The Copper Gauntlet (Magisterium #2)(61)

“That wasn’t a true riddle,” the head said, ignoring Aaron’s question. “That was just for practice.”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jasper said, babbling with terror. “We’ve got to go.”

“Go where?” Aaron demanded. “There’s hundreds of Chaos-ridden behind us.” He squared his shoulders. “Ask away.”

“So we begin,” Verity said. “What begins and has no end, yet is the ending of all that begins?”

“Death,” Call said. That one was easy. He was glad. Good at riddles was nowhere on the Evil Overlord list.

There was a clicking, grinding noise, a bolt on the inside of the door sliding back.

“Now the second riddle. I wear you down, yet you will mourn me once I fly. You can kill me, but I will never die.”

The Enemy himself, Call thought. But that wasn’t a good riddle answer, was it?

They exchanged looks. It was Tamara who spoke.

“Time,” she said.

Another scraping noise. “And now the last,” said Verity. “Take it and you will lose or gain more than all others. What is it?”

Silence. Call’s mind was racing. Lose or gain, lose or gain. Riddles were always about something bigger than they seemed to be. Love, death, wealth, fame, life. There was no sound but the distant moaning of the Chaos-ridden and Call’s own breath. Until a sharp, shaking voice cut through the quiet.

“Risk,” said Jasper.

The head of Verity Torres let out a disappointed sigh, those terrible eyes closed, and there was a last clicking noise. The door swung open. Call could see nothing beyond it but shadows. He was shaking suddenly, colder than he’d ever been in his life.

Risk.

He looked back at Aaron and Tamara, took a deep breath, and stepped over the threshold.

The tomb was dimly lit by stones along the wall that reminded Call of the glowing rocks inside the Magisterium. He was able to pick out a corridor leading to what looked like five chambers.

Turning back, he glanced at the assemblage of horrible, staring figures with their coruscating eyes. The leader fixed his gaze on Call.

Call tried to make his voice firm. “Remain here, children of chaos. I will return.”

They bent their heads as one. Disturbingly, Call saw that Havoc was among them. His wolf had also bent his head. A wave of sadness overwhelmed him — what if Havoc had only stuck by him because he’d had to? Because that was what he’d been created to do? The idea was more than Call thought he could bear.

“Call?” Tamara called. She was partway down the hallway, Aaron and Jasper beside her. “I think you better come see this.”

He looked back at the army. Was he being ridiculous, not bringing at least one of them to protect him? He pointed to the leader. “Except you. You come with me.”

Trying to push Havoc out of his thoughts, he limped inside the mausoleum. The leader of the Chaos-ridden followed him, and Call watched as he shut the doors carefully behind them, blocking out the outside world.

The leader turned around and looked expectantly at Call, awaiting instructions. “You’re going to follow me,” Call said. “Protect me if anyone tries to hurt me.” A nod. “Do you have a name?”

The Chaos-ridden shook his head.

“Fine,” Call said, “I’m going to call you Stanley. It’s weird if you don’t have a name.”

Stanley had no reaction to this, so Call turned and started down the hall. He was halfway along the corridor when he heard Tamara call his name again. “Call! You need to come see this.”

Call hurried to catch up with her. He found her with Aaron and Jasper, huddled in front of an alcove. As he and Stanley approached, they moved aside, letting Call have a clear view.

Inside the alcove was a marble slab … and on top of the marble slab was the body of a dead boy with a mop of dark brown hair. His eyes were shut, his arms at his sides. His body was perfectly preserved, but he was clearly dead. His skin was waxy white, and his chest didn’t rise or fall. Though someone had dressed him in white funeral clothes, he still wore the wristband marking him as a student in his Copper Year.

Carved on the wall behind him was his name: Jericho Madden. Piled around the body was an assortment of strange objects. A ratty-looking blanket beside a bunch of notebooks and dusty tomes, a small glowing ball that seemed to be almost depleted of its charge, a golden knife and a ring emblazoned with a sigil Call didn’t recognize.

“Of course,” Tamara whispered. “The Enemy of Death wouldn’t have built a tomb for himself. He didn’t think he was going to die. He built this place for his brother. Those are his grave goods.”

Aaron stared in fascination.

Call couldn’t speak. He felt something twist inside him, the yearning ache of something he’d hoped to feel when he saw his mother’s handprint in the Hall of Graduates. A connection to love and family and the past. He couldn’t stop staring at the boy on the slab and remembering the stories he had heard: This was the brother Constantine had wanted to resurrect, the brother whose loss led him to experiment with the void and create the Chaos-ridden, the brother whose death had caused him to make death itself his enemy.

Call wondered if he would ever love anyone that much, to forswear everything else for him, to want to burn down the world to get him back.