The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)(41)

Tamara, not yet being hauled along by Master Rufus, dared to speak. “We thought one of the elementals might know who let Skelmis out. I know you made us promise not to investigate, but that was before Call was attacked!”

Master Rufus turned a look on her that Call worried might actually scorch skin. “And so you broke into an Assembly member’s room and stole property from her locked safe? Property that could then be stolen from you? Did you consider that?”

“Uh,” Tamara said, having no good answer.

“Oh, don’t be too hard on them,” Anastasia said, her voice cool as ever. She had to know they’d found her photographs and guessed her password, but she appeared entirely unruffled, as though she had nothing at all to feel guilty about or to fear. “It’s difficult to feel powerless when someone is hunting you. And they’re heroes, after all. It must be twice as hard for heroes.”

Master Rufus twitched at the word hunting but didn’t loosen his grip on Call or Aaron.

Tamara was watching Anastasia. Call could tell she was tempted to say something about what they’d found in her room, but it was difficult to go against the one person on your side. Besides, she was still reeling from having seen her sister, locked up like just another elemental.

“We can’t let this slide,” Master North said. “Discipline is important for apprentices and for mages in general. We’re going to have to punish them.”

Anastasia’s chilly hand patted Call’s cheek. He felt vaguely frostbitten. “Tomorrow is soon enough, surely,” she said. “I’m the wronged party, after all. I ought to have some say.”

“I will personally escort these three back to their rooms,” Master Rufus said. “Now.”

With that, he dragged Call and Aaron toward the gates. Tamara followed, probably happy Master Rufus had only two hands. Call looked back at Anastasia. She was standing with the others but not speaking with them. Her gaze rested on Aaron, watching him with a fascination that made Call’s stomach knot without quite knowing why.



Call kept expecting Master Rufus to burst through the doors of their new sleeping quarters and yell at them for breaking into the elemental prison. He slept fitfully all night. He woke again and again, gasping, hand to his chest, out of a dream where something he couldn’t quite see was about to drop down on him.

Havoc, who had given up sleeping in the fourth bedroom, licked Call’s feet sympathetically each time he cried out. It was a little gross, but also kind of reassuring.

By the time the bell rang, tired as he was, Call was almost relieved not to have to battle sleep any longer. He pulled on his uniform, yawning, and stepped out into the common area. Havoc was at his heels, eager for a walk.

Tamara sat on an arm of the sofa in a bathrobe, a towel covering her head. Aaron was next to her, in his uniform, hair sticking up from sleep. With them on the sofa was Master Rufus, his face grave. They’d clearly been waiting for Call to emerge.

Well, he’d been anticipating this. He sat down heavily next to Aaron.

“You know that what you did last night was inexcusable,” Master Rufus said. “You broke into an Assembly member’s chamber and you sent the guard away from the elemental gate — a boy who, by the way, fell into a crevasse and broke his leg. If he hadn’t, I would have found you a lot sooner.”

“He broke his leg?” said Aaron, looking horrified.

“That’s right,” said Master Rufus. “Thomas Lachman is now under the care of Master Amaranth in the Infirmary. Luckily, he was spotted by a student, nearly unconscious at the bottom of a dry ravine. As you can imagine, after his discovery, the Masters’ meeting was thrown into disarray. If we hadn’t been distracted, your little adventure in the elementals’ domain would have been cut even shorter than it was.” He looked coldly from one of them to the other. “I want you to know I hold you personally responsible for the boy’s injuries. Had he remained there longer, he might have died.”

Tamara looked stricken. She was the one who’d given Thomas her guide-stone. “But we — we wander around the caves all the time and nothing ever happens.”

Master Rufus’s expression grew even colder. “He wasn’t an apprentice here. Anastasia selected him because he was an outsider, educated at a different Magisterium, so he wasn’t familiar with the caves, while you are.”

Unbidden, Call remembered his father’s warnings about the Magisterium and the caves: There’s no light down there. No windows. The place is a maze. You could get lost in the caverns and die and no one would ever know.

Well, they’d found Thomas. At least Alastair had been wrong about that part.

“We’re sorry,” Call said. He meant it, too. In a way that maybe Rufus wouldn’t understand, he was sorry they’d ever gone to the elementals’ caves. He wished he’d never heard Marcus say that the person trying to kill him was the best Makar of their generation. He wished Tamara hadn’t seen her sister, or at least what was left of her. She’d been horribly silent and tearless when Master Rufus had left them in their chambers after frog-marching them back from the guardroom. She’d slammed her way into her bedroom and locked the door. Call and Aaron had faced each other awkwardly for a moment before going to bed themselves.

“We really are sorry,” said Aaron.