Call wondered if that was what had happened to Jasper’s family. He wondered if the Hunt family had made money like that, too — or if his mother’s family had. He realized he knew almost nothing about them.
“So how do mages make money?” Aaron asked, looking around the room, clearly thinking about the massive estate they were in and the party they’d just attended.
“They can either work for the Assembly or they can get a regular job,” Tamara said. “But if you had money from before, you could invest it.”
Call wondered how Constantine Madden had made his money but then figured he probably hadn’t thought the Enterprise Laws applied to him once he went to war against the other mages. Which brought Call right back around to the reason he’d come to Tamara’s in the first place: “Do you think any of the people at the party are headed back to the Magisterium?” Call asked. “Maybe I could get a ride with one of them?”
“A ride? To the Magisterium? But no one’s even there,” Aaron said.
“Someone’s got to be there,” said Call. “And I’ve got to stay somewhere. I can’t go home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tamara said. “You can stay here until school starts. We can swim in the pool and practice magic. I already worked it out with my parents. We set up a spare room for you and everything.”
Call reached over to pat Havoc’s head. The wolf didn’t open his eyes. “You don’t think your parents mind?”
They’d all heard her parents talking about him, after all.
Tamara shook her head. “They’re happy to have you,” she said in a voice that made it clear they welcomed Call for good reasons and less good reasons.
But it was somewhere to stay. And they hadn’t said anything bad about him, not really. They’d said Master Rufus must have chosen him for a reason.
“You could call Alastair,” Aaron said. “So he won’t worry. I mean, even if he doesn’t want you to go back to the Magisterium, he’s got to want to know you’re safe.”
“Yeah,” Call said, thinking of his father slumped against the wall of the storage room, wondering how dedicated he was to chasing after Call and killing him. “Maybe tomorrow. After we find out more dirt on Jasper. And eat all the food at the buffet. And swim in the pool.”
“And we can get some magic practice in,” said Aaron with a grin. “Master Rufus won’t know what hit him. We’ll be through the Second Gate before everyone else.”
“As long as it’s before Jasper,” said Call. Tamara laughed.
Havoc rolled onto his back, snoring gently.
SPENDING TIME AT the Gables gave Call a new appreciation for what it was like to be rich.
A bell woke him in the morning for breakfast, which was eaten in a big sunny room overlooking the garden. Though Tamara’s parents ate simple breakfasts of bread and yogurt, that didn’t stop them from putting on an impressive spread for their guests. There was fresh-squeezed juice on the table and hot food like eggs and toast, instead of dry cereal and milk. There was butter in creamy little pats, instead of a crumb-encrusted brick that got brought out meal after meal. Havoc had his own bowls, with chopped meat in them, although he wasn’t allowed to sleep in the house. He slept in the stables, on fresh hay, and made the horses nervous.
Call had a hard time believing he was staying at a place where there was a stable with horses out back.
There were clothes, too — bought in Call’s size from a department store, and ironed before being hung in the wardrobe in Call’s room. White shirts. Jeans. Swim trunks.
Tamara must have grown up like this. She talked to the butler and the housekeeper with an easy familiarity. She called for iced tea by the pool and dropped towels on the grass and left them, certain someone would come and pick them up.
Tamara’s parents had even been willing to tell Alastair that Call was on a trip with them and they’d bring him directly to the Magisterium once they got back. Mrs. Rajavi reported that Alastair had sounded perfectly pleasant on the phone and wanted Call to have a good time. Call didn’t actually think that Alastair had been happy to get the call, but the Rajavis were powerful enough that he didn’t think Alastair would come after him so long as he was in their care. And once he was at the Magisterium, he’d definitely be safe.
He wasn’t sure what he’d do at the end of the school year, but that was far enough in the future that he didn’t need to worry about it.
Despite Call’s uneasiness about his father, he let the days slip by in long sunshine-filled hours of swimming and lying on the grass and eating ice cream. He’d been self-conscious the first time he’d come out to the seashell-shaped pool in his trunks, realizing Aaron and Tamara had never seen his bare legs before. His left was thinner than his other leg, and covered in scars that had faded over the years from angry red to light pink. They weren’t so bad, he’d thought anxiously, sitting and looking at them in his room. Still, they weren’t anything he liked to show people.
Neither of them had seemed to notice, though. They’d just laughed and splashed him and pretty soon Call was sitting out on the lawn with them and Alex and Kimiya, soaking up the sun and drinking iced mint tea with sugar. He was actually sort of getting a tan, which hardly ever happened. Not that that was unexpected, considering that he went to school underground.
Sometimes Aaron would play tennis with Alex, whenever Alex could be pried away from Kimiya’s face. Magical tennis seemed a lot like regular tennis to Call, except that every time the ball went wide, Alex summoned it back with a snap of his fingers.
Though they’d promised to practice magic, they didn’t get a lot of practicing in. Once or twice they went out beside the house and called up fire, shaping it into burning orbs that could be safely handled, or used earth magic to pull iron filaments up out of the dirt. Once, they practiced heaving big stones out of the ground, but when one flew perilously close to Aaron’s head, Mrs. Rajavi came out and scolded them for endangering the Makar. Tamara just rolled her eyes.
One afternoon — late, when the hazy air was full of droning bees — Call was walking from the breakfast room toward the staircase and overheard Mr. Rajavi speaking in one of the parlors. His voice was low, but as Call crept forward, he heard him cut off by an exclamation from Alex. Alex wasn’t yelling, but the rage in his voice carried. “What exactly are you trying to say, sir?”
Call edged closer, not sure what kind of conversation he was eavesdropping on. He told himself that he was doing it in case it turned out they were talking about Aaron, but in fact, he was more worried they’d discovered something about him.
Could Alastair have said something else to Mrs. Rajavi on the phone, something she hadn’t told Call? The magical world already thought Alastair was nuts, but whatever he said about Call would have the advantage of being true.
“We’ve enjoyed having you as our guest,” Mrs. Rajavi was saying. “But Kimiya is still young and we think you’re both moving too fast.”
“We’re just asking you to take a break for the school year,” Mr. Rajavi said.
Call let out a breath. They weren’t talking about Aaron or Call or anything important. Just dating.