by Holly Black
But Master Rufus moved on. “What I’d like you all to do is to practice using your counterweights. First, gather up something to represent each of the elements. Aaron, this is going to be especially challenging for you, as you have chosen Call for your counterweight.”
“Hey!” Call said.
“I meant only that working with a human counterweight is challenging. Now, go, find your counterweights.”
Call walked around the edge of the grotto, finding a rock. Air was all around him, so he figured he had that covered. Fire and water were harder, but he used magic to turn some of the water from the silty cave pool into an orb he kept floating near his head. Then he took a vine and resolved to light it on fire with magic when the time came.
He went back to where the others were standing. Of course, they’d completed the exercise before he had.
“Very good,” said Master Rufus. “Let’s start with air magic. I am going to use air magic to send each one of you up into the air — but keep hold of your counterweight. It’s going to be your only contact with earth magic. Come down once you feel you need to use the counterweight.”
One by one, they were sent up into the air. Call could feel it whistling around him, the exhilarating lure of flying making him giddy. Flying was his favorite part of magic. In the air, his leg never bothered him. He began to use air magic, forming patterns of color, making clouds and then flying through them. The more magic he expended, the more he understood how someone could be Devoured. It seemed to him that becoming part of the air wouldn’t take much. He could relax into it and be blown along like an errant leaf. All his worries and fears would be blown away, too.
All he had to do was drop his bit of rock.
“Call.” Master Rufus was looking up at him. “The exercise is over.”
Call twisted around to see that Tamara and Aaron were already on the ground. He reached down to his stone and let the weight of its connection to earth fill him, lowering him slowly until he was standing again, his leg aching as always.
Rufus gave Call a measured look. “Well done, everyone,” he said. “Now, Aaron, we’re going to try an exercise involving chaos. Something small.”
Aaron nodded, looking nervous.
“You shouldn’t be worried,” said Rufus, indicating that they should clear a space in the center of the room. “If I understand correctly, you defeated many Chaos-ridden when you fought Master Joseph last year.”
“Yes, but …” Aaron bit at a fingernail. “I did it without a counterweight.”
“No, you didn’t. Call was there.”
“It’s true,” Tamara said. “Call was practically holding you down.”
“You may have used his magic instinctively,” said Rufus. “The counterweight of chaos is a human being because the counterweight of the void is the soul. When you use chaos magic, you seek a human soul to balance you. Without a counterweight, you can easily use up your own magic and die.”
“That sounds … bad,” Aaron said. He moved into the center of the room, and after a second, Call joined him. They stood awkwardly, shoulder to shoulder. “But I don’t want to hurt Call.”
“You won’t.” Master Rufus strode to the corner of the grotto and returned carrying a cage. In the cage was an elemental — a lizard with curved spines running along its back. Its eyes were bright gold.
“Warren?” Call said.
Master Rufus set the cage on the ground. “You will make this elemental disappear. Send it into the realm of chaos.”
“But it’s Warren,” Call objected. “We know that lizard.”
“Yeah, I’m really not sure I want to do … that,” said Aaron. “Can’t I disappear a rock or something?”
“I’d like to see you work with something more substantial than that,” said Rufus.
“Warren does not want to be disappeared,” said the lizard. “Warren has important things to tell you.”
“Hear that? He’s got important things to tell us,” said Aaron.
“He’s also a liar,” pointed out Tamara.
“Well, you’d know all about being a liar, wouldn’t you?” Call snapped.
Tamara’s cheeks pinked but she ignored him. “Remember when Warren took us to the wrong cave and the Devoured almost killed us?”
Aaron cut his eyes sideways toward Call. “I don’t want to do it,” he whispered.
“You can’t,” Call muttered under his breath.
“I have to do something.” Aaron sounded slightly panicked.
“Disappear the cage,” Call replied, keeping his voice to a near whisper.
“What?”
“You heard me.” Call grabbed Aaron’s arm. “Do it.”
Master Rufus’s eyes narrowed. “Call —”
Aaron’s hand shot out. A dark tendril uncoiled in his palm, then exploded outward, surrounding the cage, hiding Warren from sight. Call felt a slight pull inside himself, as if there were a rubber band inside his rib cage and Aaron was twanging it. Was that what it meant to be a counterweight?
The smoke began to clear. Call dropped his hand, just in time to see Warren’s tail disappear through a crack in the grotto wall. The cage was gone, the space where it had stood empty.
Rufus raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t mean for you to send the cage into chaos as well, but — good job.”
Tamara was staring at the place where Warren’s cage had disappeared. Under other circumstances, Call would have shot her a reassuring look, but not now. “What’s the limit to Aaron’s power?” she asked suddenly. “Like, what can he do? Could he send the whole Magisterium into the void?”
Master Rufus turned toward her, bushy eyebrows drawing together in surprise. “There are three things that make mages great. One is their fine control, another is their imagination, and the third is their well of power. One of our challenges is to discover the answer to your question. What can Aaron do before he needs his counterweight to pull him back? What can Call do? What can you do? There is only one way to find out — practice. Now, let’s try working with earth.”
Call sighed. It looked like they wouldn’t be finished for a long while.
After the exercises were finally over, the three apprentices walked back from the grotto. Call was exhausted and had fallen behind the others. His leg hurt, his head hurt, and he dawdled near a pool of eyeless fish.
“You guys have it easy,” he told them as they swam lethargically, pale in the moss-lit gloom.
The surface of the water was suddenly broken and a fish was swept up into the air by a long pink tongue. Call looked up to see Warren hanging from a stalactite.
The elemental blinked down at him. “The end is closer than you think,” he said.
“What?” Call asked, thinking he’d misheard.
“The end is closer than you think,” the lizard repeated. Then he darted up the rocky formation to the ceiling of the cave.
“Hey, we helped you!” Call called after him, but Warren didn’t return.
At dinner, Call sat with Aaron, Jasper, and Celia, while Tamara, once again, joined her sister. Call could practically feel waves of ice radiating off her back every time he glanced at her.
“Why do you keep looking over at Tamara?” Celia asked, spearing a bright yellow mushroom with her fork.
“Because she told the mages to investigate his dad,” Jasper said. Call startled, turning to glare at him. Jasper smiled angelically.
“Investigate him for what?” Celia’s eyes were round.
Call didn’t say anything. If he started explaining or manufacturing excuses, it would only make things worse. Instead, he wondered how Jasper knew any of this. Maybe he and Tamara were back to being thick as thieves. It served Tamara right to be stuck with someone like Jasper.
Jasper was about to make another comment, but Aaron warned him off with a “Shut it.”
“I don’t know what he did,” Jasper admitted. “But I heard some of the mages talking. They were saying the search party they sent to find him didn’t turn up
anything. Apparently, he’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Celia echoed, looking over at Call, waiting for him to say something.
Call frowned at his plate, small cracks appearing at the edges of the pottery from the force of his rage. He was a second-year mage, he’d walked through the Gate of Control; he knew he shouldn’t be losing it like this. And yet he didn’t want to stop Jasper from talking, not when Jasper seemed to know more about what was happening with Alastair than he did.
“Yeah, I guess someone warned him,” Jasper went on, his gaze sliding over to Call, the implication of his words clear.
“Call didn’t warn anyone,” Aaron said. “He was with us the whole time. And stop acting like you know anything, when you really don’t.”
“I know more than you do,” Jasper said with a sneer in Aaron’s direction. “I know he’s not to be trusted.”
A shiver went up Call’s spine, because Jasper was right.
Call couldn’t even trust himself.
That night, Call flopped down on the couch in the common room. Rufus had assigned them some reading about the robber-baron era of mage politics, which had lasted until only a couple of decades back, but Call couldn’t concentrate. The words swam on the page, the edges of the book occasionally sparking into tiny flames he quickly put out. Anger and fear had scorched the spine with black ash that smeared darkly over his fingers.
Tamara had made herself scarce after dinner, and Aaron had gone to the library to do his homework. He’d invited Call to come along, but that was because Aaron was nice and couldn’t help doing nice things. Call knew he was better off alone. Just him and Havoc on the couch, the wolf curled up on his feet, panting softly, his coruscating eyes glowing in the dim room.
Just as he was pretty sure he was about to set fire to the book again, the door opened. It was Alex Strike, brown hair messy as usual — Call felt for him about that one — and an odd expression on his face.
Call shoved the history book under a cushion and sat up, careful not to dislodge Havoc. Because he was Rufus’s assistant, Alex was one of the only people besides Rufus to have access to the room. Still, he’d never come in like this before.
“What’s going on?” Call asked.
Alex sat down on the couch opposite Call, glancing at the closed doors of Tamara’s and Aaron’s rooms. “Are your roommates out?”
Call nodded, uncertain where this was going. Maybe he was in trouble. Maybe Alex had a message from Rufus. Maybe there was some kind of Magisterium second-year hazing ritual that involved being tied to a stalactite overnight.
“It’s about your dad,” Alex said. “I know about the Alkahest. I know the mages are looking for him.”
Call glanced down at Havoc, who growled low in his throat. “Does everyone know?” Call asked, thinking of Jasper.
Alex shook his head. “Not how serious things are.”
“My dad didn’t do it,” Call said. “Not like they’re saying. He’s not in league with the Enemy. He’s not in league with anyone.”
A strange expression passed over Alex’s face, like maybe he’d only just then realized how dangerous it was to be talking to Call about this. “I believe you,” he said finally. “Which is why you need to get word to your dad to stay hidden. If they find him, they’re going to kill him.”
“What?” Call said, although he’d heard the words perfectly clearly.
Alex shook his head. “The Alkahest is gone. If he’s the one who got it, they’re not going to bother with prison. He’ll be dead as soon as they find him. That’s why I figured you ought to know. Warn him, before it’s too late.”
Call wondered how Alex knew this stuff and then remembered his stepmother was on the Assembly. So instead he asked, “Why are you helping me?”
“Because you helped me,” he said. “Gotta go.”
Call nodded and Alex slipped out.
If Alastair were murdered by the mages, it would be Call’s fault. He had to do something, but the more he thought about it, the more he was sure that there was no safe way to get Alastair a message. Master Rufus would be watching for that — would use it to catch Alastair if he could. But if Call could find his dad in time, maybe he could warn him in person.
Thinking of Alastair made Call remember the room in the basement, set up for a ritual, and the small, boy-size cot in the corner. It made Call remember how Havoc had whined and the sound his father’s head had made when it hit the wall.
If he found his father and his father had the Alkahest, what would Alastair do with it?
Call knew he had to focus. Call knew his dad better than anyone. He should be able to guess where Alastair was hiding. It would be a place that was out of the way, one he knew really well. A place the mages wouldn’t think to look. One that wasn’t easily traceable back to him.
Call sat up straight.
Alastair bought a lot of broken-down antique cars to strip for parts — way too many to store in the garage of the house or in his shop, so he’d rented the dilapidated barn of an elderly lady about forty miles from where they lived … and paid her in cash. That barn would be a perfect hideout — Alastair had even slept there sometimes, when he was working late into the night.
Call slid off the couch, causing Havoc to tumble to the ground with an annoyed grunt. He reached down to stroke the wolf’s head. “Don’t worry, boy,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
He headed into his bedroom and pulled his canvas duffel out from under the bed. He stuffed it quickly with clothes, tossed Miri in, and, after a moment of thought, returned to the main room to add what was left of the Ruffles chips. He’d need to have something to eat on the road.
He was just swinging the bag over his shoulder when the door opened again and Tamara and Aaron came in. Aaron was carrying a pile of books, his and Tamara’s, and she was laughing at something he’d said. For a moment, before they saw Call, they looked carefree and happy, and he felt his stomach tighten. They didn’t need him, not as a friend, not as a part of their apprentice group, not as anything but a cause of strife and argument.
Tamara caught sight of him first, and the smile slid off her face. “Call.”
Aaron shut the door behind them and set down their books. When he straightened up, he was staring at the boots on Call’s feet and the duffel in his hand.
“Where are you going?” Aaron asked.
“I was going to walk Havoc,” Call said, indicating the wolf, who was darting merrily between them.
“And you needed to pack for a week?” Tamara pointed at his duffel. “What’s going on, Call?”
“Nothing. Look, you don’t need to — you don’t need to know about this. That way, when Master Rufus asks you what happened to me, you don’t have to lie.”
Tamara shook her head. “No way. We’re a group. We tell each other things.”
“Why? So you can tell all our secrets?” Call asked, seeing Tamara flinch. He knew he was being a jerk, but he was unable to stop. “Again?”
“That depends on what you’re doing.” Aaron’s jaw was set the way Call rarely saw it. Usually Aaron was so forgiving, so immensely nice, that Call often forgot that underneath, there was the steel that made him the Makar. “Because if it’s something that’s gonna put you in danger, then I’ll tell the Masters myself. And you can be mad at me instead of her.”
Call swallowed. Aaron and Tamara faced him, blocking the door. “They’re going to kill my dad,” he said.
Aaron’s eyebrows went up. “What?”
“Someone — and I can’t tell you who, you’re just going to have to trust me — said that the Alkahest is missing. And since my dad went on the run, they’re not going to put him in prison or give him a trial —”
“The Alkahest is gone?” Tamara echoed. “Your dad really stole it?”
“There’s a mage prison?” Aaron asked, wide-eyed.
“Sort of. There’s the Panopticon,” Tamara said grimly. “I don’t know that much about it, but it’s a place where
you’re always watched. You’re never alone. If your dad really did —”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Call. “They’re going to kill him.”
“How do you know that?” Tamara asked.
Call looked at her for a long moment. “A friend — a real friend — told me what he heard.”
She blanched. “So what are you going to do?”
“I have to find him and get the Alkahest back before that happens.” Call hitched his duffel higher on his shoulder. “If I return it to the Collegium, I can convince the mages that my dad’s no threat to them — or to you. I swear, Aaron, my dad wouldn’t hurt you. I swear he wouldn’t.”
Aaron rubbed a hand over his face. “We don’t want your dad to get hurt, either.”
“Die, not get hurt,” Call insisted. “If I don’t find him, he’s going to be killed.”
“I’m coming with you,” Tamara said. “I can pack in ten minutes.”
I don’t want you to come. Call didn’t say it. He wasn’t even sure it was true. He was sure he was still angry, though. He shook his head. “Why would you want to do that?”
“This is my fault. You’re right. But I can help you evade the mages while you look for your dad, and I can help you convince the Collegium to take back the Alkahest and stop hunting him. My parents are on the Assembly.” She took a step toward her room. “Just give me ten minutes.”
“You guys don’t really think that I’m going to stay here while you both go on a mission, do you?” Aaron said. “Last time, you both saved me. Now I get to help with the saving part.”
“You definitely can’t come,” Call said. “You’re the Makar. You’re too valuable to be running around looking for my dad, especially since everyone’s worried he’s going to hurt you.”
“I’m the Makar,” Aaron said, and Call thought he heard the shadow of all the things Aaron had overheard that summer in his words. “I’m the Makar and it’s my job to protect people, not the other way around.”
Call sighed and sat down on the couch. He pictured the long journey ahead of him, buses and walking and loneliness with no one but Havoc to keep him company. Nothing to distract from the voice in his head that said: Your father is going to die. Your father might want you dead. Then he thought about having Aaron and Tamara with him, Aaron’s steady presence, Tamara’s funny remarks, and felt reluctantly lighter. “Fine,” he said in a rough voice. He didn’t want to let on how relieved he was. “Just don’t take too long. If we’re going to go, we have to get out of here. Now. Before someone notices.”
