“Jasper!” Call yelled, waving his hand around frantically. “Hey, Jasper!”
Jasper looked over at him and his eyes widened. He headed toward Call. He was carrying a glass of fruit punch in which chunks of real fruit floated. Call had never been so relieved to see anyone. He started reconsidering all the bad things he’d ever thought about Jasper. Jasper was a hero.
“Mr. deWinter,” said the waiter. “Do you know this boy?”
Jasper took a sip of punch, his brown eyes traveling up and down Call, from his tangled hair to his dirty sneakers.
“Never seen him before in my life,” he said.
Call’s positive feelings about Jasper evaporated in a whoosh. “Jasper, you liar —”
“He’s probably just one of the local kids trying to get in here on a bet,” Jasper said, narrowing his eyes at Call. “You know how curious the neighbors tend to get about what goes on at the Gables.”
“Indeed,” murmured the waiter. His sympathetic look was gone, and he was glaring as if Call were a bug floating in the punch.
“Jasper,” Call said through his teeth, “when we get back to school, I’m going to murder you for this.”
“Death threats,” said Jasper. “What is this world coming to?”
The waiter made a clucking noise. Jasper grinned at Call, clearly enjoying himself.
“He does look a bit raggedy,” Jasper went on. “Maybe we should give him some popcorn shrimp and fruit punch before we send him back on his way.”
“That would be very kind of you, Mr. deWinter,” said the waiter, and Call was about to do something — explode, possibly — when he suddenly heard a voice shouting his name.
“Call, Call, Call!” It was Tamara, bursting through the crowd. She was wearing a flowered silk dress, though if she’d had a beribboned hat, it had fallen off. Her hair was out of its familiar braids, tumbling down her back in curls. She threw herself at Call and hugged him hard.
She smelled nice. Like honey soap.
“Tamara,” Call tried to say, but she was squeezing him so hard that it came out as “Ouuuffgh.” He patted her back awkwardly. Havoc, delighted to see Tamara, pranced in a circle.
When Tamara let Call go, the waiter was staring at them with his mouth open. Jasper stood frozen, his expression cold. “Jasper, you’re a toad,” Tamara said to him, with finality. “Bates, Call is one of my very good friends. He is absolutely invited to this party.”
Jasper turned on his heel and stalked away. Call was about to yell something insulting after him when Havoc started to bark. He lunged forward, too fast for Call to grab him. Call heard the other guests gasp and exclaim as they moved away from the bounding wolf. Then he heard someone shout “Havoc!” and the crowd parted enough that Call could see Havoc standing up on his hind legs, his paws against Aaron’s chest. Aaron was grinning and running his hands through Havoc’s ruff.
The hubbub among the guests increased: People were babbling in alarm, some of them practically yelling.
“Oh, no,” Tamara said, biting her lip.
“What is it?” Call had already started forward, eager to get to Aaron. Tamara caught his wrist.
“Havoc’s a Chaos-ridden wolf, Call, and he’s climbing all over their Makar. Come on!”
Tamara tugged him forward, and indeed it was a lot easier for Call to make his way through the crowd with Tamara steering him like a tugboat. Guests were screaming and running in the other direction. Tamara and Call arrived at Aaron just as two very elegant adults, looking worried, also reached him — a handsome man in an ice-white suit and a beautiful, severe-looking woman with long dark hair studded with flowers. Her shoes had clearly been made by a metal mage: They looked as if they’d been cast of silver, and they rang like bells when she walked. Call couldn’t even imagine how much they’d cost.
“Get off!” snapped the man, shoving at Havoc, which was kind of a brave thing to do, Call thought, even though the only thing Aaron was in real danger of was being licked to death.
“Dad, Mom,” Tamara managed, out of breath. “Remember, I told you about Havoc? He’s fine. He’s safe. He’s like … our mascot.”
Her father looked at her as though she had explained no such thing, but her interruption gave Aaron time to squat down and grab hold of Havoc’s collar. He sank his fingers into the wolf’s fur, rubbing his ears. Havoc’s tongue lolled out of his mouth with pleasure.
“It’s amazing how he responds to you, Aaron. He becomes positively tame,” Tamara’s mother said, beaming at Aaron. The rest of the party had started oohing and clapping, as though Aaron had performed some miracle, as though Havoc behaving normally was a sign that their Makar would triumph over the forces of the Chaos-ridden.
Call, standing behind Tamara, felt invisible and annoyed about it. No one cared that Havoc was his dog and had spent the summer being perfectly tame for him. No one cared that he and Havoc had gone to the park every Friday for the past two months and played Frisbee until Havoc accidentally bit the Frisbee in half or that, once, Havoc had licked a little girl’s ice-cream cone gently instead of biting off her whole hand the way he would have if Call hadn’t told him not to, which was definitely a point for him because an Evil Overlord would never have done that.
No one cared unless Aaron was involved. Perfect Aaron, in an even crisper suit than the one Jasper was wearing and a new, stupid-looking haircut that meant his hair was falling into his eyes. Call noted with some satisfaction that there were dirty paw prints near one of the fancy jacket pockets.
Call knew he shouldn’t feel the way he did. Aaron was his friend. Aaron didn’t have any family, not even a father who was trying to kill him. It was good that people liked Aaron. It meant that Havoc got to stay at the party and that someone would probably lend Call thirty dollars without much fuss.
When Aaron grinned at Call, his whole face lighting up, Call forced himself to smile back.
“Why don’t you find your friend some party clothes?” Tamara’s mother said, with an amused nod at Call. “And, Stebbins, do go pay for the taxi he came in. It’s been idling by the gate for ages now.” She smiled at Call. He wasn’t sure what to make of her. She seemed friendly and warm, but Call thought there was something about her friendliness that wasn’t quite real. “But hurry back. The glamours start soon.”
Aaron shooed Havoc toward the house. “Call can borrow some of my clothes,” he said.
“Yeah, come tell us what happened,” Tamara said, leading the way. “Not that we’re not happy to see you, but what are you doing here? Why didn’t you call to say you were coming?”
“Is it because of your dad?” Aaron asked, giving him a sympathetic look.
“Yeah,” Call said slowly. They walked through the huge glass doors and through a marble-tiled room filled with rich, jewel-colored rugs. As they climbed up a ridiculous, marvelous ironwork staircase, Call spun out a story about how Alastair had forbidden him to go back to the Magisterium. That part was true enough; Tamara and Aaron knew Alastair had always hated the idea of Call going to mage school. It was possible to embroider it until it became the reason they’d had a big fight and even the reason that Call had been afraid his father was going to lock him up in the basement and keep him there. He added that Alastair hated Havoc and was mean to him, for extra sympathy.