The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)(10)
It was Tamara. He saw a blur of her dark hair and yellow dress, and then the chandelier hit the floor beside them. It was like a bomb going off. There was a horrible musical shattering. Shards of crystal exploded toward them. Call tried to curl his body around to block Tamara. He heard her scream, and then suddenly everything was very dark and quiet.
For a moment, Call wondered if he was dead. But it didn’t seem likely that the afterlife meant lying on a stone floor next to Tamara, while a black cloud hovered over them. Tamara was gasping, wide-eyed. Call rolled to the side awkwardly and stared.
Aaron was standing over them, his hand outstretched. Dark, nebulous chaos spilled from his palm, forming a wall around Tamara and Call, drawing into itself the flying bits of broken glass and crystal from the shattered chandelier. Call tried to call out to Aaron, but the chaos sucked away his voice.
He could feel a pull inside him — Call was Aaron’s counterweight, and when Aaron used chaos magic, he felt it. The room beyond Aaron seemed to be wavering — and then Aaron dropped his hand and the darkness vanished.
Call staggered to his feet, reaching down to pull Tamara up after him. One of her cheeks had been cut by a piece of flying glass and was bleeding. Tamara was clutching his arm in a death grip, but now that she was standing, he thought she might be holding him up. Aaron was leaning against the wall, wide-eyed and breathing hard from exertion.
“What,” he said in a raspy voice, “just happened?”
Before Call could answer, the doors flew open and the other partygoers flooded into the room.
CALL’S VISION WAS swimming, making everything a little surreal. People streamed into the room, shocked and gaping. Voices, muttering and yelling, washed across his brain.
The chandelier looked like a huge dead animal collapsed in the middle of the room. Most of its arms were smashed off, and broken glass was everywhere in glittering, razor-sharp piles.
“What’s going on in here?” a black-haired man shouted. Call had a vague memory from the ceremony that he was a teacher at the Collegium, and that his name was Master Sukarno. He was a big man, imposing, and his face was red with fury.
“That was chaos magic!” He whirled on Aaron and Call. “Were you playing around with void magic? How foolish can you be? Chaos magic is strictly controlled everywhere, but forbidden in these rooms. We’re underwater and cannot risk the structural integrity of the school being compromised by arrogant children amusing themselves! We could all have drowned.”
Tamara looked as if she might explode with rage. “How dare you!” she said. “No one was playing! We were just standing here in the room when the chandelier came down. It nearly crushed us. If Aaron hadn’t done what he did, Call and I would be dead! Nothing’s happened to your precious Collegium! It’s fine!”
“What did you do to make the chandelier come down?” demanded Master Taisuke, one of the Masters at the Magisterium. “It’s been hanging here for a hundred years. You three wander into the room and it comes crashing down?”
“That’s enough!” It was Tamara’s father. The Rajavis had levitated themselves over the wreckage to reach their daughter. On the other side of the room, Call could see Kimiya and Alex standing together, both watching the scene in wide-eyed horror. Tamara’s mother dashed toward her daughter, pulling her away from Call, stroking Tamara’s hair and looking at her worriedly. She dabbed at the cut on Tamara’s cheek, blotting the blood with a handkerchief. And then Alastair was pushing through the crowd toward Call. He looked pale, much paler than Call would have expected. He didn’t even bother levitating himself, just kicked a path through the smashed crystals and twisted metal and grabbed Call, pulling him into his arms.
“Callum,” he said roughly. Over his shoulder, Call could see Aaron, still leaning against the wall. There was no one there to blot his cuts or put their arms around him. He was looking down at his hand, the one he’d used to unleash chaos, with a strange expression on his face.
“My daughter is not a troublemaker,” snapped Mr. Rajavi. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re all here tonight to honor her heroism —”
“And the heroism of several other students,” added Master North, who had shooed the onlookers back toward the walls so he and Master Rufus could examine the chandelier wreckage.
“I was against the awards ceremony from the start,” said Taisuke. “Children shouldn’t be rewarded for disobedience, even if the end result turns out positively.”
Mentally, Call filed Master Taisuke into the category of Not a Fan of Mine. It was a growing file.
“Makars, especially, should be controlled,” continued Taisuke. “As we saw from Constantine Madden, a young Makar who doesn’t know his own power is the most dangerous thing in the world.”
“So are you saying young Makars should be killed, as is the custom in other countries?” asked Master Rufus. He didn’t speak loudly, but his voice was clear, powerful, and carrying. “Because someone’s tried. The chandelier collapsed because the chain was tampered with. Someone was attempting to assassinate the Makars.”
“Assassinate?” Master Sukarno said, deflating slightly.
Another teacher at the Collegium made a sharp gesture in the air and said an unfamiliar word.
A sudden, deafening roar went through the room. Alastair tightened his grip on Call, Tamara’s parents grabbed her, and Master Rufus reached for Aaron. Some kind of alarm system seemed to have gone off — a path lit up suddenly in front of them, and Call could see doors that had been previously invisible illuminated in the walls. He, Aaron, and Tamara were hustled through one of the doors, down a corridor, and into a dimly lit, windowless room full of couches and chairs. Collegium staff raced around, securing the area.