فصل 15

Chapter 15

CALL WOKE UP to the sound of someone moving outside his door. His first thought was that it was Tamara or Aaron working late in the common room. But the footsteps were too heavy to belong to either of his friends, and the raised voices that followed were definitely adult.

He couldn’t help hearing Alastair’s voice in his head. They don’t have any mercy, not even for children.

Call lay sleeplessly staring upward until one of the crystals set in the walls sputtered into brightness. He took Miri out of her drawer and slid from the bed, wincing as his shoeless feet hit the cold stone floor. Without the heavy blankets, he could feel the chill air through his thin pajamas.

He hoisted Miri just as the door opened. Three Masters stood in the doorway, looking in at him. They were dressed in their black uniforms, and their faces were grave and serious.

Master Lemuel’s gaze flicked from Call’s face to the blade. “Rufus, your apprentice is well trained.” Call didn’t know what to say to that.

“You won’t need any weapons tonight, though,” said Master Rufus. “Leave Semiramis on your bed and come with us.” Looking down at his LEGO pajamas, Call scowled. “I’m not dressed.”

“Well trained in preparedness,” said Master North. “Less well trained in obedience.” He snapped his fingers. “Put the knife down.” “North,” said Master Rufus. “Leave the discipline of my apprentices to me.” He moved closer to Call, who didn’t quite know what to do. Between Drew’s bizarre behavior, his father’s warnings, and the Devoured’s creepy prophecy, he was feeling deeply unsettled. He didn’t want to give up his knife.

Rufus’s hand closed around Call’s wrist, and Call let Miri go. He didn’t know what else he could do. Call knew Master Rufus. He’d eaten meals with him for months and been taught lessons by him. Rufus was a person. Rufus had saved him from the Devoured. He wouldn’t hurt me, Call told himself. He wouldn’t. No matter what my father said.

An odd expression flickered across Rufus’s face and was gone immediately. “Come along,” he said.

Call followed the Masters into the common room, where Tamara and Aaron were already waiting. Both of them were in their pajamas — Aaron was wearing a T-shirt that was practically transparent with washing and sweatpants with a hole in the knee. His blond hair stuck up like duck fluff and he looked barely awake. Tamara looked tense. Her hair was carefully braided and she wore pink pajamas that said I FIGHT LIKE A GIRL across the front. Under the words was a screen print of cartoon girls executing deadly ninja moves.

What’s going on? Call mouthed to them silently.

Aaron shrugged and Tamara shook her head. Clearly, they didn’t know any more than he did. Although Tamara seemed to know enough to look like she was going to jump out of her skin.

“Seat yourselves,” said Master Lemuel. “Please don’t dawdle.”

“You can clearly see that none of them were trying to …” said Master Rufus in a low voice that faded out at the end as though he didn’t want to speak the rest out loud.

“This is very important,” Master North said as Call, Aaron, and Tamara sat down together on one couch. Tamara yawned hugely and forgot to cover her mouth, which meant she was really tired. “Have you seen Drew Wallace? Several people told us that he followed you out of the Refectory and he seemed upset. Did he say anything to you? Discuss his plans?” Call frowned. The last time he saw Drew was way too weird to talk about. “What plans?” “We talked about our lessons,” Aaron volunteered. “Drew followed us into the hall — he wanted to talk to Call.” “About the Devoured. I think he was really scared.” Call didn’t know what else to say. He had no other explanation for Drew’s behavior.

“Thank you,” said Master North. “Now we need you to go back to your rooms and put on your uniforms. We’re going to need your help. Drew left the Magisterium sometime after ten tonight, and it was only due to another apprentice getting up for a midnight glass of water and finding his note that we discovered he was gone at all.” “What did the note say?” Tamara asked. Master Lemuel glowered at her, and Master North looked surprised to be interrupted. Clearly, neither of them knew Tamara very well.

“That he was running away from the Magisterium,” Master Lemuel said quietly. “You know how dangerous it is for half-trained mages to be loose in the world? And that’s to say nothing of the Chaos-ridden animals that make their homes in the neighboring woods.” “We have to find him,” Master Rufus said, nodding slowly. “The whole school will help search. We can cover more ground that way. I hope that explanation is sufficient, Tamara. Because time really is of the essence.” Flushing, Tamara rose and headed toward her room, and Aaron and Call went to theirs. Call slowly drew on his winter clothes: his gray uniform, a thick sweater, a zip-up hoodie. The adrenaline of being woken by the mages was burning off and he was starting to realize how little sleep he’d had, but the idea of Drew stumbling through the dark made him blink himself awake. What had made Drew run?

Reaching for his wristband, Call’s fingers trailed over Alastair’s cuff and the mysterious note to Master Rufus. He remembered his father’s words: Call, you must listen to me. You don’t know what you are. You must get away as soon as you can.

He was supposed to be the one running, not Drew.

After a knock, the door to his room opened and Tamara came in. She wore her uniform, and her hair was pulled into two braids pinned tightly around her head. She looked a lot more awake than he felt.

“Call,” she said. “Come on, we’ve got to — what’s that?”

“What’s what?” He glanced down and realized he still had the drawer pulled open, Alastair’s wristband and letter on full display. He fished the wristband out and leaned back, pushing the drawer closed with his weight. “I — this is my father’s wristband. From when he was at the Magisterium.” “Can I see?” Tamara didn’t wait for an answer, just reached out and plucked it from his hand. Her dark eyes widened as she looked at it. “He must have been a really good student.” “What makes you say that?”

“Those stones. And this —” She broke off, blinking. “This can’t be your father’s wristband.” “Well, I guess it could be my mother’s….”

“No,” Tamara said. “We saw their handprints in the Hall of Graduates. They both graduated, Call. Whoever’s wristband this is, it ends at Silver Year. There’s no gold.” She handed it back to him. “This bracelet belonged to someone who never graduated from the Magisterium.” “But —” Call broke off as Aaron came in, his wavy hair pasted down to his forehead. He looked like he’d splashed water on his face to wake up.

“Come on, guys,” he said. “Master Lemuel and Master North went on ahead, but Rufus seems about to break the door down.” Call shoved the wristband into his pocket, remaining conscious of Tamara’s curious gaze on him as they followed Master Rufus through the tunnels. Call’s leg was stiff, the way it was most mornings, so it was slow going for him. Aaron and Tamara were careful to match their speed to his, though. For once, he wasn’t mad about it.

On the way out, they ran into the rest of the apprentices being led by their Masters, including Lemuel and North. The kids looked as confused and worried as Master Rufus’s apprentices did.

A few more turns and they came to a door. Master Lemuel opened it and they stepped into another cave, this one with an opening at the end that wind blew through. They were going outside — and not the way they’d come in that first day. This cave was open at the far end. In the stone was set a pair of giant metal gates.

They had clearly been forged by a Master of metal. They were wrought iron, tapering to sharp points at the top that almost brushed the cave ceiling. Across the the gates, the metal bent into words: Knowledge and action are one and the same.

It was the Mission Gate. Call remembered the boy strapped to the stretcher of branches, his skin half burned off, and realized that in the confusion, he’d never noticed much about the gate itself.

“Call, Tamara, Aaron,” Master Rufus said. Beside him was tall, curly-haired Alex, looking uncharacteristically somber. He wore his uniform and a thick cloaklike coat over it. There were gloves on his hands. “Alexander will be leading you. Do not leave his side. The rest of us will be within shouting distance. We want you to cover an area near one of the Magisterium’s less-used exits. Look for any trace of Drew, and if you see him, call out for him. We think it more likely that he will trust one of his own Iron Years than a Master or even an older student like Alex.” Call wondered why the Masters thought Drew would be more likely to trust another student over them. He wondered if they knew more about why Drew had run away than they were letting on.

“Then what do we do?” Aaron asked.

“Once you’ve spotted him, Alex will signal the Masters. Just keep him talking until we arrive. You and Master Milagros’s apprentices will go east.” He waved across the crowded grounds, and Master Milagros started toward him, trailed by Celia, Jasper, and Gwenda. “The Bronze Years will head west, the Copper Years will go north, and the Silver and Gold Years who are not assisting Masters will go south and north.” “What about the Chaos-ridden animals in the woods?” Gwenda asked. “Aren’t they dangerous to us, too?” Master Milagros looked toward Alex and another older student. “You won’t be alone out there. Stick together and signal us immediately if there’s a problem. We will keep close by.” Already, some of the apprentice groups were moving out into the night — summoning glowing orbs that flew through the air like disembodied lanterns. A low hum of whispers and mutterings accompanied them as they made their way into the dark woods.

Call and the others followed Alex. When the last apprentice passed through the gate, it shut with a disturbingly final clang behind them.

“That’s the sound it always makes,” Alex said, looking at Call’s expression. “Come on — we’re going this way.” He headed toward the woods, along a dark path. Call stumbled over a root. Aaron, always looking for an excuse, summoned his sparking blue ball of energy, looking pleased that it would be useful. He grinned as it spun above his fingers, lighting the air around them.

“Drew!” Gwenda called. Echoes of other Iron Year students could be heard in the distance. “Drew!” Jasper rubbed his eyes. He was wearing what appeared to be a fur-lined coat and a hat with earflaps that was slightly too big for his head. “Why do we have to be put in danger just because some dweeb decided he couldn’t handle it anymore?” he demanded.

“I don’t understand why he’d leave in the middle of the night,” Celia said, her arms around herself, shivering even in her long bright blue parka. “None of this makes any sense.” “We don’t know any more than you do,” said Tamara. “But if Drew ran away, he must have had a reason.” “He’s a coward,” said Jasper. “That’s the only possible reason for leaving.” The forest floor was covered in a thin dusting of snow, and the trees hung low all around them, Aaron’s blue light illuminating just enough to emphasize the eeriness of the sharp branches.

“What do you think he has to be afraid of?” Call asked.

Jasper didn’t answer.

“We’ve got to stay together,” Alex told them, conjuring three golden balls of flame that whirled around them, charting the outer edge of their party. “If you see or hear anything, tell me. Don’t run off.” Frozen leaves crunched under Tamara’s feet as she dropped back to walk with Call. “So,” she said softly, “how come you thought that wristband belonged to your father?” Call looked at the others, trying to decide if he was outside the range of their hearing. “Because it came from him.” “He sent it to you?”

Call shook his head. “Not exactly. I … found it.”

“Found it?” Tamara sounded highly suspicious.

“I know you think he’s crazy —”

“He threw a knife at you!”

“He threw it to me,” said Call. “And then he sent this wristband to the Magisterium. I think he’s trying to tell them — to warn them about something.” “Like what?”

“Something about me,” Call said.

“You mean you’re in danger?”

Tamara sounded alarmed, but Call didn’t reply. He didn’t know how to tell her more without telling her everything. What if there really was something wrong with him? If Tamara found out, would she keep his secret, no matter how bad it was?

He wanted to trust her. She’d already told him more about the wristband than he’d figured out in months of staring at it.

“What are you guys talking about?” Aaron asked, falling back to join them.

Tamara immediately clammed up, her eyes darting between Aaron and Call. Call could tell that she wasn’t going to tell Aaron anything unless he said it was okay. It sparked a strangely warm feeling in his stomach. He’d never really had friends who’d kept his secrets before.

It was enough to decide him. “We’re talking about this,” he said, pulling the wristband out of his pocket and handing it over to Aaron, who examined it while Call explained the whole story — his conversation with his father, the warning that Call didn’t know what he was, the letter Alastair had sent Rufus, the message with the wristband: Bind his magic.

“Bind your magic?” Aaron’s voice rose. Tamara shushed him. Aaron returned his voice to a harsh whisper. “Why would he ask Rufus to do that? That’s crazy!” “I don’t know,” Call whispered back, looking up ahead anxiously. Alex and the other kids didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them as they made their way up a low rise of hill, snaked through with big tree roots, calling Drew’s name. “I don’t understand any of it.” “Well, clearly the wristband was supposed to be a message to Rufus,” Tamara said. “It means something. I just don’t know what.” “Maybe if we knew whose it was,” said Aaron. He handed the wristband to Call, who tied it onto his arm, above his own wristband and under his sleeve.

“Someone who didn’t graduate. Someone who left the Magisterium when he or she was sixteen or seventeen — or someone who died here.” Tamara looked at it again, frowning at the small medals with symbols on them. “I don’t know exactly what these mean. Excellence in something, but what? If we knew, that would tell us something. And I don’t know what this black stone means either. I’ve never seen one before.” “Let’s ask Alex,” Aaron said.

“No way,” said Call, shaking his head and looking warily at the others trooping through the snow in the dark. “What if there is something wrong with me and he can figure it out just from looking at this wristband?” “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Aaron said sturdily. But Aaron was the kind of person who had faith in people and believed stuff like that.

“Alex!” Tamara said loudly. “Alex, can we ask you something?”

“Tamara, no,” Call hissed, but the older student had already fallen back to walk alongside them.

“What’s up?” he asked, blue eyes inquisitive. “You guys all right?”

“I was just wondering if we could see your wristband,” Tamara said, with a quelling look in Call’s direction. Call relented.

“Huh. Sure,” Alex agreed, unsnapping the band and handing it over. It had three stripes of metal on it, ending with bronze. It was also studded with gems: red and orange, blue and indigo and scarlet.

“What are these for?” Tamara asked innocently, though Call had a feeling she probably knew the answer.

“The completion of different tasks.” Alex sounded matter-of-fact, not like he was bragging. “This one is for using fire successfully to dispel an elemental. This one is for using air to create an illusion.” “What would it mean if you had a black one?” Aaron asked.

Alex’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to answer at the same moment Jasper yelled, “Look!” A bright light glowed out from the ridge of the hill opposite theirs. As they stared, a scream split the night, high and terrible.

“Stay here!” Alex barked, and started to run, half slipping down the side of the hill they were on, heading toward the light. Suddenly, the night was full of noise. Call could hear other groups shouting and calling to one another.

Something slid through the sky above them — something scaly and snakelike — but Alex wasn’t looking up.

“Alex!” Tamara yelled, but the older boy didn’t hear her — he had reached the other hill and was starting to scramble up it. The scaly shadow was over his head, swooping and dipping.

The kids were all shouting for Alex now, trying to warn him — all of them except for Call. He started to run, ignoring the twisting burn in his leg as he slid and nearly fell down the hillside. He heard Tamara scream his name, and Jasper yell, “We’re supposed to stay here,” but Call didn’t slow. He was going to be the apprentice that Aaron thought he was, the one who there was nothing wrong with. He was going to do the kind of things that got you mysterious heroic achievements on your wristband. He was going to throw himself right into the fray.

He tripped over a loose stone, fell, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, banging his elbow hard on a tree root. Okay, he thought, not the best start.

Staggering to his feet, he started to climb again — he could see things more clearly now, in the light that poured down from the hilltop. It was a clear knifelike light that threw every pebble and hole into sharp relief. The rise grew steeper as Call reached the top; he fell to his knees and clambered the last few feet, rolling onto the flat surface of the hilltop.

Something brushed past him then, something huge, something that brought a rush of air that sprayed dirt into his eyes. He choked and staggered to his feet.

“Help!” he heard a weak voice call. “Please, help me!”

Call looked around. The bright light was gone; there was only starlight and moonlight to illuminate the hilltop. It was covered with a tangle of roots and bushes. “Who’s there?” he said.

He heard what sounded like a hiccuping sob. “Call?”

Call started to blunder toward the voice, pushing through the undergrowth.

From behind him, people were shouting his name. He kicked aside some rocks and half slid down a small incline. He found himself inside a shadowy depression in the ground, lined with thorny bushes. A huddled figure lay at the opposite side.

“Drew?” Call called out.

The slight boy struggled to turn around. Call could see that one of his feet was jammed in what looked like a gopher hole. It was twisted at an ugly, painful-looking angle.

From behind him, two softly glowing orbs lit up the night. Call glanced back and realized they were floating over from the hill where the other students were standing. He could barely see the others from where he was, and he wasn’t sure they could see him at all.

“Call?” The tears shining on Drew’s face were bright in the moonlight. Call scooted closer.

“Are you stuck?” he asked.

“Of — of course,” Drew whispered. “I try to run away, and this is as far as I get. It’s h-humiliating.” His teeth were chattering. He was wearing only a thin T-shirt and jeans. Call couldn’t believe he’d planned to run away from the Magisterium dressed like that.

“Help me,” Drew said through chattering teeth. “Help me get free. I have to keep running.” “But I don’t get it. What’s wrong? Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know.” Drew’s face twisted. “You have no idea what Master Lemuel’s like. He — he figured out that sometimes when I’m under a lot of stress, I do better. Like a lot better. I know it’s weird, but it’s always been the way I am. I do better on a testing day than I ever do in normal practice. So he figured out that he could make me better by keeping me under stress all the time. I barely … barely ever sleep. He only lets me eat sometimes and I never know when that’s going to be. He keeps scaring me, calling up illusions of monsters and elementals while I’m alone in the dark and I … I want to get better. I want to be a better mage, but I just …” He looked away and swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down. “I can’t.” Call looked at him more closely. It was true that Drew didn’t look like the boy Call had met on the bus to the Magisterium. He was thinner. A lot thinner. You could see how his jeans hung loose, secured by a belt that was pulled all the way through to the last hole. His nails were bitten down and there were dark shadows under his eyes.

“Okay,” Call said. “But you’re not going to be able to run anywhere on this.” He leaned forward and put his hand on Drew’s ankle. It felt hot to the touch.

Drew yelped. “That hurts!”

Call eyed the ankle where it poked out below the hem of Drew’s jeans. It looked swollen and dark. “I think you might have broken a bone.” “Y-you do?” Drew sounded panicked.

Call reached down inside himself, through himself, into the ground he was kneeling on. Earth wants to bind. He felt it give way under his touch, making a space where magic could spill in, the way water rose to fill up a hole scraped in the sand of a beach.

Call drew the magic through himself, into his hand, letting it flow into Drew. Drew gave a gasp.

Call pulled away. “Sorry —”

“No.” Drew looked at him wonderingly. “It’s hurting less. It’s working.” Call had never done magic like that before. Healing had been something Master Rufus talked about, but they’d never practiced. But he’d managed it. Maybe there really was nothing wrong with him.

“Drew! Call!” It was Alex, followed by a shining globe of light that lit the ends of his hair like a halo. He skidded down the slope of the incline, nearly knocking into them. His face was pale in the moonlight.

Call moved away. “Drew’s stuck. I think his ankle’s broken.”

Alex bent over the younger boy and touched the earth that was trapping his leg in place. Call felt stupid for not having thought of the same thing as the ground crumbled away and Alex locked his arms under Drew’s shoulders, pulling him free. Drew yelled aloud in pain.

“Didn’t you hear me? His ankle’s broken —” Call started.

“Call. There’s no time.” Alex knelt down to lift Drew in his arms. “We have to get out of here.” “W-what?” Drew seemed almost too stunned to function. “What’s going on?” Alex was scanning the area anxiously. Call suddenly remembered all the warnings about what lurked in the woods outside the caverns of the school.

“The Chaos-ridden,” Call said. “They’re here.”