The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)(55)

The heat of the fire faded away. He could no longer feel his skin burning and prickling. In fact, he was cold. Cold as outer space, where there was no warmth, only nothingness. In the center of his palm, a black spiral began to dance. It rose up and up from his skin like a coil of smoke set free.

Fire wants to burn.

Air wants to rise.

Water wants to flow.

Earth wants to bind.

Chaos wants to devour.

The chaos rose up from Call’s hand, faster and faster now. It had become a black tornado, spinning around his wrist and hand. He could feel it, thick and oily, like quicksand that would pull you under. He thrust his hand up higher, as high as it could go, until he was reaching toward the top of the flames.

Devour, he thought. Devour the air.

The smoke exploded outward. Call gasped as a noise like a sonic boom punctured the air. The flames began to sway wildly back and forth as the black smoke ran across their tops, spreading like a cloud layer, devouring oxygen. Fire needed oxygen to live. Call had learned that in science class. His dark chaos was eating away at the oxygen surrounding the flames.

He could hear other noises now: other apprentices, shouting in surprise and fear. The flames made a noise as if they were being turned inside out — then vanished, collapsing down to heaps of charred ash. Suddenly, the whole room was visible — Call could see the other students spread out across the floor, some of them clutching their canteens, all of them looking around wildly in shock.

Call’s smoke was still hovering in the air. Dark and sinuous, it appeared to have fattened up on the air it had swallowed. Call started to gasp, remembering something else he knew from science class: Fire might need oxygen to survive, but so did people.

The smoke began to drift down, questing, coiling. Master Rufus was striding toward the destroyed maze, shouting, “Call! Get rid of it, Call!”

In a panic, Call flung his hand out again, reaching for the chaos, trying to pull it back toward him. He felt it resist. It wanted to push back and be free. It wanted him to leave it alone. He was stretching out his hand so hard his fingers were turning into aching claws. Come back.

Suddenly, the dark chaos smoke swirled into a tight coil and sprang toward the ground. Call gave a yell — then saw that it was arrowing down toward Aaron, whose hand was also raised. It vanished into his palm and disappeared.

Master Rufus skidded to a stop a few feet from Call. Aaron slowly lowered his hand. Call could see Tamara, her cheeks streaked with ash, her mouth open. Across the heaps of ash and the huddles of frightened students, Call and Aaron looked at each other.



Tamara was the only one of the three of them who went to the Refectory for dinner that night. She brought back food for Call and Aaron — a tray piled with lichen, mushrooms, tubers, and the purple pudding Call liked.

“How was it?” Aaron asked.

She shrugged. “Fine, I guess.” Tamara could lie pretty well, so Call had his eye on her, ready to believe that no matter what she actually said, the truth was much worse. “Everyone had questions, but that was it.”

“What kind of questions?” Call asked. “Like, am I crazy? Am I going evil?”

“Don’t be paranoid,” Tamara said.

“Yeah, they probably think I’m the crazy one,” Aaron put in with a sigh. The weirdest part was that Call had to acknowledge that this was probably true. Even though Aaron had saved everyone — from Call, which made him recollect his Evil Overlord list of last year, because almost murdering all the Copper Year apprentice groups would have gotten him mad points — his use of chaos magic had probably still scared them.

“This is almost over,” Tamara told them. “We’re going to help Alma and she’s going to get Jennifer to … okay, I don’t know what she’s going to do exactly. But we’re going to know who killed Jennifer and that means we’re going to know who’s after you. So eat up. You’re going to need your strength.”

“So who won?” Call asked.

“What?” Tamara looked flummoxed. “What do you mean?”

“Who won the test?” Call repeated. “Who gets to go to the Gallery? Like, did they pick the person who was closest to the center or did they decide to give up on the whole thing?”

“We get to go,” she said slowly, as though she was trying to be very sympathetic to someone to whom she was giving bad news. “You won, Call.”

“Oh,” he said. He wasn’t sure how to take the news. No one had congratulated him at the time. Master North had come roaring over the empty fire to shake Call’s shoulders and demand to know what he’d been thinking. When Call showed him the empty canteen with the hole in the bottom, though, his expression had gone shuttered and strange.

Master Rufus had looked around coldly, as though thinking about what he might do to the culprit. Call knew how that felt, although it worried him that for a moment Master Rufus’s gaze seemed to have settled on Anastasia.

Sometimes when Call looked around the Refectory, he thought it was impossible that a person who wanted to kill him could blend in with everyone else.

“Tamara’s right,” Aaron said, lifting a large forkful of lichen. “We need to rest and get ready for tonight. We already used enough magic that I need a nap or I am going to fall asleep with my arms around a Chaos-ridden bear and get eaten.”