The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)(34)

“Anastasia practically gave us the whole rundown on how to do it during the meeting,” said Call. “She said she keeps a key in her room, and one around her neck. All we have to do is get into her room when we know she isn’t there and grab the key.”

“And the guards?” said Aaron. “What about the guards at the door?”

“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Call said. “The spy got in. There must be a way. And if we don’t do it tonight, she’s going to change all her locks. We won’t have this chance again.”

Aaron gave Celia one last suspicious look and nodded his head. Together, they crept out into the hallway. As they started toward the area where the Masters’ rooms were, Call realized there were three complications to his plan. One, he wasn’t sure which room belonged to Anastasia Tarquin. Two, he didn’t have a way in. And three, once they were inside, they were going to have to guess her password.

How hard can it be? he asked himself. Her password was probably something completely obvious. Something they could figure out just from looking at her stuff.

And her room might be obvious, too. He glanced over at Tamara and Aaron. They seemed ready to be convinced that this was a plan that could work. Maybe they’d already thought of a way. And at least they were all doing something, not just waiting around for the spy to strike again.

Call sighed. If the Masters and the Assembly couldn’t be relied upon to solve this, then it was down to them.





IT DIDN’T TAKE them long to reach the corridors where the Masters lived. It wasn’t a part of the Magisterium that Call had ever been to before. Though it wasn’t forbidden, the only students who generally braved the area were assistants like Alex running errands or students carrying messages for Masters. Going there otherwise was too much of an invitation to get in trouble.

Call, in fact, was having a hard time looking confident and walking as he normally did, which had been Tamara’s advice. He kept wanting to slink along the walls, out of sight, though very few other students passed them. No Masters did. They were all still holed up in their meeting, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, which was good news for Call’s plan. It did make things a little spooky as they turned onto the set of corridors where the Masters’ sleeping quarters were, though.

They had some fun guessing whose door was whose. Master Rockmaple must be the massive door studded with brass, Master North must be the plain metal door, Master Rufus the door of brushed silver. The door with a picture of a kitten dangling from a wire that had the message HANG IN THERE underneath obviously belonged to Master Milagros.

Anastasia’s was just as easy to spot. A thick white mat had been placed in front of it, and the door itself was made of pale marble veined with black that looked like smoke. Call remembered her having all her expensive, pale white furniture carried inside on the first day of school.

“This is her,” Call said, pointing. “It has to be.”

“Agreed.” Aaron drew close, tapped his fingers against the marble. He examined the seams of the door, but like all doors in the Magisterium, it didn’t have hinges, just the flat pad where you were supposed to wave your bracelet to get in. Eventually Aaron stepped back, raising his hand. Call felt a familiar pull underneath his rib cage.

Aaron was about to use chaos magic.

“Wait,” Call said. “Don’t — not unless we absolutely have to.”

The pulling feeling went away, but Aaron gave him a look that was almost hurt. “What have you got against chaos magic all of a sudden?”

Call tried to form his jumbled thoughts into words. “I think it brings the Masters running,” he said. “I think they have some way of sensing it, at least when it’s used in the Magisterium.”

“I figured it was the racket that Skelmis made in our room that got them there so fast,” said Tamara thoughtfully. “But they did race over pretty quickly for just some noise. Call could be right.”

“Okay, then,” said Aaron. “What do you suggest?”

For the next ten minutes they went at the door with everything they could think of. Tamara cast a fire spell, but the door was impervious. It didn’t react to freezing, either, or to “Open sesame,” or to the unlocking spell Tamara had used on the cages in the village of the Order of Disorder. It just sat there, looking at them, being a door.

It didn’t react to being kicked, either, Call discovered.

“Seriously?” Aaron said, after they’d exhausted their ideas and were leaning sweatily against the opposite wall. He glared at Master Milagros’s kitten poster. “All this worrying about the safe and we can’t even get past the door.”

“Somebody got past our door,” Tamara pointed out.

“So it’s possible,” said Call. “Or at least it should be. I mean, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. These doors are the Magisterium’s security. We shouldn’t be able to wave just any wristband at one of them and have the door open.” He waved his arm at the door for emphasis.

There was a click.

Tamara stood up straight. “Did that just —”

Aaron took two strides across the hallway and pushed. The door slid open smoothly. It was unlocked.

“That’s not right.” Tamara didn’t sound pleased; she sounded upset. “What was that? What happened?” She whirled on Call. “Are you just wearing your regular band?”