The Copper Gauntlet (Magisterium #2)(27)

He kept thinking about his father controlling the circumstances and seeking a terrain where he’d have the advantage. He kept thinking about the chains in his father’s house and the drawing of the Alkahest on his father’s desk. He kept coming to the same disturbing conclusion.

He’d been pretty sure that his father was the one who’d tried to steal the Alkahest, but that had meant it was his father who failed. But what if the failure had been deliberate?

What if Alastair had failed, knowing that the mages would move the Alkahest out of the Collegium to a more secure location? What if he already knew the secure place that they were very likely to use — a terrain where he’d have the advantage?

Back at the house, beside the drawings of the Alkahest, there’d been a map of the layout of the airline hangar where the Trial had been held.

Call hadn’t wondered where Alastair had gotten that from, until now. Tamara’s parents said that Alastair was a great metal mage and Master Rufus had said that the Alkahest was safe, in a vault created by metal mages, below a place the kids had been before. The airplane hangar was made almost entirely of metal. Maybe Alastair — being a great metal mage — had been one of the people who’d helped build it, one of the people who knew exactly how to get into the hangar and to the vault that might be below it.

If all that was true, then Alastair hadn’t failed to steal the Alkahest. If all that was true, the Alkahest was more vulnerable than ever.

Call lay awake for a long time that night, staring into the dark.



Call went through much of the next day in a daze. He couldn’t pay attention in class when Master Rufus was trying to teach them how to levitate objects using metal and earth magic, and he dropped a lit candle on Tamara’s head. He forgot to walk Havoc, which had unfortunate results for the rug in his bedroom. In the Refectory, he got distracted by the fact that Celia was waving at him — and nearly tripped Aaron.

Aaron stumbled, catching himself on the edge of one of the stone tables bearing enormous cauldrons of soup. “All right,” he said firmly, taking Call’s plate out of his hands. “That’s enough.”

Tamara nodded fervently. “Way past enough.”

“What?” Call was alarmed; Aaron had become very businesslike, piling food briskly onto Call’s plate. Huge mountains of food. “What’s going on?”

“You’re being all weird,” said Tamara, who had piled her plate high as well. “We’re going back to the room to talk about it.”

“What? I’m not — I don’t —” But Call was caught up in his friends’ determination like a dust mote in a windstorm. Carrying plates, Tamara and Aaron marched him out of the Refectory, back down the corridors to their room, and pushed him inside still protesting.

They put their plates down on the table and went to grab cutlery. Seconds later they were gathered around the food, forking up lichen pizza and mossy mashed potatoes.

Hesitantly, Call picked up his fork. “What do you mean I’m weird?”

“Distracted,” Tamara said. “You keep dropping things and forgetting things. You called Master Rufus Jasper and you called Jasper Celia. And you forgot to walk Havoc.”

Havoc barked. Call looked at him darkly.

“Plus you keep staring off into space like someone died,” Aaron said, handing Call a fork. “What’s going on? And don’t say ‘Nothing.’ ”

Call looked at them. His friends. He was so tired of lying. He didn’t want to be like Constantine Madden. He wanted to be a good person. The idea of telling them the truth felt awful, but being good wasn’t supposed to be fun, right?

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” Call asked them. “You absolutely promise and swear on — on your honor as a mage?”

Call was kind of proud of that one, since he’d just made it up. Both Call and Tamara looked impressed.

“Absolutely,” said Tamara.

“Definitely,” said Aaron.

“I think it was my dad who tried to steal the Alkahest,” Call confessed.

Aaron dropped a plate of lichen onto the table. “What?”

Tamara looked absolutely horrified. “Call, don’t joke around.”

“I’m not,” Call said. “I wouldn’t. I think he tried to steal it from the Collegium and I think he’s going to try to steal it again. This time, he might succeed.”

Aaron gaped at him. “Why would your father do that? How do you know?”

Call told them what he’d found in the basement, how Havoc had been chained up, how he’d found the open books with the illustrations of the Alkahest in them. He told them about the map of the airplane hangar, too.

“He was going to cut out Havoc’s heart to power the device?” Tamara asked, looking green.

At his name, the wolf looked up at Call and whined. Call nodded.

“But you didn’t see it anywhere? The Alkahest itself?” Aaron asked.

Call shook his head. “I didn’t know it was a real thing. I didn’t know what he was doing or what he wanted Havoc for.” He didn’t mention the boy-size shackles on the wall. He was prepared to tell some of the truth but not all of it. He wasn’t sure where that fell on the Evil Overlord spectrum, but he didn’t care.

“Why would your dad want to kill Aaron?” Tamara demanded.