The Golden Tower Page 5

  Narrow escape, Aaron muttered. At least he’d stopped the bee noise. Call shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “I’ll cut to the chase,” Tamara’s father said. “Your mother, Anastasia Tarquin, has been asking for you.”

  “She’s not my mother.” A wave of anger passed over Call, erasing his previous embarrassment. “She was Constantine Madden’s mother, and I am not him.”

  Mr. Rajavi smiled thinly. “I like your conviction. And I know my daughter thinks highly of you. Then again, I’ve started to be suspicious of those my daughters think highly of.”

  Maybe you should tell him you kissed Tamara, said Aaron. He’s a jerk.

  He was always like this, Call said. You just never saw it because he wasn’t like that to you.

  Call felt instantly bad for having thought that, but he didn’t want to let the silence stretch out too long while he tried to explain stuff to Aaron. “If you mean Alex Strike, I’m glad he’s dead, too,” Call said bluntly. “But I don’t want to see Anastasia.”

  “She’s in the Panopticon,” said Mr. Rajavi. “Her sentencing was this afternoon. She’s been condemned to death.”

  That shook Call. He tried not to show it, but his hands tightened on the arms of his chair. Maybe he should agree to see her, but trying to imagine himself back in the Panopticon, on the other side of the magical glass, was awful. Besides, he didn’t have anything to say to Anastasia. He couldn’t help her. And he didn’t want to keep pretending to be okay with her calling him Constantine.

  He thought about the memories Aaron had found locked away in his head. Maybe if he looked at those, he would have some of the feelings for her that she hoped he would. But that only made him more determined not to unlock those memories.

  “Do I have to go?” Call asked.

  “Of course not,” Mr. Rajavi said. He seemed relieved at the thought that Call was really saying no. Maybe he didn’t want to go to the Panopticon either. “If you change your mind, tell Master Rufus.”

  Call stood up, assuming the meeting was over, only to have Mr. Rajavi stay where he was. After an awkward moment, Call sat down again. “Is there something else?”

  “An offer. You’re graduating from the Magisterium soon. Once you finish your Gold Year, you will be a mage in earnest and a very powerful one, a Makar. I want you to go to the Collegium. I will make sure you get accepted into the best programs there. I will clear a path for you to be a very important mage, perhaps an Assembly member yourself one day. But we want you to stop using chaos magic, except with the explicit permission of the Assembly. We want you to be our Makar.”

  Call was astonished. It wasn’t like he was running around using chaos magic all the time, for fun. But this was the same Mr. Rajavi who’d gotten Aaron to perform tricks with chaos magic at one of his parties. How had that been okay, but this wasn’t?

  Maybe the Assembly would give you permission to do chaos tricks at parties, too, Aaron said with surprising cynicism.

  “How would you know?” Call asked.

  Mr. Rajavi’s eyebrows went up. Call supposed it didn’t sound like the question of someone who was planning on being honest.

  “Well,” Mr. Rajavi said. “We would choose a new counterweight for you.”

  A new counterweight? Call was surprised at the depths of his revulsion at the thought. Aaron was his best friend. That was why he’d been willing to be Aaron’s counterweight and why Aaron had been his.

  I’m still your best friend, Aaron said. If you start thinking like I am dead, it’s really going to freak me out.

  “What if I don’t agree?” Call asked Mr. Rajavi.

  “Let’s just hope that you do,” he said, a promise and a threat all in one.

  “I’ve got to think about it,” Call replied.

  Mr. Rajavi stood and extended his hand to Call, who got up to shake it. Call realized again how much taller he’d grown. He was looking down at Mr. Rajavi’s head.

  “Think well,” Mr. Rajavi said. “You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”

  On Call’s stiff-legged walk back through the tunnels, he considered Anastasia and the Assembly’s offer. He thought about Alastair, too, and his promise that once Gold Year was over they could travel and establish themselves in a new place with new identities.

  Call came to where the rest of his apprentice group was training. Tamara was shaping her metal into a shining circle, liquid and dazzling. Jasper was poking some gold nuggets, while Gwenda was attempting to coax a mushy puddle of bronze into a bracelet. Master Rufus was sitting on a rock, looking to be a bit in despair.

  If Call went away with Alastair, he would never see any of them again, but if he accepted the Assembly’s offer, he could see them whenever he wanted. They could all go to the Collegium together. He wouldn’t do any more chaos magic; it wasn’t like he wanted to do it anyway. Mr. Rajavi might not even ground Tamara for dating him.

  You’re forgetting about one thing, Aaron said.

  What’s that? Call asked.

  Me.

  AT LUNCH IN the Refectory, Gwenda and Tamara chatted animatedly. Jasper seemed sunk in gloom, gazing frequently over at the nearby table where Celia sat, surrounded by her other Gold and Silver Year friends. Call recognized some of them — a quiet boy with brown hair named Charlie, and a girl with a short black pixie cut whose name, he thought, was Jessie. But quite a few were total strangers to him. Maybe because he’d spent so much time away from the Magisterium, he realized — and maybe because even when he’d been there he’d been too wrapped up in his comfortable group of three to notice much.

  Sometimes Jasper would wave at Celia. She would wave back graciously, ignoring everyone else at the table. Tamara just rolled her eyes — they were all laughing and joking around, except Call, who stayed quiet. He could sense Aaron’s tension. Aaron had always loved these kinds of big groups, flourishing on all the humor and affection.

  It’s like being a ghost, Aaron said now. I can see everything, but I can’t do anything. Or say anything.

  “What is going on with you, Jasper?” Gwenda said finally, after he’d exchanged another weird wave with Celia. “Are you guys together or not?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Jasper. “Celia wants me to renounce Call and lodge a protest about being put into Master Rufus’s apprentice group.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Kai. “Half the school would kill to be Rufus’s student.”

  “Well, he does seem to LIKE KILLERS,” called Celia, who had clearly overheard and was glaring.

  They all dropped their voices. “Well, you obviously can’t do that,” whispered Gwenda.

  “No, of course not,” said Jasper.

  “Call’s your friend,” said Rafe.

  “It’s not that,” Jasper protested. “It’s about not giving in! A deWinter doesn’t do what he’s told! A deWinter is independent!”

  Call thought about how Jasper’s father wasn’t independent at all. He was locked away in the Panopticon, besmirching the deWinter name. Jasper liked to complain — a lot — about little stuff, but never about his dad’s situation. It must weigh on him, though.

  “Celia can’t keep being so ridiculous,” said Tamara. “It’s unbelievable she’s getting any support.”

  “I’d say about half the school feels like she does,” said Kai in a low voice. “There are a lot of people who don’t like or trust Call, and some of them think he’s basically just the Enemy of Death in a Gold Year uniform.”

  “What about the people who actually like me?” said Call, feeling sick.

  “They’re all at this table,” said Gwenda.

  “That’s not true!” Tamara protested. “There are people who like you, Call. And Havoc likes you. And Warren.”

  “Warren doesn’t like anyone,” said Call, pushing his plate away. He thought about his dream of the Collegium — wouldn’t it just be more of this?

  Kai suddenly stood up. His brown eyes met Call’s and he shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry,�
�� he said, and crossed the room to sit down at Celia’s table.

  They all stared after him, stunned. Rafe broke the silence. “Charlie’s his boyfriend, and he’s completely on Celia’s side,” he said. “You have to understand — it’s been really hard on Kai.”

  Jasper looked grim. “Battle lines are being drawn,” he said, and for once, he wasn’t kidding around. Call almost imagined he could see a thin glowing line separating their table from Celia’s.

  Dragging a fork through his lichen, Call knew that he was going to have to do something. He just wished he knew what.

  After lunch, exercises were outside in the woods and included Gold Years and Iron Years. They were to accompany the younger kids as they explored the area around the Magisterium and tried out some newly learned magic.

  “Don’t let them wander off,” Master Rufus said. “This will be good for all of you, to take responsibility for younger mages, to help them and also to realize how far you’ve come in your own studies.”

  “None of them are going to want to partner with me,” Call said to Tamara, then was a little ashamed. His friends already had to deal with the hostility that people they cared about felt toward Call. He didn’t have to complain on top of it.

  Tamara patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Maybe there’s a tiny evil one.” He glowered at her and she smiled cheerfully back at him. “That’s the spirit. Your evil little fan will like that.”

  He laughed despite himself.

  Meanwhile, Jasper was puffing himself up with the thought that someone was going to be impressed with him. “I have a lot of wisdom to pass on,” he was saying to Gwenda. “The important thing is that I find an apprentice worthy of me.”

  “I really think none of them deserve you,” Gwenda told him, and he nodded thoughtfully.

  “You’re so right.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I know I am.”

  Once they were through the Mission Gate, Call couldn’t help noticing that the woods were strangely quiet. No bird calls came from the trees. He couldn’t even hear crickets.

  He looked toward the others. Tamara and Master Rufus had paused, too. The silence was truly eerie. Woods were never really quiet — there was always birdsong, or the sound of distant animals in the underbrush. But there was nothing. Call was about to say something to Master Rufus when the Magisterium gates opened again, and more and more apprentices filed out with their Masters. Suddenly it was harder to hear the silence of the woods over the human chatter.

  “We’ve already paired you up,” Master Rockmaple said, loudly enough that the apprentices began to quiet down. “I will call out the name of a Gold Year and then the Iron Year they are to be paired with.”

  A breeze blew through the trees, and in the moment after Master Rockmaple finished speaking Call was unnerved again to hear the whistle of wind through branches and nothing more. No animal sounds. But there was the sound of something else. It sounded to Call like something familiar.

  “Rockmaple,” Master Rufus said, “I think we should go back inside and postpone this exercise for another —”

  Then Call remembered. It was the sound he had heard when he and his father had gone to Niagara Falls once. An enormously loud rushing noise, as if the air were splintering.

  A buzz rose among the apprentices, but there was no time to do anything. Before Master Rufus could even finish his sentence, high over the trees an elemental appeared.

  Call heard Tamara gasp. “A dragon.”

  The dragon was massive, shiny black and sinuous, with small, membranous wings and enormous, fang-lined jaws. Its eyes were a brilliant red. A human rider sat on its back — one in a long cloak that was whipped by the wind.

  Call reached for Tamara; she grabbed his hand and held it. He could feel Aaron inside his head, flinching in disbelief — and horror.

  Impossibly, the rider was Alex. Changed, but still recognizable, even though a nimbus of darkness surrounded his head. It was as if someone had cut the light out of the sky surrounding him. His eyes were enormous black holes that shimmered, as though full of stars.

  Apprentices screamed. People started running back toward the Magisterium. Not all of them recognized Alex, but they definitely recognized bad news when they saw it. Call and Tamara stood their ground, though Master Rufus had moved to block them from Alex’s direct view.

  He’s dead. Aaron sounded stunned. He’s got to be dead. He was sucked into chaos.

  The dragon opened its enormous jaws and out came black fire. It seared across the tops of the surrounding trees, setting them aflame. They burned without light, without heat. Call remembered his dream, the black flame spreading from his hands. The dragon was breathing pure chaos fire.

  “Quickly, everyone inside!” Master Rufus shouted. He gestured for the students to get back. “Tamara! Call! Get out of here!” The Masters were running, circling the students in order to herd them back to the Magisterium gates. Iron Years were running, almost tripping over one another in their eagerness to get back toward the gates.

  “Wait!” shouted one of the Masters. “Stay close —”

  But it was too late. The dragon swooped down, Alex clinging to its back, and caught two Iron Years. One of them was Axel, the little kid who’d been curious about Call when he’d first arrived at the Magisterium. He looked terrified, but he wasn’t crying. He looked like he was trying to bite the chaos dragon’s claws. Next to him was an Iron Year girl screaming as she tried to kick her way free. But the dragon held fast, swooping up into the sky with the Iron Years gripped tightly in its claws.

  Astride the dragon, grinning now, Alex shouted, his voice booming across the forest. “Stop! All Masters of the Magisterium, stop where you are! I am Alexander Strike, the first ever Devoured of chaos, and I will destroy you all unless you follow my commands.”

  A Devoured of chaos? Call looked over at Master Rufus, but Master Rufus was intent on staring at Alex. He looked enraged. All the Masters did, but they had stopped in their tracks, knowing they had no choice. Above them, they could hear the Iron Years screaming, their cries carried thinly on the wind.

  Call turned to Tamara. She was trembling with fury.

  “We have to do something,” she said. The black flames licked higher, eating up more of the woods. Fire, Call thought. He had put out fire before.

  It nearly killed you, Aaron protested. Now, without a counterweight —

  Alex was still talking. “First, release Anastasia Tarquin from captivity or I will drop these brats into the fire and then finish off the rest of you. After you watch them burn.”

  A murmur ran through the crowd. Anastasia Tarquin? Not everyone knew she had been Alex’s stepmother; even Call was astonished Alex cared enough to bother springing her from prison.

  It was Master Rufus who stepped forward to speak. “You must give us time,” he called. “We have to contact the Panopticon.”

  Alex was grinning savagely. Call could only imagine the pleasure he was getting out of ordering around his old teachers. “Get a tornado phone out here in five minutes, or I’ll toast a tot.”

  Master Rockmaple turned and plunged into the Magisterium.

  “Call and Tamara,” Alex said, turning his star-blackened gaze to them. His face looked like parchment behind which brilliant black light was burning. “What a great reunion!” He threw his head back and laughed.

  “You should have stayed in the void,” Call shouted as he concentrated on pulling the air away from the chaos fire eating away at the trees. But no matter how he pulled, the flames didn’t so much as flicker. They weren’t like regular fire, fed on air. Call wasn’t sure what they fed on, but as his magic flowed toward them, he felt neither heat nor light. If the opposite of chaos was soul, then he feared the fire fed on the substance of the world itself.

  He couldn’t put out the fire that way, but he was a Makar. He should be able to control it. He sent his power toward the licking flames of chaos, concentrating on stopping its spread. It seemed like it was worki
ng — the fire began to ebb, burning itself out with nothing more to feed on.

  “And you should have never been born,” Alex told him, looking delighted to do so. “You are a parody of all that the Enemy of Death was, you flimsy imitation.”

  “He’s a Devoured,” Tamara said quietly to Call. “That’s kind of like being an elemental. You could control a chaos elemental, right?”

  Good idea, Aaron thought.

  Call smiled with vengeful hope. If he could control Alex, he would be hard-pressed not to make him do something stupid and humiliating — after, of course, setting down the Iron Year kids. He reached out again, this time not toward the fire itself but toward Alex —

  — only to hit what felt like a wall of sticky nothing. He felt his power being pulled toward Alex and yanked it back with what felt like physical force. Whatever Alex had become, he was too powerful for Call to control.

  Master Rockmaple raced back through the Mission Gate with Master North and Mr. Rajavi — who had apparently not made it off the grounds of the Magisterium. Master North carried a tornado phone.

  Tamara looked over at her father. He gave her a quick glance in return but didn’t speak to her, which was probably the right move. Better for Alex not to be reminded of their relationship. Better for Alex not to think of a new way to hurt one of them.

  “We can’t really give in to this,” Master North was saying. Then he spotted the kids hanging from the claws of the dragon, both of them looking increasingly panicked, increasingly sure they were going to be fed to chaos.

  “For now,” Mr. Rajavi said, activating the tornado phone.

  On the other end was a guard at the Panopticon. Call recognized the uniform with a shudder.

  “We need you to get Anastasia Tarquin and prepare her for release. But bring her here first. We need to see her and that she is all right as she is set free,” Mr. Rajavi said.

  “Anastasia Tarquin?” demanded the guard, stunned. “On whose authority?”