reason to lie,” Call agreed.

Now Aaron’s voice started to crack a little. “If they didn’t send it, why did it attack Mrs. Tisdale? Why did it attack us? It ought to have been given instructions not to hurt us.” “Maybe they decided that if they couldn’t get us back, it was better to have us dead than in the Enemy’s hands,” said Jasper. They all looked at him in surprise. “It’s the sort of thing the Assembly would do,” he added, with a shrug.

“I thought you wanted to go back,” Call said.

“I do. But you guys have messed up royally.” Jasper rolled his eyes at Call like he was an idiot, an expression Call was very familiar with. “The longer we’re away, the more convinced they’re going to become that they have to cut their losses. Wipe out Aaron first, then wipe out us so there are no witnesses, and it’s just a tragedy. If Constantine Madden got hold of Aaron, he could kill him — or he could brainwash him. Maybe they’re afraid of that. Maybe they’re afraid that losing Aaron to Constantine could lose them the war.” “Not having Aaron would lose them the war!” said Tamara. “He’s the Makar!” They had reached the barn. Jasper’s face looked like cut stone in the flickering light. “I don’t think you understand how they do math.” “Enough,” said Call, turning to face the others. “You guys go back to school. I think I can stop my father, so long as I can get to him in time. I have to talk to him. I have to try. But this is getting too dangerous for you to come along.” They’ll never get it, he thought. My dad wants his son back. He thinks if he trades the Alkahest to Master Joseph, Joseph can fix me. Can make me Callum Hunt again. But Master Joseph’s tricking him, trying to lure him in. He’ll probably kill him once he gets the Alkahest.

But Call couldn’t tell them that, any of that.

You can’t outrun the Enemy of Death.

“No way,” Tamara said, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not safe for you to go — it’s not safe for any of us. You don’t even know where Alastair’s headed.” “I think I do, actually,” Call said. He slid the barn door open and limped inside. The rest of them, even Havoc, waited in the doorway as he retrieved Master Joseph’s letters. When he returned, he held one up to the light.

“There are numbers under Master Joseph’s name,” he said. “In every letter.” “Yeah, probably the date,” Jasper said.

Call read the numbers off. “45. 1661. 67. 2425.”

“That’s not a date, except maybe on Mars,” said Tamara, crowding closer. “It’s …” “It’s coordinates,” said Call. “Latitude and longitude. That’s how my dad used to program the GPS in his car. It tells you how to find something. Joseph is telling my dad where he is.” “Then we know where we’re going,” said Aaron. “We just need to find something we can plug the coordinates into….” “Here,” Tamara said, taking out her phone. But when she touched the screen, it didn’t come on. “Oh. I guess I’m out of charge.” “A computer in any Internet café would work,” said Call, folding up the papers. “But there’s no ‘we.’ I’m doing this alone.” “We’re not leaving you alone and you know it,” Aaron said. He held up a hand against Call’s protest. “Look, by the time we get back to school, your father could already have reached Master Joseph. There might not be enough time to do anything, even if we could convince the mages we knew what we were talking about.” “And if we go after Joseph and get the Alkahest back, then we go back in glory,” Tamara added. “Besides, they already sent a monster after us. Until we know whether we can trust them, the only way is forward.” Call looked over at Jasper. “You don’t have to come.” He actually felt bad now for having dragged Jasper into this mess.

“Oh, I’m coming,” Jasper said. “If monsters are hunting us, I am sticking with the Makar.” “How can the mages of the Magisterium be the good guys if they’d send a monster to murder us just for running away?” Aaron asked. “We’re kids.” “I don’t know,” Call said. He was starting to worry that there weren’t any good guys. Just people with longer or shorter Evil Overlord lists.

Tamara sighed and scrubbed a hand through her hair. “Right now, we need to find a town, somewhere where we can get new clothes and some food. We look like we set ourselves on fire and then rolled around in the mud. We don’t exactly blend in.” Havoc, hearing the words roll around in the mud, began to do just that. Call had to admit Tamara was right. They were dirty, and not like actors in movies who had one artistic smear of dirt across a cheekbone. Their uniforms were ripped and bloody and soaked with oily metal elemental goop.

“I guess we start walking,” said Jasper, sounding dispirited.

“We’re not going to walk,” said Aaron. “We’re going to drive. There are three hundred cars here.” “Yeah, but most of the ones that haven’t been eaten don’t exactly work,” Call pointed out. “And the few that do work don’t have keys waiting for us.” “Come on,” said Aaron. “I don’t have a dad in prison for nothing. I think I can hot-wire one of these.” He strode off toward the field of cars with a confident set to his shoulders.

“That’s our Makar,” said Jasper. “Chaos magic and grand theft auto.”

“I thought you said your dad ran off,” Call said to Aaron, running after him. “And that you didn’t know where he was.” Aaron shrugged. “I guess no one likes to admit their dad is in jail.”

Right then an imprisoned dad didn’t seem like the worst thing to Call, but he knew better than to say it.

Call helped Aaron select the least broken car he recalled Alastair buying. A Morris Minor, its swooping exterior a deep emerald green that contrasted with its red leather seats. It was one of Alastair’s newer cars, manufactured in 1965, and unlike lots of the others, didn’t need a new engine.

“It’s still not fast,” Call warned. “Like, we probably need to stay under forty miles per hour, even on the highway. And it doesn’t have a GPS. He might have installed one eventually, but he didn’t get around to it.” “What happens if we don’t stay under forty miles per hour?” Tamara asked.

Call shrugged. “Maybe it explodes? I don’t know.”

“Great,” Jasper said. “Can any of you numbskulls drive?”

“Not really,” Aaron said, crouching down under the seat, cutting wires with Call’s knife and wrapping them back together in a new combination.

“How can you know how to hot-wire a car but not drive one?” Jasper asked, heaving a massive sigh.

“That’s a good question,” Aaron muttered, sticking his head out from under the seat. He looked sweaty and a little shaky. “Maybe you should take it up with my dad. He didn’t get around to teaching me before he got locked up.” “I’ve driven golf carts before,” said Tamara. “How different could it be?” The engine sprang to life, revving under Aaron’s capable hands.

“I’ll drive,” said Call, whose father had shown him how — sort of. He was in enough trouble that driving an unregistered, uninsured vehicle without a license was hardly going to make much of a difference. Besides, he was the Enemy of Death, an outlaw, a rebel — breaking the law should be the mere tip of his iceberg of evil.

Havoc barked, as if agreeing with him. Havoc had taken the front passenger seat and didn’t seem inclined to let anyone else have it.

Aaron leaned against the hood, looking exhausted. He glanced in Call’s direction, but his eyes didn’t seem to focus. “It’s weird, huh? Everyone expecting me to be a hero and my father a convicted criminal.” “Well, since we’re tracking down my dad because he stole some kind of magical artifact, I’m not exactly in a position to judge.” Call smiled, but Aaron didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s just — I don’t know. Constantine Madden was a bad Makar. Maybe I’ll turn out bad, too. Maybe it’s in my blood.” Call shook his head, so surprised by the thought that at first he didn’t know how to respond. “Uh, no … I don’t think that’s you.” “Come on, everyone, get in the car,” Tamara said. “Aaron, are you okay?” Aaron nodded, climbing unsteadily into the backseat. Jasper and Tamara loaded the Morris’s trunk up with their remaining stuff. Thankfully, since they’d gotten out of bed to fight Automotones, their backpacks had remained safely in the barn.

Now all Call had to do was not crash. Alastair had let him drive before, steering one of the old cars when Alastair was towing it, or driving around the farm to park a new acquisition. But none of that was the same as driving all by himself. Call got in and adjusted the driver’s seat, shoving it forward so his shoes reached the pedals. Gas, he told himself. Brakes.

Then he adjusted the mirrors, because that’s what Alastair always did in a new car — he hoped it would give Aaron and Tamara and even Jasper confidence that Call knew what he was doing. But the familiar movements made him think of his dad, and a helpless panic settled over him.

He was never going to be the person his father loved. That person was dead.

“Let’s go,” Jasper said, climbing into the backseat. Tamara climbed in after him. Apparently they’d decided to let Havoc keep shotgun. “If you even know how to drive.” “I know how,” Call said, letting out the clutch and sending the car rocketing down the road.

The Morris Minor clearly needed new shocks. Every bump in the road threw the kids into the air. It also guzzled gas so fast that Call knew they were going to have to make a lot of stops. He clung to the wheel, squinted at the road, and hoped for the best.

In the backseat, Aaron fell into a kind of fitful sleep, not seeming to mind the roughness of the ride. He thrashed around a little but didn’t wake.

“Is he okay?” Call called into the back.

Tamara touched the inside of her wrist to Aaron’s forehead. “I don’t know. He doesn’t have a fever, but he’s kind of clammy.” “Maybe he expended too much magic,” Jasper said. “They say the cost of using void magic is high.” It took them twenty minutes to find the edge of a small town. Call pumped gas into the Morris while Tamara and Jasper went into the station to pay.

“Do you think he noticed how weird you looked?” Call asked when they came back. They were, after all, wearing burned, muddy clothes. And they were kids, all barely thirteen. Definitely too young to be driving cars.

Jasper shrugged. “He was watching television. I don’t think he cared about anything except that we paid.” “Let’s go,” said Tamara, climbing into the back to sit next to the still-sleeping Aaron. “Before he thinks about it.” Tamara used the map to direct Call through the town until they came to a closed sporting goods store with a big, empty parking lot. Call very slowly and carefully pulled into a vacant spot. Aaron was still asleep. Tamara yawned.

“Maybe we should let him rest,” she said.

“Yeah,” Jasper said muzzily. “You’re right. I am totally awake and alert in every way, but chaos magic is hard on Makars.” Call rolled his eyes, but he was as exhausted as the rest of them. He allowed himself to doze, leaning across the center console to pillow his head on Havoc. A moment later, he’d fallen into a fitful sleep. When he woke up, Aaron was awake and Tamara was asking him if he was okay and lemony daylight was filtering through the window.

“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “I feel a little weird. And dizzy.”

“Maybe you need food,” Call said, stretching.

Aaron grinned as Jasper and Tamara climbed out of the car. “Food does sound good.” “Stay here, boy,” Call said to Havoc, scratching behind his ears. “No barking. I’ll get you a sandwich.” He left the car window cranked open, in case Havoc needed fresh air. He hoped nobody tried to steal the car, mostly for the thief’s sake. No regular person, even a car thief, was prepared for a surprise faceful of angry Chaos-ridden wolf.

The street had a few other shops, including a used-clothing store that Tamara pointed to with great enthusiasm.

“Perfect,” she said. “We can pick up some new clothes. Aaron, if you don’t feel up to it …” “I’ll be fine,” he said. He still looked exhausted but managed to grin anyway.

“No amount of clothing is going to make that car of yours stand out less,” said Jasper, who knew how to bring down any mood.

“We can buy it a scarf,” Call told him.

The store was full of racks of used and vintage clothes, and all sorts of secondhand knickknacks that Call recognized from his dad’s forays to antiques fairs and junk shops. Three Singer sewing machine stands had been turned into a counter. Behind it sat a woman with short white hair and purple cat-eye glasses. She glanced up at them.

“What happened to you four?” she asked, eyebrows going up.

“Mudslide?” Aaron said, although he didn’t sound very certain.

She winced, as though either she didn’t believe him or she was generally disgusted with them in her store, tracking mud and touching things with sooty fingers. Maybe both.

It didn’t take too long for Call to find the perfect outfit, though. Jeans, like the kind he’d worn back home, and a navy blue T-shirt proclaiming I DON’T BELIEVE IN MAGIC with a squashed fairy in the lower right-hand corner.

Aaron started laughing when he saw it. “There is something seriously wrong with you,” he said.

“Well, you look like you’re on your way to yoga class,” Call said. Aaron had picked out gray sweatpants and a shirt with a yin-yang symbol on it. Tamara had found black jeans and wore a big silky tunic that might be a dress over it. Jasper had somehow discovered khakis, a blazer in his size, and mirrored sunglasses.

The total for the clothes came to about twenty dollars, which had Tamara frowning thoughtfully and counting out loud. Jasper leaned past her and gave the cat-eye-glasses lady his most charming smile.

“Can you tell us where we can get sandwiches?” he asked. “And Internet?” “Bits and Bytes, two blocks down Main,” she said, and pointed at their heap of discarded, muddy green uniforms. “I’m guessing I can toss these? What kind of clothes are they, anyway?” Call gave the clothes an almost regretful look. Their uniforms branded them as Magisterium school students. Without them, all they had were their wristbands.

“Karate uniforms,” he said. “That’s how we got dirty. Karate-chopping ninjas.” “In a mudslide,” Aaron interjected, sticking to his story.

Tamara dragged them out of the store by the backs of their shirts. Main Street was mostly deserted. A few cars drove up and down, but nobody gave them a second look.

“Karate-chopping ninjas in a mudslide?” Tamara gave Aaron and Call a dark look. “Could you guys try to lay low?” She stopped in front of an ATM. “I’ve got to get some money out.” “Speaking of lying low, I’ve heard they can trace your ATM card,” said Jasper. “You know, using the Internet.” Call wondered if he’d thrown away his phone for nothing.

“The police can,” said Aaron. “Not the Magisterium.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, we have to risk it,” said Tamara. “That was all the rest of our cash, that twenty bucks, and we’re going to need more gas and food.” Still, her hand shook a little as she took out the money and stuffed it in her wallet.

Bits and Bytes turned out to be a sandwich shop with a row of computers where you could rent Internet time, a dollar an hour.

Aaron went to buy sandwiches while Call logged in. He typed latitude and longitude into Google, which took him to a page that calculated both from an address. He pressed the reverse lookup button and entered the numbers he had.

Then he held his breath.

The map showed a location quickly enough, although there was no address associated with it, just the words Monument Island, Harpswell, Maine. According to the map, there were no roads on it and no houses. He doubted there was a ferry, either.

Even worse, when he typed in the directions, the computer said it would take fifteen hours to drive there. Fifteen hours! And Alastair had a head start. What if he was already there? What if he’d taken a plane?

For a moment, terrible panic overwhelmed Call. The screen in front of him flickered. The lights shuddered. Jasper looked in Call’s direction, sneering.

“Maybe someone went through the Gate of Control too soon,” he said under his breath.

“Easy.” Aaron put a hand on Call’s shoulder. Steadying him.

Call stood up abruptly, fighting for breath. “I’ve got to …”

“You’ve got to what?” Aaron looked at him strangely.

“Print,” Call said. “I’ve got to print. The directions.” He staggered over to the register. “Do you guys have a printer?” The girl behind the counter nodded. “Three dollars a page, though.”

Call glanced at Tamara. “Can we?”

She sighed. “It’s a necessary expense. Go ahead.”

Call sent the directions to print. Now all three of them were looking at him strangely. “Is something wrong?” Aaron said.

“It’s in Maine,” Call said. “Fifteen hours away by car.”

Aaron looked up from his ham-and-provolone sandwich with a shocked expression. “Seriously?” “Could have been worse,” Jasper said, surprising Call. “Could have been Alaska.” Tamara glanced around and then back at Call. Her brown eyes were very serious. “You sure you want to do this?” “I’m sure I have to,” he said.

She took a bite out of her sandwich. “Well, eat up, everyone,” she said. “I guess we’re going on a road trip to Maine.” image

After lunch, they got back to the car, dumping their backpacks in the back. Call walked Havoc and fed him two roast beef sandwiches and then tipped a bottle of water so he could lap at it. The Chaos-ridden wolf ate and drank with surprising daintiness.

Call drove, with Tamara acting as copilot while Jasper and Aaron pillowed their heads on Havoc’s furry back and napped. Jasper must have been pretty exhausted to deign to sleep on a Chaos-ridden animal. Hours passed like this.

“You know you can get arrested for going under the speed limit, too,” said Tamara, her warm ginger ale in the cup holder beside her. She was unbraiding her hair, brushing it out as it blew around with the breeze of her open window. Tamara almost always kept her hair in braids, and Call was surprised by how long it was unbraided, black and shiny and hanging to her waist.

Call pressed his foot harder on the gas and the Morris lurched forward. As the speedometer needle started to edge up, the car began to shudder.

“Uh,” Tamara said. “Maybe we should take a chance on the cops.”

He gave her a quick smile. “Do you really think the Magisterium sent that monster after us?” “I don’t think Master Rufus would,” Tamara said, hesitating. When she spoke again, the words came out in a rush. “But I’m not sure about anyone else. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Call, if there was something you knew — you’d tell us, right?” “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she said, her fingers nimbly working her hair back into a single long braid.

Call focused on the road, on the blur of lines and keeping his distance from other cars.

“What’s the next exit?” he asked her. “We need gas.”

“Call,” Tamara said again. Now she was playing with her wristband. He wished she’d stop fidgeting. “You know if there was something you wanted to tell me that was a secret, I’d keep it. I wouldn’t tell anyone.” “Like you didn’t tell anyone about my dad?” Call said, immediately regretting it. Tamara’s eyes went wide and then angry.

“You know why I did that,” she said. “He tried to steal the Alkahest! He was putting Aaron in danger! And things turned out even worse than we thought. He didn’t have good intentions.” “Not everything is about Aaron,” Call said, which made him feel even more terrible. It wasn’t Aaron’s fault he was who he was. Call was just glad Aaron was asleep again, his blond head resting on Havoc’s fur.

“Then what is this about, Call?” Tamara said. “Because I have a feeling you know.” Words felt like they were clawing their way up Call’s throat — he didn’t know if he wanted to yell at Tamara or spill everything just for the relief of not keeping it bottled up anymore — when suddenly the car started shaking hard.

“Call, slow down!” Tamara said.

“I am slowed down!” he protested. “Maybe I should pull over —”

Suddenly and without warning, Master Rufus appeared, popping into existence between Call and Tamara in the front seat of the car.

“Students,” he said, looking very displeased. “Would you like to explain yourselves?”