by Holly Black
“What?” Call looked around, half expecting some watery wyvern to burst through the rock wall.
Master Rufus raised a brow. “How do you think your uniforms get cleaned? Or your rooms, for that matter?”
Call hadn’t much thought about it before, but found himself unnerved. Was some creature like Warren scrubbing his underwear? He was mightily creeped out. But maybe that was species-ist. Maybe he needed to be more open-minded.
He remembered Warren munching down eyeless fish. Maybe not.
Master Rufus went on, warming to his subject. “And of course, the elementals we use in exercises — but also some for defense. Ancient elementals, sleeping deep in the caves, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Call asked, wide-eyed.
“For the summons to battle.”
“You mean if the war starts up again,” said Aaron tonelessly, “they’ll be sent out to fight the Enemy.”
Master Rufus nodded.
“But how do you get them to do what you want?” Call demanded. “Why would they agree to sleep for such a long time and then be woken up just to fight?”
“They are bound to the Magisterium by ancient elemental magic,” said Rufus. “The first mages who ever founded the academy captured them, bound their powers, and laid them to rest many miles below the earth. They rise at our bidding and are controlled by us.”
“How is that different from the Enemy and his Chaos-ridden?” Tamara asked. She’d somehow turned one of her braids into a lopsided bun with a pen, which now stuck out of her hair.
“Tamara!” Aaron said. “It’s completely different. The Chaos-ridden are evil. Except Havoc,” he added hastily.
“So what are these things? Good?” Tamara asked. “If they’re good, why keep them locked up underground?”
“They are neither evil nor good,” Rufus explained. “They are immensely powerful, like the Greek Titans, and they care nothing about human beings. Where they go, destruction and death follow — not because they wish to kill, but because they don’t recognize or care what they do. Blaming a great elemental for destroying a town would be like blaming a volcano for erupting.”
“So they have to be controlled for everyone’s good,” Call said. He could hear the doubt and suspicion in his own voice.
“One of the metal elementals, Automotones, escaped after Verity Torres’s battle with the Enemy,” said Rufus. “He tore a bridge apart. The cars on it plunged into the water. People drowned before he was returned to his place below the Magisterium.”
“He wasn’t punished?” Tamara sounded particularly interested in this.
Rufus shrugged. “As I said, it would be like punishing a volcano for erupting. We need these creatures. They are all we have to match the force of Constantine’s Chaos-ridden.”
“Can we see one?” Call asked.
“What?” Rufus paused, pen in hand.
“I want to see one.” Even Call wasn’t entirely sure why he was asking. There was something that compelled him about the idea of a creature that was neither evil nor good. That never had to worry about how to behave. A force of nature.
“In a few weeks, you will be starting missions,” said Rufus. “You will be on your own outside the Magisterium, traveling, carrying out projects. If you complete those successfully, I see no reason why you couldn’t view a sleeping elemental.”
There was a knock on the door, and after Rufus said it was okay to enter, it was pushed open. Rafe came inside. He’d looked a lot happier since Master Lemuel had left the Magisterium, but Call wondered if he’d been scared to come back to school after Drew’s death. “Master Rockmaple sent you this,” he said, holding out a folded-over paper to Master Rufus.
Master Rufus read it, then crumpled it in one hand. It burst into flame, blackening to ash. “Thank you,” he said to Rafe with a nod, as though setting correspondence on fire was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. “Tell your Master I will see him at lunch.”
Rafe left, wide-eyed.
Call desperately wished he could see whatever was on that paper. The problem with having a horrible secret was that any time anything happened, Call worried it had something to do with him.
But Master Rufus didn’t even look in his direction when he resumed the lesson. And when nothing happened the next day or the day after, Call forgot to be worried.
And as the weeks went by and the leaves on the trees began to blaze with yellow and red and orange, like conjured fire, it became easier and easier for Call to forget he had a secret at all.
AS THE WEATHER turned nippy, Call started wearing hoodies and sweaters on his walks with Havoc. Havoc had never really experienced fall and was having a deliriously good time hiding in piles of leaves with only his spotted paws sticking up.
“Does he think we can’t see him?” Celia asked curiously one day, after Havoc had leaped down the side of a hill and crashed into a huge leaf pile. Just his tail was visible, sticking out of the end of the pile.
“I can only see his tail,” Call said. “He’s doing pretty well, really.”
Celia giggled. Call had gone from thinking it was weird that Celia laughed at everything he said to thinking it was kind of awesome. She was wearing a red fuzzy sweater and looked pink-cheeked and pretty.
“So how did your dad react when you brought Havoc home?” she asked, gathering up a handful of leaves from the ground: yellow, gold, and russet.
Call chose his words carefully. “Not well,” he said. “I mean, we live in a small town. It would be kind of hard to keep any pet a secret, and even though no one knows what Chaos-ridden is, they do know what a big wolf is.”
“Yeah.” Celia’s eyes rounded with sympathy. “He must have been worried someone would hurt Havoc.”
Celia was so nice, Call thought. It never even occurred to her that Alastair might want to hurt Havoc himself. Which was impressive considering that the only time she’d seen Alastair, at the Iron Trial, he’d been wild-eyed and waving a knife around. Reflexively, Call touched Miri’s hilt where it stuck up above the inside pocket of his jacket.
“That was your mom’s knife, right?” Celia asked shyly.
“Yeah,” Call said. “She made it when she was a mage at school here.” He swallowed around the hard lump in his throat. He tried not to think about his mother too much, about whether she would have been kinder to Havoc, whether she would have loved him no matter what fingerprints were on his soul.
“I know she died at the Cold Massacre,” Celia said. “I’m so sorry.”
Call cleared his throat. “It’s all right. It was a long time ago. I never really knew her.”
“I never knew my aunt, either,” she said. “I was a baby when she was killed at the Cold Massacre. But if I ever got a chance to take revenge, I’d —”
She broke off, looking embarrassed. Havoc had freed himself from the leaves and was trotting up the hill, twigs caught in his fur.
“You’d what?” Call said.
“I’d kill the Enemy of Death myself,” she told him with finality. “I hate him so much.”
Call felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Celia was looking down at the leaves in her hands, letting them scatter over the ground like confetti. He could tell that her lips were trembling, that she was a second away from crying. Someone else, a better friend, would have stepped forward to put an arm around her, maybe pat her shoulder. But Call stood paralyzed. How could he offer to comfort Celia over something he’d done himself?
If she found out the truth, she’d hate him.
That night, Call had a dream. In it, he was skateboarding around his old town with Havoc, who had his own green-and-gold skateboard with spiky wheels. They were both wearing sunglasses, and whenever they passed someone on the street, that person broke into spontaneous applause and threw handfuls of candy to them, as though they were in a Halloween parade.
“Hello, Call,” Master Joseph said, appearing suddenly in the middle of the street. Call tried to skate past him when everything we
nt white, as though they were standing on a blank sheet of paper. Havoc was gone.
Master Joseph smiled at Call. He wore long Assembly robes and clasped his hands behind his back.
Call began to back away. “Get out of my dream,” he said, looking around wildly for something, anything he could use as a weapon. “Get out of my head!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Master Joseph said. There was a dark stain across the front of his robes. It looked like dirty water. Call remembered him cradling the dead body of his son, Drew, how water had gotten all over Master Joseph and how he had cried with ugly sobs.
After, he’d gotten to his feet and called Call “Master.” He’d said it was all right that Drew was dead, because Call was Constantine Madden, and if Constantine Madden wanted Drew dead, then he must have a good reason.
“This isn’t real,” Call insisted, pointing to his leg, which wasn’t scarred or thin and didn’t hurt at all. “Which means you’re not real.”
“Oh, but I am,” said Master Joseph. He snapped his fingers and snow began to fall, dusting Call’s hair and catching in his lashes. “As real as this. As real as the terrible choice Alastair Hunt must make.”
“What? What choice?” Call asked, drawn into the argument despite himself.
Master Joseph went on as if Call hadn’t spoken. “Why do you remain at the Magisterium, where they will only despise you? You could be with the man who has raised you and with me, your loyal friend. You could be safe. We could begin to rebuild your empire. If you agreed, I could take you tonight.”
“No,” Call said. “I’ll never go with you.”
“Oh, you will,” Master Joseph told him. “Maybe not yet, but you will. I know you, you see, much better than you know yourself.”
Call woke up with the cold sting of snow still on his face and shuddered. He put his hand to his cheek. It came away wet. He tried to tell himself it was just a dream, but dreams didn’t melt on your skin.
The next class, Call raised his hand before Master Rufus could start a lecture. Master Rufus’s eyebrows rose. Tamara looked surprised, although Aaron was too busy searching for something in his satchel to pay any attention.
“You don’t need to do that,” Master Rufus said. “There are only three of you here.”
“It’s a habit,” Call said, wiggling his fingers a little, a trick anyone who needed to be called on to get a bathroom pass knew well.
Master Rufus sighed. “All right then, Call. What is it that you need?”
He dropped his hand. “I want to know how to prevent people from finding us.”
Master Rufus rubbed a hand over his face, as though a bit flummoxed by this request. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean — or why you need to know that. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
Tamara looked approvingly at Call. “That’s smart. If we knew how to hide better, then Aaron would be safer.”
Call might not have been smart enough to think of that, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
Aaron finally looked up at the mention of his name, blinking a few times as though trying to figure out what they’d been talking about.
“The element of air is what allows us to communicate over great distances,” Master Rufus said. “So it is the element of earth that blocks those communications. You can enchant a stone to protect the person who wears it or carries it. Now tell me why we chose to build the school where we did.”
“So being under all this rock would make it easy to protect the school from being found?” Aaron asked. “But what about that tornado phone thing you let Call use?”
And what about my dream? Call thought but did not say.
Master Rufus nodded. “Yes, the earth around the Magisterium is enchanted. There are areas of access so we can have some contact with the outside world. Perhaps we should make our Makar a stone specifically enchanted against scrying. Gather around and I will show you how. But Call and Tamara, if I find that you’re using this to sneak around or to hide something, you will be in a world of trouble. I will lock you up underground like one of those elementals we discussed.”
“What about Aaron? How come he isn’t included in that lecture?” Tamara demanded, brows furrowed.
Master Rufus looked in Aaron’s direction and then back at Tamara and Call. “Because individually, you and Call might be trouble — but together, the pair of you are even worse.”
Aaron snickered. Call tried not to look in Tamara’s direction. He was afraid that if he did, he’d discover she was upset that Master Rufus thought she was anything like Call.
The day that everything started to unravel for Call wasn’t all that different from many other days. Call was outside with Master Milagros’s group — Jasper, Nigel, Celia, and Gwenda. They were practicing sending bolts of fire at one another. Call’s sleeve was already singed and, with his leg, he was having to do a lot of deflecting to avoid getting burned. Aaron, who Call had suddenly realized was a corrupt and evil-hearted cheater, was jumping out of the way half the time instead of bothering with magic.
Eventually, Call sat down on a log, breathing hard. Jasper looked over at him as though considering whether to set his seat on fire, but seemed to decide against it when Tamara sent a blast of heat in his direction.
“The important thing,” Master Rufus said, sitting down beside Call, “is to always control the circumstances. Other people will react to them, but if you control them, you’ll have the upper hand.”
That sounded disturbingly like something Alastair had said to him just that past summer. Our best bet of keeping people from making a fuss is controlling the circumstances under which Havoc is seen. It was easy to think of Alastair’s training at the Magisterium as not affecting him at all, but Master Rufus had been his teacher, too.
“What does that mean?” Call asked.
Master Rufus sighed. “If you can’t jump the way the others can, lead them to a terrain where they’ll have the same disadvantage. Up a tree. In a stream. Or even better, lead them to a terrain where you’ll have the advantage. Create your own advantage.”
“There’s no terrain where I have the advantage,” Call muttered, but he kept thinking about what Master Rufus had said all through the rest of the day, while eating purple tubers in the Refectory, while walking Havoc, and then as he stared up at the uneven rock ceiling of his room that night.
He kept thinking about his father controlling the circumstances and seeking a terrain where he’d have the advantage. He kept thinking about the chains in his father’s house and the drawing of the Alkahest on his father’s desk. He kept coming to the same disturbing conclusion.
He’d been pretty sure that his father was the one who’d tried to steal the Alkahest, but that had meant it was his father who failed. But what if the failure had been deliberate?
What if Alastair had failed, knowing that the mages would move the Alkahest out of the Collegium to a more secure location? What if he already knew the secure place that they were very likely to use — a terrain where he’d have the advantage?
Back at the house, beside the drawings of the Alkahest, there’d been a map of the layout of the airline hangar where the Trial had been held.
Call hadn’t wondered where Alastair had gotten that from, until now. Tamara’s parents said that Alastair was a great metal mage and Master Rufus had said that the Alkahest was safe, in a vault created by metal mages, below a place the kids had been before. The airplane hangar was made almost entirely of metal. Maybe Alastair — being a great metal mage — had been one of the people who’d helped build it, one of the people who knew exactly how to get into the hangar and to the vault that might be below it.
If all that was true, then Alastair hadn’t failed to steal the Alkahest. If all that was true, the Alkahest was more vulnerable than ever.
Call lay awake for a long time that night, staring into the dark.
Call went through much of the next day in a daze. He couldn’t pay attention in class w
hen Master Rufus was trying to teach them how to levitate objects using metal and earth magic, and he dropped a lit candle on Tamara’s head. He forgot to walk Havoc, which had unfortunate results for the rug in his bedroom. In the Refectory, he got distracted by the fact that Celia was waving at him — and nearly tripped Aaron.
Aaron stumbled, catching himself on the edge of one of the stone tables bearing enormous cauldrons of soup. “All right,” he said firmly, taking Call’s plate out of his hands. “That’s enough.”
Tamara nodded fervently. “Way past enough.”
“What?” Call was alarmed; Aaron had become very businesslike, piling food briskly onto Call’s plate. Huge mountains of food. “What’s going on?”
“You’re being all weird,” said Tamara, who had piled her plate high as well. “We’re going back to the room to talk about it.”
“What? I’m not — I don’t —” But Call was caught up in his friends’ determination like a dust mote in a windstorm. Carrying plates, Tamara and Aaron marched him out of the Refectory, back down the corridors to their room, and pushed him inside still protesting.
They put their plates down on the table and went to grab cutlery. Seconds later they were gathered around the food, forking up lichen pizza and mossy mashed potatoes.
Hesitantly, Call picked up his fork. “What do you mean I’m weird?”
“Distracted,” Tamara said. “You keep dropping things and forgetting things. You called Master Rufus Jasper and you called Jasper Celia. And you forgot to walk Havoc.”
Havoc barked. Call looked at him darkly.
“Plus you keep staring off into space like someone died,” Aaron said, handing Call a fork. “What’s going on? And don’t say ‘Nothing.’ ”
Call looked at them. His friends. He was so tired of lying. He didn’t want to be like Constantine Madden. He wanted to be a good person. The idea of telling them the truth felt awful, but being good wasn’t supposed to be fun, right?