“Click,” Gwenda said cheerfully. “Click, click.”
Jasper’s protests were muffled as he and Gwenda moved out of earshot. Shaking her head, Tamara divided up the book burden between herself and Call. “Maybe we are being paranoid,” she said as they left the library. “Maybe Warren really didn’t mean anything.”
“You can hardly blame us for being paranoid after everything we’ve been through,” said Call. He was wishing Aaron would come into his head again and tell him the right thing to say to Tamara, who looked tired and worried, but Aaron remained stubbornly absent.
Tamara ducked her head. “I guess not.”
What was she thinking? Call wanted to bang his head on a wall, but they’d reached their rooms and Tamara was letting them in with her wristband. They dumped their books on the table. Call was about to suggest they head to the Gallery for a snack when Tamara picked up Soul and Void and glanced at the back.
“ ‘The opposite of chaos,’ ” she read, in a low voice, “ ‘is the human soul.’ ” She swallowed hard. “Call, I — I’m sorry. Not that I told you not to bring back Aaron — but that I didn’t try harder to understand why you felt like you needed to. Everyone was telling you that you were responsible for his death. Everyone was treating you like it was your fault. You must have felt like the only way to fix things was to bring him back.”
Call knew it was probably a bad idea to be honest. But he didn’t know what else to do, or what else to say. “I didn’t want Aaron back so I’d feel better,” he said. “I mean, yeah, I felt guilty. But I was scared to do it, too. I’m always scared of what might happen if I’m not always watching myself, checking to make sure I don’t go full evil. But Aaron was my friend, and he had faith in me, and I didn’t want him to be dead. That was all.”
Tamara’s eyes shone, as though she was holding back the edge of tears. “And I went off and left you,” she said. “You must have thought I had no faith in you at all. I knew I was wrong the minute I got back to the Magisterium. I’d been thinking that the mages would save us all, the Assembly would help, that they were grown-ups and we were kids, but they’re just flawed people. They can’t fix everything.”
“No one can fix everything,” said Call. Tamara looked so sad, he wanted desperately to hug her, but would she want that? “It’s not your fault you trusted them —”
“I trust you,” she said. “You’re my friend, Call, and I —”
“I don’t want to just be your friend,” he said.
She looked at him wide-eyed, like she couldn’t believe he said that. Call could feel his heart pounding through his whole body. He wasn’t sure he believed he’d said it either. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s the truth. I like you, Tamara. In fact, I —”
She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It felt like lightning had zapped Call’s whole body. The first time they’d ever kissed, he’d been too stunned to really respond, but this time he wrapped his arms around her just like he’d wanted to before. And Tamara put her arms around him, and that was amazing, and she stroked his cheek gently while he kissed her, and that was even more amazing. She smelled like rosewater, and he was pretty sure this was the best kiss anyone in history had ever had and would definitely have gotten an Olympic ten in kissing if the Olympics graded this kind of thing.
AUGH! I AM STILL IN HERE! came the shout in Call’s head, causing Call to pull away from Tamara. It was Aaron, apparently horrified out of his sulk by all the kissing.
“Call?” Tamara asked, confused. She was looking at him with a kind of dreamy half smile on her face that made him just want to kiss her again, but she’d probably be really angry when she found out about Aaron.
“Uh,” said Call, casting about for something, some reason to stop that would mean they could start up again later. “I think we’re moving too fast. I think we need to …” There, Call’s thoughts deserted him.
STOP, Aaron said.
“Stop,” Call echoed.
Tamara blinked at him, looking hurt. “Okay,” she said in a small voice. “But I thought this was what you wanted.”
“Oh, I do!” Call said, maybe a little bit too eagerly. “I really, really do. It’s only …”
That I think we should, um, take a break to make sure you’re sure, Aaron said.
Call repeated the words. They sounded good. Thoughtful. Mature. Tamara was looking at him weirdly again, though.
We want to make sure we are building on a foundation of trust, Aaron said.
Call said that, too, trying to invest the words with conviction, trying to be the person who believed them. Tamara folded her arms across her chest and looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“You sound like Aaron,” she told him.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Call asked.
“It’s something,” she said, which did not sound entirely like agreement. “I guess we both miss him in our own way.” She put her hand on his cheek, warm against his skin. “Good night, Call.”
And with that, she went off to her room, leaving Call to go to his own and throw himself onto the little bed. Havoc jumped up, circling around before sitting directly on Call’s feet, but Call couldn’t even summon up the energy to care.
Things had been going so well with Tamara that he’d almost forgotten that he had another secret. She’d already put up with so much. And would she even believe him?
Call, Aaron said. We have to talk about something.
I know what you’re going to say, Call told him, looking up at the shimmering mica ceiling above him, remembering how great it had been for that one moment when they were together and everything else hadn’t mattered. That I should just trust her. And I know I should. I should tell her. But I just want things to be normal.
That’s not it. I found something in your head. Something — weird.
Something in his head? Call closed his eyes. A huge weariness had come over him. Whatever it was Aaron knew, he didn’t want to hear about it. Not now, he said. Just not now.
CALL DREAMED, AND in his dream, he was a grown-up mage in a city he didn’t recognize. He lifted his hands and black lightning — chaos lightning — sparked between them. He felt a sense of surety and overwhelming power. It reminded him of the feeling he’d had when chaos was coursing through his body, except now he knew how to channel it.
This must have been what it felt like to be Constantine Madden.
The black fire shot from his fingers. It was as if he were Zeus; he could burn the whole world and it would be easy. With movements of his fingers, he guided the destructive fire, striking down other mages as they tried to run. Fire burst from the roofs of buildings. A stone clock tower was burning. He had no counterweight, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered but power.
Call sat up, gasping. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. It took him several long moments to remember who he was and where he was — in his own bed in the Magisterium.
He kicked the covers away, hoping the shock of cold air would wake him up and push him further from the dream. It had been horrible, in a wonderful sort of way …