The Copper Gauntlet (Magisterium #2)(13)

The shadows congealed into the twin shapes of two chaos elementals. They were thin, sleek creatures that resembled whippets made entirely of darkness, smaller than the one in Master Joseph’s lair had been. Still, their eyes glittered with the madness of the void.

Gasps went up all around the party. Tamara clutched Call’s arm.

For his part, Call gaped. This didn’t seem like a trick. Those things seemed dangerous. They were regarding the crowd as though they’d like nothing better than to devour everyone watching and pick their teeth with the bones of the people over by the food.

They began to slip sinuously over the grass.

Okay, Aaron, Call thought. Dismiss them. De-summon them. Do something.

Aaron lifted his hand. Threads of darkness began to spiral out from his fingers. His brow was furrowed in concentration. He reached out —

Havoc began to bark wildly, startling Call and Aaron both. Call saw the moment that Aaron’s concentration got away from him, the shadows vanishing from his fingertips.

Whatever he’d been meaning to do didn’t happen. Instead, one of the chaos elementals sprang into the air, toward Tamara’s mother. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opening in astonished terror. Her hand flew out, fire igniting in the center of her palm.

Aaron fell to his knees, flinging out both hands. Darkness exploded outward, surrounding the elemental. The creature disappeared, along with its twin. The chaos elementals were gone, scattered into shadows that melted away into the sunshine. Call became conscious of the fact that it was a summer day again, a summer day at a fancy garden party. He wasn’t sure if there’d ever been any real danger.

Everyone began laughing and clapping. Even Mrs. Rajavi looked delighted.

Aaron was breathing hard. His face looked pale, with a hectic flush on his cheeks as though from illness. He didn’t look like someone who’d just done a trick. He looked like someone who’d almost gotten his friend’s mother eaten.

Call turned to Tamara. “What was that?”

Her eyes sparkled. “What do you mean? He did a great job!”

“He could have been killed!” Call hissed at her, stopping himself from adding that her mom could probably have been killed, too. Aaron was on his feet now, pushing his way through the crowd toward them. He wasn’t making very fast progress, since everyone seemed to want to move closer to touch him and congratulate him and pat him on the back.

Tamara scoffed. “It was just a party trick, Call. All the other mages were standing by. They would have interfered if anything had gone wrong.”

Call could taste coppery anger in the back of his throat. He knew, and Tamara knew, too, that mages weren’t infallible. They didn’t always interfere to stop things in time. No one had interfered to stop Constantine Madden when he’d pushed his chaos magic so far that it had killed his brother and nearly destroyed the Magisterium. He’d been so injured and scarred by what had happened that he’d always worn a silver mask afterward, to cover his face.

He must have hated how he looked.

Call put up his hand to touch the uninjured skin of his own face just as Aaron got to them, flushed and wild-eyed. “Can we go sit down somewhere?” he said, quietly enough for his words not to reach the crowd. “I need to catch my breath.”

“Sure.” Call scrambled to position himself a little in front of Aaron as he leaned down to Havoc. “Pull me over to the fountain,” he told the wolf in a whisper, and Havoc yanked him forward. The crowd parted hastily to let Havoc by, and Call, Tamara, and Aaron followed in his wake. Call was aware of Alex looking after them sympathetically, though Kimiya had already turned her attention to the next mage’s trick.

Colored sparks rose in the air behind them as they rounded a hedge shaped like a shield and discovered a fountain. This one was round, made of yellow stone, and had an aged look that made Call think it must have been brought from somewhere else. Aaron sat down on the lip of it, scrubbing his hands through his wavy blond hair. “I hate my haircut,” he said.

“It looks fine,” said Call.

“You don’t really think that,” said Aaron.

“Not really,” Call said, and gave Aaron what he hoped was a supportive smile. Aaron looked worried. Maybe it hadn’t been that supportive. “You okay?”

Aaron took a deep breath. “I just —”

“Have you heard?” An adult voice floated through the air, through the leaves. It was deep and bass; Call had heard it before. “Someone broke into the Collegium last week. They tried to steal the Alkahest.”

Call and Aaron stared at each other, and then at Tamara, who had gone very still. She put her finger to her lips, quieting them.

“Someone?” replied a light, female voice. “You mean the minions of the Enemy. Who else? He means to start up the war again.”

“No broken Alkahest is going to save him once our Makar is trained and ready” came the reply.

“But if he’s able to repair it, the tragedy of Verity Torres could repeat itself,” cautioned a third voice, this one a man’s, sharp with nervousness. “Our Makar is young, like she was. We need time. The Alkahest is too powerful for us to take an attempt to steal it lightly.”

“They’re moving it to a more defensible location.” The woman’s voice again. “They were fools to keep it on display in the first place.”