“My dad is not trying to kill me,” Call said. A year ago, he hadn’t been so sure of that, but he was sure now. “And I don’t think any of you are, either. Even you, Jasper. Who else?”
“Did any of us tell anyone?” Tamara asked, looking around at them.
“Who would I tell?” Jasper asked, and then blanched at their prolonged stares. “No! Okay? I didn’t tell anyone! It’s too big a secret, and I would get in trouble, too.”
“Me neither,” Aaron said.
Tamara sighed. “I didn’t. But I thought I’d better ask. Okay, so then there’s Master Joseph. He’s got to be pretty mad at Call.”
“I thought he needed Call,” said Jasper. “Isn’t Captain Fishface, like, his whole reason for being?”
Aaron grinned. “I think he hoped that either Call would be a lot more obedient than he is or that he could use Call to bring back Captain Fishface with all his memories intact.”
Call, who thought pretty much the same thing, shuddered. “He might blame me for Drew’s death.”
“He probably blames me, too,” said Aaron. “If it makes you feel any better.”
Drew was Master Joseph’s son. He’d gone to the Magisterium, pretending to be a regular student, but his real reason for being there had been to get close to Call. Drew had even helped his father kidnap Aaron and then swung him over a cage with a chaos elemental inside. The same chaos elemental that, ironically, wound up killing Drew. But Call had to admit that he’d had something to do with it as well. “Okay,” Tamara said. “Top of our suspect list — Master Joseph.”
Call shook his head. “I don’t know. If he is out to get me, why not use the Alkahest? And, well, I just don’t think he’s ready to give up yet. He tried to save my life back in the tomb. I think he’s still got hope that I am going to turn out … more like Captain Fishface.”
“What about Warren?” Aaron asked. They all just stared at him for a long moment.
Call looked at him the way that Tamara had looked at her lemonade. “You think a lizard is trying to kill me? And he faked a note from Celia?”
“He’s an elemental! And he was in the service of the Devoured who gave us that creepy prophecy.” Aaron sighed. “Okay, it was a pretty out-there theory.”
“It’s okay,” Tamara said. “We have to think outside the box. No matter how unlikely, we’ve got to put all our ideas on the table. Or at least on this stretch of grass.”
“We don’t have any suspects,” Call said. “We don’t have any ideas. We don’t even know why I was being targeted. Maybe it was because I’m a Makar. Maybe it had nothing to do with being Captain Fishface. Maybe the person who tried to smoosh me with a chandelier was the same person who let out Automotones to kill all of us.”
“That’s what the mages are going to assume.” Tamara sighed. “I guess it could be true.”
“We’re just going to have to stick together,” said Aaron, smiling up at the blue sky. “And we’re going to figure this out. We’re heroes, right? We’ve got medals. We can do this.”
Eventually, Call got out a pack of cards and they played a couple of rounds of a game that involved slapping one another’s hands. They talked about going back to the Magisterium and what they hoped to accomplish that year. Havoc chased several bees, snapping at them until they buzzed lazily out of his reach. As the afternoon wore on, Stebbins arrived with suitcases for Tamara and a message from her parents that could only be delivered in private. Jasper called home on one of Alastair’s restored chrome candlestick landline phones and then glumly reported that his family would send his things directly to the Magisterium. Call wondered if he’d tried to convince them to rescind permission for him to be there. Call wondered if his parents had forced him to come along in the first place and then quickly pushed away the thought.
“What are you looking at?” Jasper asked him gruffly when he noticed Call staring in his direction.
“Nothing,” Call said. The last person he needed to be worrying about was Jasper.
That night, Alastair grilled steak and they ate it outside, on paper plates, along with buttered corn, snap peas, and cold slices of watermelon. Tamara threw watermelon at Aaron, who got seeds down his shirt. Havoc stood on top of Jasper when Jasper refused to give him a piece of steak. They took turns seeing who could make the sparks above the banked coals on the grill dance. It was almost like a party, except for the specter of Jen’s death, which kept them from laughing too loudly or forgetting for too long that they could be next.
Two days later, Alastair drove them all to the Magisterium. Call sat in the front seat, gazing out the window, while Aaron dozed in the backseat. Tamara was listening to music on her phone and Jasper was reading the most recent comic book he’d found in Call’s room and gotten obsessed with. Havoc was stretched out across their laps, dead asleep.
“You let me know if you want to come home,” Alastair said to Call for what must have been the millionth time. “You’ve done enough. You know plenty of magic — enough to control your abilities. You don’t need the Magisterium.”
Call remembered the way Graves had insisted that Master Rufus give the Assembly updates on how Call and Aaron were doing. He remembered all the references to countries where mages with the ability to control chaos were killed or had their magic bound — even though the party was supposed to be in their honor. While Constantine Madden had been alive, Makaris were awesome. They were desperately needed weapons. They meant the end of the war. But with Constantine Madden dead, Aaron and Call were just a reminder of that war and how it could happen again. Call doubted he would be allowed to quit attending the Magisterium, no matter what Alastair thought.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Call said. “I’ll be fine.”
As they neared the Magisterium, the roads grew narrower and more winding. They were completely unmarked: Only those who knew where the Magisterium was could find it. Call had often wondered what magic kept hikers and ordinary townspeople from nearby from happening across it. Something advanced, he guessed. Something to do with the earth. The trees grew thick along the sides of the road. Call couldn’t help thinking about the Order of Disorder — it was clear that the Assembly knew about them and tolerated them, but he couldn’t quite figure out why.
There was a beeping sound up ahead, bringing Call’s attention back to the road. They pulled up into a clearing, where a school bus had already arrived. Students were pouring out of it, carrying suitcases and duffel bags. The main gate of the school was open: Call could see mages in their somber black, and various students already wearing their uniforms — red, white, blue, green, and gray — mixing with kids who had just arrived and were still wearing jeans and T-shirts.
Aaron woke up and he and Jasper and Tamara started poking one another, leaning out the windows as they recognized friends from previous years — Celia threw them a guarded smile as she headed through the gates with Gwenda, who was in her apprentice group with Jasper. Alex Strike was talking to Anastasia Tarquin, who had pulled up next to the school bus in a white Mercedes. Call had seen the car before: She’d picked up Alex from the Rajavis’ last year. Call had nearly forgotten: Anastasia Tarquin was Alex’s stepmother.