The Golden Tower

by Holly Black

We could kill someone, thought Call, eyes narrowing further as he watched Tamara giggle again and Jasper preen. He was definitely flirting. We could kill Jasper, for instance.

  We’re not going to kill Jasper. I don’t want to be a murderer.

  You killed Master Joseph, Call thought, and then was surprised at himself. He wouldn’t have said that to Aaron out loud. He hadn’t wanted to mention anything that had happened during that horrible time. But he couldn’t seem to stop thinking. You practically pulled off his head like a tomato —

  I wasn’t myself, Aaron protested. Call didn’t say anything. He heard Tamara giggle again but didn’t have the heart to look — he didn’t have any claim on her. She could go out with Jasper if she wanted, even if the thought made Call want to smash his own head against a stalactite.

  There was no point being angry at Aaron either. None of this was Aaron’s fault. It was Master Joseph’s fault. Alex Strike’s fault. Constantine Madden’s fault. And Call’s own fault.

  I guess jumping from one body to another is always going to be murder, Aaron thought somberly. You’re always killing someone else’s soul. That’s why it’s evil. That’s why all that Enemy of Death stuff was wrong. It turned out to cause a lot of death instead of reversing it.

  I guess so. Call carried Soul and Void: Preliminary Theory over to the table, where Gwenda had already joined Tamara and Jasper. They were chattering about Automotones, Tamara and Jasper telling Gwenda about the battle at Alastair’s old car lot, especially Havoc’s heroics.

  Do you remember? Call thought, but Aaron had gone silent in his mind.

  It wasn’t fair. He felt bad about hurting Aaron’s feelings, but it was impossible not to think stupid, awful stuff. Horrible things floated to the surface of his mind all the time and he couldn’t stop them from coming. In the past, he’d barely restrained himself from saying the worst of his thoughts out loud; how was he supposed to restrain himself from thinking them? And then Aaron got to go off to hide in the back of his head and not reveal anything. Maybe Aaron’s thoughts were even worse than Call’s, but Call would never know.

  From the table laden with books, he heard Gwenda speak. “So Call dragged you to this enormous car graveyard looking for his father and then an elemental attacked you, and Call still didn’t tell you that he was the Enemy of Death?”

  “I think it was hard to say out loud,” Jasper said, surprising Call. “He probably wasn’t even sure we’d believe him. I wouldn’t have. Of course I would have pretended to at the time, because I was kidnapped and you should never tell your kidnapper that he’s a crazy person.”

  “You get kidnapped a lot,” Gwenda said, gloriously unsympathetic.

  “I do, now that you mention it,” said Jasper. “Why am I defending Call again? He’s the reason I am always getting kidnapped.”

  “Because you’re super good friends?” Gwenda said, sounding confused. “You’re his sidekick. Well, one of his sidekicks.”

  “That’s true,” said Tamara. “Havoc is really his main sidekick.”

  “No, no, no, no, no!” Jasper said, clearly appalled. “You can’t really have thought of me that way. I am his rival! Call and I are always going head to head, toe to toe, in contests of war and love. And I win as often as I lose! I am his rival!”

  “If you say so,” Gwenda said.

  Call, despite everything else, had to smile.

  Gwenda checked her watch. “We have to go meet with Master Rufus,” she said, sounding relieved. “Which is fine, because this is kind of boring. I can’t believe we’re here because a lizard dropped a hint.”

  “Warren’s been right before,” said Call, not sure if he was defending Warren or himself. “We’ll take these books back to the rooms and keep going through them until we find something.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” said Gwenda. She made a clicking noise at Jasper, who looked incredulous. “Come on. Time’s a-wasting.”

  “People click at dogs,” Jasper protested, following Gwenda from the room. “You can’t click at me.”

  “Click,” Gwenda said cheerfully. “Click, click.”

  Jasper’s protests were muffled as he and Gwenda moved out of earshot. Shaking her head, Tamara divided up the book burden between herself and Call. “Maybe we are being paranoid,” she said as they left the library. “Maybe Warren really didn’t mean anything.”

  “You can hardly blame us for being paranoid after everything we’ve been through,” said Call. He was wishing Aaron would come into his head again and tell him the right thing to say to Tamara, who looked tired and worried, but Aaron remained stubbornly absent.

  Tamara ducked her head. “I guess not.”

  What was she thinking? Call wanted to bang his head on a wall, but they’d reached their rooms and Tamara was letting them in with her wristband. They dumped their books on the table. Call was about to suggest they head to the Gallery for a snack when Tamara picked up Soul and Void and glanced at the back.

  “ ‘The opposite of chaos,’ ” she read, in a low voice, “ ‘is the human soul.’ ” She swallowed hard. “Call, I — I’m sorry. Not that I told you not to bring back Aaron — but that I didn’t try harder to understand why you felt like you needed to. Everyone was telling you that you were responsible for his death. Everyone was treating you like it was your fault. You must have felt like the only way to fix things was to bring him back.”

  Call knew it was probably a bad idea to be honest. But he didn’t know what else to do, or what else to say. “I didn’t want Aaron back so I’d feel better,” he said. “I mean, yeah, I felt guilty. But I was scared to do it, too. I’m always scared of what might happen if I’m not always watching myself, checking to make sure I don’t go full evil. But Aaron was my friend, and he had faith in me, and I didn’t want him to be dead. That was all.”

  Tamara’s eyes shone, as though she was holding back the edge of tears. “And I went off and left you,” she said. “You must have thought I had no faith in you at all. I knew I was wrong the minute I got back to the Magisterium. I’d been thinking that the mages would save us all, the Assembly would help, that they were grown-ups and we were kids, but they’re just flawed people. They can’t fix everything.”

  “No one can fix everything,” said Call. Tamara looked so sad, he wanted desperately to hug her, but would she want that? “It’s not your fault you trusted them —”

  “I trust you,” she said. “You’re my friend, Call, and I —”

  “I don’t want to just be your friend,” he said.

  She looked at him wide-eyed, like she couldn’t believe he said that. Call could feel his heart pounding through his whole body. He wasn’t sure he believed he’d said it either. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s the truth. I like you, Tamara. In fact, I —”

  She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It felt like lightning had zapped Call’s whole body. The first time they’d ever kissed, he’d been too stunned to really respond, but this time he wrapped his arms around her just like he’d wanted to before. And Tamara put her arms around him, and that was amazing, and she stroked his cheek gently while he kissed her, and that was even more amazing. She smelled like rosewater, and he was pretty sure this was the best kiss anyone in history had ever had and would definitely have gotten an Olympic ten in kissing if the Olympics graded this kind of thing.

  AUGH! I AM STILL IN HERE! came the shout in Call’s head, causing Call to pull away from Tamara. It was Aaron, apparently horrified out of his sulk by all the kissing.

  “Call?” Tamara asked, confused. She was looking at him with a kind of dreamy half smile on her face that made him just want to kiss her again, but she’d probably be really angry when she found out about Aaron.

  “Uh,” said Call, casting about for something, some reason to stop that would mean they could start up again later. “I think we’re moving too fast. I think we need to …” There, Call’s thoughts deserted him.

  STOP, Aaron said.

  “Stop,” C
all echoed.

  Tamara blinked at him, looking hurt. “Okay,” she said in a small voice. “But I thought this was what you wanted.”

  “Oh, I do!” Call said, maybe a little bit too eagerly. “I really, really do. It’s only …”

  That I think we should, um, take a break to make sure you’re sure, Aaron said.

  Call repeated the words. They sounded good. Thoughtful. Mature. Tamara was looking at him weirdly again, though.

  We want to make sure we are building on a foundation of trust, Aaron said.

  Call said that, too, trying to invest the words with conviction, trying to be the person who believed them. Tamara folded her arms across her chest and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  “You sound like Aaron,” she told him.

  “That’s a good thing, right?” Call asked.

  “It’s something,” she said, which did not sound entirely like agreement. “I guess we both miss him in our own way.” She put her hand on his cheek, warm against his skin. “Good night, Call.”

  And with that, she went off to her room, leaving Call to go to his own and throw himself onto the little bed. Havoc jumped up, circling around before sitting directly on Call’s feet, but Call couldn’t even summon up the energy to care.

  Things had been going so well with Tamara that he’d almost forgotten that he had another secret. She’d already put up with so much. And would she even believe him?

  Call, Aaron said. We have to talk about something.

  I know what you’re going to say, Call told him, looking up at the shimmering mica ceiling above him, remembering how great it had been for that one moment when they were together and everything else hadn’t mattered. That I should just trust her. And I know I should. I should tell her. But I just want things to be normal.

  That’s not it. I found something in your head. Something — weird.

  Something in his head? Call closed his eyes. A huge weariness had come over him. Whatever it was Aaron knew, he didn’t want to hear about it. Not now, he said. Just not now.

  CALL DREAMED, AND in his dream, he was a grown-up mage in a city he didn’t recognize. He lifted his hands and black lightning — chaos lightning — sparked between them. He felt a sense of surety and overwhelming power. It reminded him of the feeling he’d had when chaos was coursing through his body, except now he knew how to channel it.

  This must have been what it felt like to be Constantine Madden.

  The black fire shot from his fingers. It was as if he were Zeus; he could burn the whole world and it would be easy. With movements of his fingers, he guided the destructive fire, striking down other mages as they tried to run. Fire burst from the roofs of buildings. A stone clock tower was burning. He had no counterweight, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered but power.

  Call sat up, gasping. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. It took him several long moments to remember who he was and where he was — in his own bed in the Magisterium.

  He kicked the covers away, hoping the shock of cold air would wake him up and push him further from the dream. It had been horrible, in a wonderful sort of way …

  Are you all right? Aaron sounded worried.

  I think so, Call said. I mean, yeah. It was a nightmare, is all.

  It was Constantine, Aaron said. His memories. It had to have been.

  I’ve had weird dreams before, Call said. They don’t necessarily mean anything.

  I’m sorry about before, Aaron said. Let me tell you what I found, okay? Then we can maybe figure out how to handle … kissing … while I’m still here.

  Call sighed. “Probably by just not doing it,” he said glumly. At least in his bedroom he could talk out loud to Aaron without anyone thinking he’d lost his mind. “Okay, shoot.”

  There’s something locked up in your head, Aaron said. I don’t know how to describe it, but being in here is like being in a big space with windows. I can look out of them and I’m looking out of your eyes. There are currents, emotions, that move past me, and your thoughts are like words in my mind. But when we weren’t talking, before, it was like I bumped up against a locked door. In the middle of the room. There’s something closed away inside it.

  “Like a repressed memory?” Call said, puzzled.

  I think it’s Constantine’s memories, said Aaron. I think someone shut them away in here so you wouldn’t have access to them.

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  I don’t know. Aaron sounded frustrated. Maybe when he jumped into your body, because you were a baby, your mind couldn’t handle all of the memories, so they got shut away.

  It made a kind of sense. “Or maybe they would have made me realize I was an adult, trapped in a baby’s body. Maybe he thought that would make him go insane?”

  I don’t know, but I think we should open them.

  Call was up and out of the bed, shaking his head, though he knew Aaron couldn’t see him. “No. No!”

  Why not?

  “The whole time I was with Master Joseph, every time I was around Anastasia Tarquin, all they wanted was for me to remember being Constantine Madden, because they thought those memories would, I don’t know, overwrite my own. What if the memories make me stop being Call?”

  Aaron was quiet for a long moment. I guess I figured they would just be memories and it would be like the way I am in your head. I’m still me, even if I hear your thoughts.

  “But Constantine’s soul was my soul. Maybe they will feel like my memories. But even if they don’t, what if they’re really, really bad?” He was afraid, he realized, of more than just the possibility of turning into Constantine. He was afraid of facing all the terrible things that Constantine had really done. What if Call remembered every ugly, awful thing? What if he had to remember the death of his own mother?

  I guess I didn’t think about any of that, Aaron said. But if you ever want to look at the memories, I’m here in your head, too. I will do everything I can to make sure that you stay you, okay?

  Call felt like a coward. “Let me think about it.”

  It was early, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. Instead, he got up, got his towel and his change of clothes, and headed to the bathing room, Havoc padding along behind him. He washed up quickly while Havoc popped soap bubbles with his tongue, sneezing and then growling at the bubbles.

  After the bath, Call headed back into his room and was startled by Jasper, shirtless, doing stretches in the common area.

  “What are you doing?” Call demanded.

  “Limbering up for the day ahead,” Jasper said, as though Call were the weird one. “Getting into the right mental place for magic.”

  “Ah,” Call said. “Sure.”

  By the time he got back from walking Havoc, both of the girls were up, Gwenda with a purple silk cap over her twists, Tamara yawning as she took her toothpaste into the bathing area. The reality that Jasper and Gwenda were really Call’s new roommates and in his apprentice group was sinking in and he still wasn’t sure how he felt about it. On the plus side, at least they hadn’t walked in on him and Tamara kissing.

  Call had just put down some kibble for Havoc when the door opened and Master Rufus came in. “Today, apprentices, we’re going to continue to learn about metal, from both a scientific and magical perspective. Call, you will be joining us after you meet with a member of the Assembly.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Call said.

  “This is an informal meeting and Mr. Rajavi has assured me that very little time will be taken away from your classes.” Master Rufus didn’t seem particularly concerned, which was reassuring. And Call knew Mr. Rajavi. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  “My dad’s here?” Tamara asked.

  “He wanted me to give you his regards,” said Master Rufus. “He was sorry he couldn’t see you, but there are rules against apprentices getting visitors.”

  Unless that apprentice was a Makar who might also be an Evil Overlord. T
hen you got a lot of visitors.

  “Call, Mr. Rajavi will be waiting for you in my office. I will accompany the rest of you to the Refectory.” And with that, they were off, leaving Call to eat some cereal and go to Master Rufus’s office alone.

  Call took the path that led alongside one of the Magisterium’s many underground rivers. It glowed eerie blue in the light of the moss. On the way, he peered around, looking for Warren. He even called the little lizard’s name a few times, his voice echoing through the caverns. He was sure he’d see Warren during the short boat trip, but by the time he got to the far bank, he decided Warren was avoiding him.

  When Call reached Rufus’s door, he tapped on it and heard Mr. Rajavi’s voice echo from inside: “Come in.” The office looked much as it always had. The same papers were tacked to the walls, covered in what Call now recognized as alchemical equations. The big couch was gone, replaced by more bookshelves, and the old workstation had been replaced by one made of a gleaming clear material — quartz, Call guessed. Tamara’s father sat behind Rufus’s rolltop desk.

  Oh, God, Call thought. Tamara’s father. And he’d just kissed Tamara. Was that why Mr. Rajavi was here?

  Don’t be totally ridiculous, said Aaron. Do you think he’s psychic or something?

  Kimiya was grounded for making out with Evil Overlord Alex — Tamara had said so. Mr. Rajavi had a well-established policy of not liking his children making out with Evil Overlords.

  Call slid into the chair opposite the desk, eyes wide. Mr. Rajavi gazed at him with an unsmiling expression. He wore an expensive-looking black suit and a thick gold watch on one wrist. His beard was perfectly trimmed.

  I need to say something about Tamara, Call thought.

  You really don’t, said Aaron, sounding alarmed.

  I have to reassure him, Call protested.

  Reassure him about what? You DID kiss Tamara. Just keep your mouth shut, Call.

  “My intentions are honorable!” Call blurted. He wanted to say more, but Aaron had set up a loud angry buzzing in his head, like a giant bee.

  Mr. Rajavi blinked. “That’s good, son. It’s good to hear that despite having the soul of Constantine Madden, you want to live an honorable life.”