The Golden Tower

by Holly Black

  Master Rufus shook his head. “Absolutely not, Gwenda. Call, Jasper, and Tamara are going because Alex demanded they go. I will not sacrifice the safety of another student for no good reason!”

  “It is a good reason,” Gwenda said. “I can help protect them!” She whirled around and saw Call. “Call, tell him I should go with you.”

  Call hesitated. “Gwenda, you’ve been a really good friend, and you’ve saved our butts a bunch of times since Gold Year started. I’m sorry if I ever underestimated you. But there’s no way Alex would let you come with us. The minute he saw someone he didn’t ask for, he’d unleash chaos.”

  Gwenda’s eyes glittered angrily, but Call could tell she knew he wasn’t lying.

  “I don’t want to be left behind,” she said.

  Call looked at Master Rufus. “Can’t she come in with the teachers and the Assembly?” he asked. “It would only be fair.”

  Master Rufus sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Everyone, listen!” It was Assemblyman Graves’s voice, amplified and echoing. “Callum Hunt. Tamara Rajavi. Jasper deWinter. Please come to stand before me.”

  Tamara moved reluctantly away from her family. Jasper peeled himself away from Lucas, and a few seconds later they were all standing in front of Assemblyman Graves, along with Havoc, who’d snuck in next to Call.

  “That Chaos-ridden wolf —” Graves began angrily.

  “He’s not Chaos-ridden,” said Call. “He’s a regular wolf.”

  Graves stared at Havoc, who blinked normal, wide, greenish wolf eyes at him. “I could have sworn —”

  Tamara giggled, and immediately stifled the sound. Graves glared. “Bind their hands,” he said.

  Master Milagros and Master North came up behind them. Call and the others put their hands behind their backs, and the teachers began to wind strips of flexible enchanted metal around their wrists. Call knew it was necessary, but anger was still boiling inside him.

  “These will come off when you tug against them three times in rapid succession,” Graves told them. “But they will also be destroyed, so please don’t test that in advance.”

  Tamara looked over at him guiltily, clearly having been just about to do that.

  Alastair whirled into the air, becoming only wind, whooshing around Call’s head. “I’ll be with you,” he promised. A moment later, a metal whistle dropped into Call’s bound hands. He closed his fingers tightly over it. When he looked at Jasper, a bottle of water was tucked into his pocket. Tamara had an acorn, and Kimiya, a pack of matches that looked scorched on one end, as though Ravan hadn’t wanted to stop burning.

  “Prepare yourself,” said Graves. “We will be flying to the tower.”

  All around, the mages rose up into the air. Call could feel himself being lifted up, could feel the wind whooshing beneath him, but with Alastair so close, even though his magic was bound, he couldn’t be afraid. He remembered how much he had wished for weightlessness, had wanted to fly so that he could avoid all the difficulties of having a leg that hurt a lot.

  But that had been a kid’s wish. His problems now couldn’t be solved by a little magic.

  Maybe they can be solved by a lot of magic, Aaron said in his head.

  They flew over fields and gray highways snaking by underfoot, the forest and the Magisterium retreating behind them. Call glanced over to see Havoc being whirled through the air, his paws flailing, and Tamara nearby, her dark hair flying like a banner. She looked over at him and gave an encouraging smile.

  In the distance, the golden tower rose, ever closer. For being built so quickly and for no real purpose but to stall Alex, the shimmering tower was both beautiful and formidable. Call wondered what purpose it might serve after today.

  Assuming, of course, that purpose wasn’t as his tomb.

  They landed on a stretch of grass in front of the single door to the tower. As soon as their feet touched the ground, a dark cloud passed over the sky, signaling Alex’s arrival with a bolt of lightning that struck a bare stretch of foliage, blackening it and making everyone jump.

  “That ridiculous child,” Graves ground out.

  From the sky, Alex and his retinue heaved into view.

  Alex was still on the back of his dragon-shaped chaos elemental but now his outfit had gotten even more elaborate. He wore black — of course — and huge black boots with massive silver buckles in the shape of lightning bolts. Around his shoulders was a cape.

  Is that an actual cape? Aaron demanded.

  Yep, Call thought. It definitely was — it was even fluttering in the breeze. Alex’s hair was spiked up with gel. Flying beside him were two more chaos elementals, both in horselike shapes that looked far less fixed. They sometimes seemed to have wings; other times instead of legs, they seemed to have the long, searching tentacles of octopi. Call guessed one was for Anastasia. The other, he feared, was for Kimiya.

  As Alex landed, his cape whipped through the air and Call spotted the dull metal crown on his head, its spikes like teeth. For a moment, even though Call knew it was all calculated, that Alex only cared about the illusion, the illusion worked. Call actually felt a thin tendril of fear and shuddered.

  “Assemblypeople of the mage world and other luminaries, I am glad that you’ve decided to cave to my demands and acknowledge my superiority,” said Alex. “This tower you’ve built me is pretty nice. I plan to reign from it quietly and not disturb you too much. I don’t want to do any gross Enemy of Death stuff, like reanimating people or animals. That’s not my thing. My thing is letting everyone know how awesome and scary I am.”

  “You mean everyone in the mage world?” asked Graves. Even though this was for show, he looked furious. “You still intend to keep the great secrets of magic, don’t you?”

  Alex chortled, and the crowd of creatures around him hooted and cackled. It was much more frightening than anything he’d said. He might be a ridiculous child, as Graves had said, but he had access to enormous power and creatures that could wield it.

  “The what?” he sneered.

  “The silence of the mage world!” Graves thundered. “We do not tell those without magic of the existence of magic. It endangers them and endangers us. It was difficult enough to build this stupid tower without alerting them to the magic that was happening — ”

  “My tower isn’t stupid,” said Alex, and made a casual gesture in Graves’s direction. Black fire shot from his fingers and swallowed up the Assemblyman. In seconds, nothing was left but a charred circle in the grass.

  Kimiya screamed, then bit the noise back with an obvious effort as Alex frowned at her. The mages were crying out as well, voices echoing around the clearing. Jasper was looking over at Gwenda, his face creased with concern. Tamara just shook her head, looking grim.

  Master Rufus stepped forward, into the blackened circle. “Alex Strike,” he said.

  Alex laughed. “Master Rufus,” he said. “Joseph used to talk about you all the time. The great mage who’d taught Constantine Madden. But being your assistant didn’t reveal any greatness. Constantine was something in spite of you, not because of you.” He flicked his eyes in Call’s direction, his mouth stretching into a grin. “After all, look how badly you’ve done with Callum.”

  “You may do to me as you did to Graves,” said Rufus, and Call tensed. He didn’t think he could stand it if Alex wiped his teacher off the face of the world. He’d have to break free of his manacles and that would ruin everything. “But then you will get nothing you want. It will be war with the mage community — and as you’ve said, you don’t want that. You want to be left alone.”

  “True,” said Alex, examining his nails.

  “It would be easier for you as well if the ordinary world didn’t know about mages,” said Rufus. “Think of what you could do. You could use your magic to trick them and make millions.”

  Alex laughed. “Maybe you are brilliant, Rufus. All right. I’ll keep the magic to myself.” He turned his glimmering, star-filled eyes on K
imiya. “Come along, darling. Don’t you still love me?”

  Kimiya smiled brilliantly. Call felt uneasy as she ran across the grass toward Alex and hugged his arm. Either she was giving a bravura performance or she was going to betray them all.

  Alex leaned down to kiss her. Tamara made a revolted noise. Thankfully it was a short kiss, and Alex broke away grinning, his arm slung over Kimiya’s shoulders.

  “Have the hostages step forward,” Alex said. “Have them walk toward the tower entrance.”

  Call looked over at Tamara. Her gaze found his. At least they were in this together. Aaron, too. The three of them against the world. Who’d known that when Rufus had picked them, they would become the most important people in Call’s life? He looked over at Jasper, at his determined face. Call had never thought they would be friends at all, but somehow whenever his life had needed saving, Jasper had been there holding out a hand — usually with a sarcastic quip, but still there.

  He took a step forward, and the others did the same. They moved across the grass onto the ground where it turned into gravel. It was still churned up from the feet of the mages who’d worked on building the tower. Havoc ran to his side, keeping his furred body protectively tight against Call’s leg.

  Call turned to look back over his shoulder. The mages of the Assembly seemed very far away. He could just see Gwenda, and Rufus —

  With a flick of his wrist, Alex sent a blaze of chaos fire toward them all. Call bit back a yell as he realized Alex wasn’t attacking. He was throwing up a blockade. The fire rose in an endless wall that curved around them, cutting off Jasper, Call, Tamara, Kimiya, Havoc, and Alex from the mages, but allowing them access to the tower.

  Alex sneered. “Let’s go see our new home. Callum, you can lead the way.”

  With a last look at the fire separating him from Master Rufus, Call shuffled toward the door of the tower, a heavy wooden thing. He couldn’t open it, so he just stood there until one of the chaos elementals walked over. It snaked out a tentacle toward the door, but where it touched, there was just a hole where the knob had been.

  “Automotones!” Alex shouted. “You do it.”

  The massive metal elemental loomed up out of the smoke that surrounded them and advanced on the door. Call stared — they’d all fought Automotones once and nearly been killed.

  Automotones lurched up to the front doors, his eyes, which were gears, whirring and spinning. His hand shot out, and a vibrating, buzzing blade appeared at the end of it. He sawed at the door until a large chunk of it fell open, crashing onto the ground.

  Alex is going to have to get that door fixed, Call thought. Definitely not a long-term-planning kind of guy.

  Automotones stepped back and they all headed inside with varying degrees of reluctance. The first floor was a large round room, entirely empty except for a rug and a spiral staircase winding upward.

  Call went up, and the others followed.

  The second floor was all one huge room with massive windows through which Call could see the tops of trees. There were multiple couches and a small kitchen, along with a large screen like the one in the Gallery, where Alex used to project movies. Since Call wasn’t sure where Alex wanted him to go, he stopped there, walking toward the far corner. Tamara followed him, then Jasper.

  “Now,” Call said to them. He pulled three times on his cuffs and his hands were free. Then he brought the whistle to his mouth and blew. No sound came out, only a wild wind that raced around the room to coalesce as Alastair and then to disappear again. Beside him, Lucas manifested — and then Greta. But both of them were gone by the time Alex walked into the room. Call had his hands behind his back, even though they were no longer bound. Tamara and Jasper did the same.

  Alex smiled in a smug way, walking around to admire his new digs, billowing cloak swishing around behind him. He was holding one of Kimiya’s hands. Call thought the smile on her face seemed forced.

  He hoped it was forced.

  “Pretty nice here, isn’t it?” Alex said, waving an arm around to indicate the whole space — the marble floor, the big couches with their cushions, the enormous TV. “Mom! I’m home!”

  Anastasia, Aaron thought. Of course she’s somewhere in here.

  “Alex?” They all stood still as Anastasia came wafting down the staircase from above. She wore a white dress and a sort of gossamer white overcloak. Her icy hair was bound up in a tight knot.

  She looked at Call for a long, steady moment. He couldn’t read her expression. He felt chilled inside — what if she’d seen what had happened to Graves out the window? What if she was reconsidering everything?

  Calm down, Aaron said. You don’t know that.

  But he sounded scared, too.

  Anastasia crossed the room to stand near Alex, who beamed. He looked over at Call, wearing a sneer that seemed exaggerated in a practiced-in-the-mirror kind of way.

  “You really thought the Magisterium valued your lives enough to save you, didn’t you, Call Hunt?” He laughed. “But they handed the three of you right over. They’re cowards, just like all the mages. I read all those books in Master Joseph’s house, and what I thought when I read them was how weak we’d become. Mages used to be something. They used to use their power for something other than keeping people safe from elementals. Soon you’re going to be dead, Callum. And then everyone will have to acknowledge that I’m the greatest mage of any generation, the one who defeated the Enemy of Death.”

  “You didn’t defeat me,” Call said. “The Magisterium tied me up, not you.”

  “No one cares about technical details!” Alex yelled. “No one cares about the real story. Do you think people cared about the fact that Constantine loved his brother or that his mother loved him? No, because that’s boring. And they won’t care how easy the Magisterium made it to kill you either. They will just care that I did it.”

  “But not Tamara, right?” Kimiya said. “She’s my sister.”

  Alex hesitated. “She’s loyal to my enemy, Kimiya.”

  “Perhaps we kill the two boys and lock the girl in the dungeon,” said Anastasia soothingly.

  “This place has a dungeon?” said Jasper.

  “Of course it has a dungeon,” snapped Alex. “And don’t speak unless I speak to you, deWinter. You should have been loyal to me. Your father was loyal to Master Joseph.”

  “My father was wrong,” Jasper said quietly. Call stared. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Jasper say that before.

  “I told you not to speak!” Alex yelled.

  “Or you’re going to do what?” said Jasper. “Kill me?”

  “Enough,” said Call. “Maybe nobody has to die. Maybe we could make some sort of deal.”

  “No deals, Hunt,” Alex said. “This time you don’t have anything I want. I don’t care about bringing people back from the dead. I care about power. And I care about revenge.” He grinned. “I want you to line up in front of me,” he said, and the black stars in his eyes were glowing like pinpricks. “First Tamara. Then Jasper. Then you, Call. I’m going to kill you in that order, and you’re going to watch your friends die, Makar.”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt Tamara!” Kimiya shrieked.

  “I changed my mind,” said Alex, raising his hand. It was shimmering with dark light, a halo of blackness around his fingers.

  Kimiya darted away from him, reaching for the matchbook with shaking hands.

  Alex whirled toward her, smoke wreathing his hands. Call turned to look at Tamara and Jasper, both of them pale, but they shook their heads at him as if to say, Not quite yet.

  “Just what are you doing?” Alex demanded of Kimiya.

  “I was just …” Kimiya said, but then her words seemed to run out. She backed away from Alex’s approach, clearly terrified. The matchbook dropped out of her hands.

  “You’re really going to betray me?” Alex demanded. “Me? Who was going to save you from your boring old life?”

  “This isn’t what you said it would be like,�
�� Kimiya said. “You never told me you were going to hurt people.”

  “So you conspired against me? With these losers?” Alex shook his head. He lifted his hand, and a bolt of chaos grew from his palm; Tamara flew at him, abandoning the pretense of having bound hands. He swung his arm with the strength of chaos, flinging her aside, and Call’s hands flew apart, too, rage filling him — how dare Alex touch Tamara? How dare he threaten his friends?

  He was still summoning chaos inside himself when Alex let fly a bolt of black fire. It shot straight at Kimiya.

  Chaos exploded from Call’s hand at the same moment. The two forks of dark lightning met in the air. Neither dissolved, though. They slammed into each other and ricocheted into the wall of the tower, blowing the stone to powder.

  “Whoa,” said Jasper. Call agreed. The chaos had smashed through rock, metal, and glass, and now there was a truck-size hole in the wall of the tower. On the other side of the hole, Call could see the field in front of the tower. The wall of chaos fire was dying down, though it looked like the mages still couldn’t cross it. A lot of them were gaping up at the tower, though, a few pointing and gasping.

  Then Automotones’s massive metal face filled the space. Kimiya screamed. Tamara reached for her sister and yanked her down onto the ground. The acorn skittered from her hand. Jasper knocked the bottle of water out of his pocket and it hit the floor, leaking water everywhere. Call pulled the whistle from his pocket, gripping it tightly in his hand.

  Anastasia leaned down and seized the matchbook.

  Alex turned toward Call, his smirk plastered back on. “Oh, so you thought you were going to fight me! That’s why you came here willingly. The Magisterium and the Assembly are going to pay for setting me up, but you’re going to pay first.”

  “Am I?” said Call.

  “I am chaos!” Alex shouted. “I have become the void!”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Call. “No one’s interested.”

  Alex gaped at him. Call couldn’t help it. He’d started to grin. Because behind Alex, Alastair was swirling into being, air coalescing to form his towering shape. Havoc barked as Lucas rose out of the puddle on the floor, shimmering and silver. And from Tamara’s smashed acorn, Greta emerged, a river of dirt and earth reaching upward.