The Copper Gauntlet (Magisterium #2)(68)

And with that, air swirled around Call, thickening and lifting them into the sky. Despite what Master Rufus said, Call still struggled.

“We must have been hidden from them by the tomb,” Tamara said. “It must have been enchanted the way the Magisterium is — to prevent scrying. But now that it’s gone, they found us.”

“Don’t hurt us!” Jasper shouted. “We surrender!”

Master North raised his hands and out of clouds came three long eel-like air elementals. They were large and placid, until they unhinged massive jaws. He saw one swallow Aaron, gulping him down into its gullet. A moment later, the second elemental was racing toward him, large maw waiting.

“Aaaaugh!” Call yelled as he tumbled inside it. He was expecting to land in the stomach of a creature, but where he fell was soft and shapeless and dry, the way he imagined lying on clouds might feel — even though he knew that clouds were actually just a bunch of water.

Havoc rolled in after him, looking really freaked out. The Chaos-ridden wolf howled and Call hurried over to try to calm him down. Call wasn’t sure Havoc was going to get used to flying. Then Alastair came rolling in, hands still up, as though he was in the middle of readying a spell.

The elemental began to move, swimming through the sky, following the mages back to the Magisterium. Call could tell where it was going, because he could see through the creature in places. It was opaque and cloudy in some spots, translucent in others, and completely transparent in a very few spots. But wherever he touched, the elemental seemed like a solid thing.

“Dad?” Call said. “What’s going on?”

“I think the mages want to be sure we don’t get away, so they created a prison inside an elemental. Impressive.” Alastair sat down on the cloud belly of the creature. “You four must be quite slippery.”

“I guess,” Call said. He knew what he had to say to his father, what he’d wanted to say since he’d first seen Alastair’s notes to Master Joseph. “I’m sorry about what happened. You know, this summer.”

Alastair glanced over at Havoc, who was trying to pull up his paws at once and slipping around. Call followed his glance and remembered that he wasn’t sorry about everything.

“I’m sorry, too, Callum,” Alastair said. “You must have been very frightened by what you saw in the garage.”

“I was afraid you were going to hurt Havoc,” Call said.

“Is that all?”

Call shrugged. “I thought you were going to use the Alkahest to test out your theory about me. Like, if I died, then I was really —”

Alastair cut him off. “I understand. You don’t need to say anything else. I don’t want anyone to overhear us.”

“When did you start to suspect?”

Call saw the weariness in Alastair’s face as he answered, “For a long time. Maybe since I left the cave.”

“Why didn’t you say anything — to me, at least?”

Alastair looked around, as though evaluating if the elemental might be eavesdropping on them. “What was the point?” he said finally. “Better you not know, I thought. Better you never know. But we can’t speak about this anymore now.”

“Are you mad at me?” Call asked in a small voice.

“For what happened in the storage room?” Alastair asked. “No, I’m angry with myself. I suspected Master Joseph had been in contact; I worried he already had his hooks in you. I thought that if you knew more, you might be tempted by the idea of power. And after he began writing to me, I was afraid of what he wanted to do to you. But I forgot how frightened you must have been.”

“I thought I’d really hurt you.” Call let his head fall against the softness of the elemental’s side. The adrenaline was quickly draining out of his system, leaving only exhaustion behind. “I thought I was as terrible as —”

“I’m fine,” Alastair said. “Everything’s fine, Callum. People don’t start wars by losing their tempers or losing control of their magic.”

Callum wasn’t sure that was true, but he was too exhausted to argue.

“You never should have come to the tomb, Callum — you know that, right? You should have left things to me to handle. If Joseph had actually been able to do what he planned — who knows what he might have done to you.” Alastair shuddered.

“I know,” Call said. If his soul had moved into Constantine’s body, maybe all the memories he had of being Callum would have been gone, which, when he let himself think about it too much, seemed like it might be a fate much, much worse than death.

But the farther they flew, the more exhausted he felt. He remembered the way Aaron had been after using chaos magic on Automotones.

I’m just going to shut my eyes for a moment, he told himself.

When Call woke, it was because there were arms around him and he was moving. Being carried, he realized, over the rocks outside the Magisterium. He cracked an eye and looked around.

Morning light stung his eyes. He guessed it was probably around breakfast time. Master North and Master Rockmaple were behind him, watching from their places astride massive air elementals. They looked dour and stern. Havoc, Tamara, Aaron, and Jasper were following Master Rufus down a path to a gate set into the wall of the Magisterium. Alastair was following them, and he was carrying Call the way he hadn’t since Call was very young, with Call’s head against his shoulder.