The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)(3)

“Is this for a special occasion?” asked Miranda.

“You could say that.” Alastair sounded pleased. “They’re both getting awards.”

“For, um, community service,” said Aaron. He met Call’s eyes in the mirror. Call guessed it was only sort of a lie, though most community service didn’t involve severed heads.

“Fantastic!” said Miranda. “They both look so handsome.”

Handsome. Call had never thought of himself as handsome. Aaron was the handsome one. Call was the one who was short, limped, and was too intense and sharp-featured. But he guessed that people selling stuff had to tell you that you looked good. On a whim, Call pulled out his phone, took a picture of his and Aaron’s reflections in the mirror, and sent it to Tamara.

A minute later the reply came back. Nice. Attached to the message was a short video of someone falling off a chair in surprise. Call couldn’t help laughing.

“Do they need anything else?” Alastair asked. “Shoes, cuff links … anything?”

“Well, shirts, obviously,” Miranda said. “I have a lot of nice ties —”

“I don’t need you to buy me anything else, Mr. Hunt,” said Aaron, looking anxious. “Really.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Alastair said with a surprising lightness in his voice. “Miranda and I are in the business. We’ll work out a trade.”

Call looked over at Miranda, to find her smiling. “There was a little Victorian brooch at your store I had my eye on.”

At that, Alastair’s expression stiffened a little, then relaxed almost immediately into a laugh. “Well, for that, we’re definitely taking the cuff links. Shoes, too, if you’ve got them.”

By the time they left, they had huge bags filled with clothes and Call was feeling pretty good. They drove back to the house with barely enough time to take showers and comb their hair. Alastair came out of his bedroom reeking of some ancient cologne and looking snappy in his new jacket and a pair of black trousers he must have unearthed in the back of his closet. Muttering, he immediately started hunting around for his car keys. He barely looked recognizable to Call as the dad who worked around the house in tweed and denim overalls, the dad who’d spent all summer helping them make robots out of spare parts.

He looked like a stranger, which meant Call started to actually think about what was soon to happen.

All summer he’d been feeling pretty smug over the Enemy of Death’s demise. Constantine Madden had been dead for years, preserved in a creepy tomb, waiting to have his soul returned to his body. But since no one had known that, the whole mage world had been waiting for Constantine to start up the Third Mage War again. When Callum had brought the Enemy’s severed head back to the Magisterium, proof that he was incontrovertibly dead, the whole mage world had breathed a sigh of relief.

What they didn’t know was that Constantine’s soul lived on — in Call. Tonight the world of mages was going to be honoring the actual Enemy of Death.

Even though Call had no desire to hurt anyone, the threat of a Third Mage War was far from over. Constantine’s second-in-command, Master Joseph, had control of Constantine’s Chaos-ridden army. He had the powerful Alkahest, which could destroy chaos wielders like Aaron — and Call. If he got tired waiting for Call to come over to his side, then he might attack all on his own.

Call slumped down at the kitchen table. Havoc, who’d been sleeping under the table, looked up with his disturbing coruscating eyes, as if sensing Call’s distress. Although it should have made Call feel better, it actually made him feel a little worse.

He could almost hear Master Joseph’s voice: Good job getting the whole mage world to lower their guard, Call. You can’t escape your nature.

He pushed the thought back firmly. All summer he’d worked on not constantly checking himself to see if he was showing signs of maybe turning out evil. All summer he’d been telling himself that he was Callum Hunt, who had been raised by Alastair Hunt, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes Constantine Madden had made. He was a different person. He was.

A few minutes later, Aaron came out of Call’s room, looking dapper in his cream-colored suit. His blond hair was brushed back and even his cuff links shone. He looked just as happy as he ever had in the designer suits that Tamara’s family had given him.

Or at least he looked happy until he saw Call and did a double take.

“You okay?” Aaron asked. “You look a little green around the gills. You don’t have stage fright, do you?”

“Maybe,” Call said. “I’m not used to people looking at me a lot. I mean, people look at me because of my leg sometimes, but it’s not a good kind of looking.”

“Try to think of it as the end scene in Star Wars where everyone cheers and Princess Leia puts medals on Han and Luke.”

Call raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Princess Leia in this visual? Master Rufus?”

Master Rufus was the teacher of their apprentice group at the Magisterium. He was craggy, gruff, and wise, and had a lot more gray hairs than Princess Leia.

“Later,” said Aaron solemnly, “he will wear the gold bikini.”

Havoc barked. Alastair held up his car keys, triumphant. “Would it help you boys if I promised that tonight is going to be boring and uneventful? The party is supposed to honor us, but I guarantee that it’s mostly for the Assembly to congratulate itself.”