فصل 2

Chapter 2

THE TWO GUARDS who had brought Jasper to Call’s cell began talking to each other in hushed tones. From the other side of the prison, some shouting began and then abruptly ceased.

“I think I better go.” Jasper rose to his feet, looking around anxiously.

“No!” one of the guards barked. “This is an emergency. No visitors moving around on their own. For your safety, you’re going to have to follow us while we escort the prisoner to an evacuation vehicle.” “You want me next to the Enemy of Death when he’s outside his cell?” Jasper demanded, as though he had something to be worried about. “How is that safe?” Call rolled his eyes.

One of the guards deactivated a section of the elemental wall and entered Call’s cell, putting a fresh set of cuffs on him.

“Come on,” the guard said. “You walk between us and the apprentice goes in front.” Call dug in his heels. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

“The place is on fire,” Jasper said, looking behind him. “I’d say something’s wrong.” Call went on. “I’ve been listening to a panel of mages tell me how invulnerable this place is for weeks. How nothing can break into it or destroy it. It shouldn’t be on fire.” The guards were looking increasingly nervous. “Quiet down and come on,” said one, hauling Call out of his cell by the arm.

“ ’Fire wants to burn,’ ” said Jasper, looking intently at Call. He was quoting the Cinquain, the five lines of text that described elemental magic. The guards gave him a look. They must have remembered it from school.

The air was getting hotter outside Call’s cell. People were running in the hallways now, and yelling. All the other cells had been emptied of their inhabitants, prisoners marching in lines toward the exits.

“I know that,” Call said. “But this place shouldn’t burn.”

“We’ve been warned about your silver tongue,” said the guard, shoving Call ahead of him. “Shut up and move.” Chunks of melting rock and metal were starting to fall from the roof. At that point, Call decided to stop worrying about why this was happening and began to worry about making it out alive. Call, Jasper, and the two guards hurried along the corridor, which was getting hotter and hotter. Call stumbled along, his bad leg sending shooting pains through him. He hadn’t walked this much in months.

There was a crash. Up ahead part of the floor was disintegrating in a fountain of burning cinders and chunks of fiery stone. Call stared, knowing he was right — this was no normal fire.

He just hoped he was going to be around to say I told you so.

The guards who’d been holding him let go. For a moment Call thought they were going to try an alternate path through the prison, but instead they bolted ahead, almost knocking over Jasper. They jumped across the collapsing floor just as it gave way entirely, landing safely on the other side. They got up and dusted themselves off.

“Hey!” Jasper yelled, looking incredulous. “You can’t just leave us here!” One of the guards looked ashamed. The other just glared. “My parents died in the Cold Massacre,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, you can burn to death, Constantine Madden.” Call flinched back.

“But what about me?” Jasper shouted as they walked away. “I’m not the Enemy of Death!” But they had disappeared. Jasper whirled around, coughing. He looked accusingly at Call.

“This is all your fault,” he said.

“Good to see you facing death bravely, Jasper,” said Call. The upside of Jasper being here, he thought, was that Jasper never made him feel guilty, even when he probably should. It was impossible not to believe that Jasper deserved everything that happened to him.

“Use your chaos magic!” Jasper coughed. The air was thick and full of smoke and soot. “Devour the walls or the fire or something!” Call held his hands out. His wrists were chained. A mage at his level couldn’t do magic without his hands.

Jasper muttered a rude word and spun away, throwing his right arm out straight. The air in front of him seemed to vibrate and then solidify. A bridge over the collapsed part of the floor hung shimmering in the air.

Call didn’t pause to marvel over the fact Jasper had actually done something useful — and not just useful, but actually impressive. He ran as fast as his leg could carry him, reserving the right to be amazed later.

Neither Call nor Jasper were that sure of the way out, but the fire had narrowed their choices. They bolted down the way open to them. Call gritted his teeth against the pain and tried his hardest not to stumble. The air was hot enough that even opening his mouth to speak hurt.

They came to a propped-open door that looked heavy and magical and almost impossible to get through in time if it had been closed. With relief, they scrambled through. Jasper knocked away the blockage, slamming the door behind them and buying them a little relief from the heat and the smoke.

Call panted, hands on his knees. They seemed be in one of the back passageways of the Panopticon. He could smell bleach and laundry detergent, all mixed up with smoke and burning. Corridors snaked off in all directions and there were no windows. A massive pillar of fire had suddenly formed in the corridor just ahead of them.

Jasper stumbled back, letting out a cry.

They were done for. They were going to be burned up, trapped in the hall between blazes. Call remembered navigating the fire maze of the year before, how he drew on chaos to take all the air out of the room — a desperate act that worked to put out the fire, but took all the air they needed to breathe along with it. Without Aaron’s intervention, they would have died.

Call wished for his magic right then, wished for it despite remembering how he’d misused it.

Fire wants to burn. Water wants to flow. Air wants to rise. Earth wants to bind. Chaos wants to devour.

And the line of the Cinquain he’d added, just to be funny:

Call wants to live.

The line haunted him. He pulled against his bonds, but they were as firm as ever, his magic out of reach. The fire ahead of them unwound like a snake, growing taller and taller, fire spreading from its upper part like the unfolding hood of a cobra.

Then a face formed in the fire — a familiar face. A girl’s face, made entirely out of flames.

“Makar,” said Tamara’s sister, Ravan. She had been consumed by the element of fire, and lived on as a Devoured of fire, an elemental with a person’s soul. Or a person with an element’s soul. Call had once broken into a prison of elementals with Aaron and Tamara, and had seen the Devoured of Air and Fire and Earth and Water there. As far as he knew, there had never been a Devoured of chaos. The idea was terrifying.

“This is no time for dawdling,” Ravan instructed. “Through the third doors on the right, you will find the way outside.” Her face vanished, bleeding into the flames. The fire changed shape, becoming a sparking, flaming archway.

“What. Is. That?” Jasper demanded.

“A fire elemental,” Call said, not wanting to implicate Tamara when he had no idea what was going on. “I know her. She lives at the Magisterium.” “So this is a jailbreak? You made me part of your stupid jailbreak?” Jasper shouted, voice cracking. “This really is all your fault, Call. I —” “Shut up, Jasper,” Call said, pushing Jasper toward the third door. “You can yell at me when we’re outside the burning building.” “Once again swept along by the cruel broom of fate,” Jasper muttered as they went.

As Ravan had instructed, they bolted down the hallway and then turned right at two double doors with a long wooden bar laid across them. Jasper grabbed the bar and yanked it to the side. Call threw himself against the doors, and they burst open.

Sunlight and air. Jasper flung himself out the doors and then yelled. There was a thumping noise. “Stairs!” he shouted. “Watch out for the stairs.” Behind Call, everything was flames. He took a deep breath and followed Jasper outside. There were steps, a short flight down, with Jasper at the bottom, rubbing his knee. But there was also sunlight and fresh air and clouds and all the things that Call hadn’t seen in so long. He sucked in a greedy breath and then another.

“Come on,” Jasper said. “Before someone sees you.”

As they moved away from the prison, the smoke thinned. Call looked back.

The Panopticon was a huge gray stone circle behind them, shaped like an upside-down bucket. Orange flames leaped from the windows and roof.

They came to a stretch of green lawn. There’d been no window in Call’s room, but if there had, this is what he would have been able to see: flat greenness, a fence in the distance, and trees beyond that.

Right now it was a scene of total chaos. Groups of prisoners were chained together, guards circling them. Others were being loaded into vans. Mages in olive green Assembly robes were running over the grass, waving their arms, trying to direct panicked, soot-blackened guards, officers, and prisoners in different directions.

One of the Assembly Members caught sight of Call and shouted for guards.

“Where’s my ride?” said Jasper, coughing. “I gotta get out of here.”

“You’re just going to leave me?” Call said.

“I know what happens if I hang around you,” Jasper replied. “I’ll get dragged into some horror show, with severed heads and Chaos-ridden. No, thank you. I have to win Celia back. I don’t want to die.” “At least take these off me.” Call held out his chained wrists. “Give me a chance, Jasper.” Guards were making their way toward Call now, talking to one another as though they were planning strategy. They weren’t moving fast though and with Call’s back turned they couldn’t see what Jasper was about to do.

“Fine,” he said, and edged over to grab Call’s wrists. “Wait — what are these made of? I’ve never seen metal like this.” “You two,” a voice barked. Call practically jumped out of his skin. It was an Assembly member in a white suit — Anastasia Tarquin, he realized in a paralyzing moment of mixed relief and fear. Her silver hair was pulled tightly back and her pale eyes blazed. “Get over here. Now, now.” She snapped her fingers, her gaze sweeping over Call impersonally, as if she didn’t know him at all. “Hurry up.” The guards stopped advancing, looking relieved that someone else was taking over.

Muttering imprecations, Jasper fell in beside Call and let Anastasia lead them across the grass. “Transporting the Makar,” she said, holding up her hand every time someone seemed to be about to approach or question them. “We have to get him moved as quickly as possible. Out of my way!” A beige van was parked at the far end of the grass. Anastasia opened the back doors and hustled Call in. He couldn’t see the driver up front.

Jasper balked. “There’s really no reason for me to go in a car with prisoners —” “You’re a witness,” Anastasia snapped. “Get in there, deWinter, or I’ll tell your parents you didn’t cooperate with the Assembly.” Eyes wide, Jasper scrambled in behind Call. The van had benches along both sides and bars above head level that cuffs could be slotted into to keep the prisoners in place. Call took a seat, and Jasper went to a place on the opposite side. No one affixed Call’s handcuffs. Instead, the doors slammed shut, plunging them into cool darkness.

“This is weird,” Call said.

“I am registering a complaint,” Jasper replied in a subdued voice. “With someone. Someone will hear about this.” The van lurched forward, taking a few turns and then speeding up on what seemed to be a highway. Call couldn’t guess where they were going. He wasn’t even entirely sure of the location of the Panopticon in the first place, much less where they might take prisoners in case of a problem.

He puzzled over the presence of Anastasia and Ravan. Anastasia had told him that she was Constantine Madden’s mother, and that since Call had Constantine’s soul, she would help him. Anastasia had been in charge of the elementals at the Magisterium. She could have engineered all of this. But if she had, what would she do next? The whole Assembly would be looking for Call. She couldn’t just take him to some remote place until things blew over. The whole Enemy of Death thing was never going to blow over.

He went over Anastasia’s involvement, the probability of this being a jailbreak, his fear of never seeing his dad again, his worry that Master Rufus would once again believe Call had been lying to him, and his concern that if they lurched around another curve he was going to get carsick again and again, with no new conclusions, so it was with a heavy heart that he felt the van stop. The back doors opened and light flooded in, making Call blink against it.

The driver stood in front of the open doors. She took off her newsboy cap. Long dark braids tumbled over her shoulders and a familiar grin lit her face. Call’s heart flipped over in his chest.

Tamara.