The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)(16)

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking about that,” said Alex, looking over at Jasper worriedly. “I mean, no one is supposed to know.”

Alastair raised his eyebrows. “Good thing she’s being so discreet.”

Alex looked back at his stepmother, who was supervising the carrying of several large steamer trunks into the caves. They were covered with old-fashioned stamps from faraway places — Mexico, Italy, Australia, the French Riviera, Provence, Cornwall. “She’s got a cover story about making sure everything goes smoothly ridding Chaos-ridden animals from the forest.”

Call put one hand on Havoc’s back in what he hoped would be a reassuring manner. Havoc looked up at him, tail beginning to wag. A wave of anger passed through Call at the idea that anyone would want to hurt Havoc.

They better not, he thought.

Alastair turned to Call. “If you change your mind, you know how to get ahold of me,” he said, then hugged Call tightly — a little too tightly, actually, making Call worry for his ribs.

“Bye, Dad,” Call squeaked. Even if he had been squeezed a little too hard, this was the first time his father was okay with his attending the Magisterium. It was a great feeling.

Tamara had gone over and found Kimiya and was laughing with her. Jasper had headed toward Celia and Gwenda. Only Aaron had waited for Call. He gave him a slanted smile and Call wondered how hard it was for Aaron to be around other people’s families all the time.

“Give me that,” Aaron said, slinging Call’s duffel bag over his shoulders and lifting his own luggage in his other hand. He started toward the school, seemingly not even weighed down a little bit by what he was carrying. Call walked behind him, stiff-legged from the trip, and thought about all the ways that life wasn’t fair.

The caverns were humid but cool. Water dripped down from the jagged icicle stalactites to the melted-candle stalagmites below them. Sheets of gypsum hung from the ceiling, resembling banners and streamers from some long-forgotten party. Call walked past it all, past the damp flowstone and the pools shining with mica, where pale fish darted. He was so used to it that he no longer found it to be particularly creepy. It was just the place he went to school, as familiar to him now as the bang of metal lockers and the squeak of his sneakers on the gymnasium floor had been three years ago.

He wondered if they’d spot Warren, potential assassin, and if he’d have something creepy to say to them, but the little lizard was nowhere to be seen.

Call used his wristband, with all its new stones, to wave his way into their rooms. Aaron set down Call’s luggage on their couch with a groan that made Call feel a little better about his own abilities and a little more guilty about Aaron’s generosity. The room looked smaller than it had the year before and it took him a moment to realize it was because he’d grown, not because the room had shrunk.

The door opened and Tamara marched in, dragging her suitcases behind her. “I didn’t know where you two had gone! You just wandered off!” she announced. Which was completely unfair, because she was the one who had wandered off, Call thought. She turned to Aaron. “And you know we’re not supposed to leave Call alone!”

“I didn’t,” Aaron pointed out.

“Hmph,” Tamara said before she stomped into her room. Call went off to his bedroom, which felt cold and dusty and unused, the way it always did at the beginning of a school year. He flung his suitcase open and put on his uniform — blue for third year. He snapped his cuff shut and looked at himself in the mirror on the wardrobe. There was a time when he’d been short enough that he could see himself completely in the glass; now his head passed the top of the frame and he had to crouch.

He went out into the common room and found Aaron and Tamara waiting in their uniforms. After promising Havoc some leftovers, they trooped off to the Refectory for dinner. Everyone but the Iron Year students — who were coming from their Trials and usually got to eat in their rooms — were settling in to their old tables and choosing from among the culinary options. Tonight’s menu was a purplish mash, large mushrooms cut up so they seemed almost like slices of bread and slathered with some yellow paste, and three kinds of lichen — bright green, brown, and dark red. Call piled everything on his plate, along with a cup of liquid with a thin film of algae on it.

It was creepy how delicious the lichen was to Call. He forked it into his mouth like a starving man and wondered if it was possible for the lichen to have some sinister purpose. Like brainwash him into eating so much of it that he would become an entirely lichen-based life-form. Was that a thing that could happen? He gave his next forkful a long, suspicious look before shoving it into his face.

Jasper sat down next to Call, as though they were friends or something. “So, what’s the plan?”

“What are you talking about?” Call asked.

“Oh, never mind,” Jasper said with a roll of his eyes, then turned to Tamara. “I don’t know why I even bothered asking him. What’s the plan?”

“We can’t talk here,” she said, leaning in and dropping her voice. Call couldn’t help noticing that the cut under her eye was still visible, a thin scabbed line. Every time he saw it, he thought of her fingers on his jacket, pulling him to safety. He thought of what he owed her.

He owed all his friends so much. He didn’t know how he’d ever pay them back.