The Golden Tower (Magisterium #5)(18)

“He’s going to freak out,” Tamara whispered, her face pale. “We have to do something —”

“She’s here!” called Master North. Through the swirling air of the tornado phone, they could see Anastasia in the baggy uniform of a Panopticon prisoner, being led out the front door of the jail by two burly guards. She was blinking but clearly unharmed.

Alex made a growling noise. “Set her free!”

The guards stepped aside, and Anastasia looked around in stunned amazement. It was clear she had no idea what was going on. Her voice was audible, barely, through the phone. “What’s happening? Who’s there?”

“Let the children go!” called Rufus.

Alex smiled unpleasantly. “Hmmm. Should I really?”

“You’d better!” Tamara yelled. “Everyone knows what Anastasia looks like and everyone knows she’s a traitor. If you don’t get to her first, any passing mage might grab her and throw her back in prison, or worse!”

Alex bared his teeth. The whole crowd tensed — and the dragon reared forward and swooped, opening its claws. The two Iron Years tumbled free, hurtling toward the ground and then slowing just before they hit. They both sat up, to Call’s relief. Axel was holding his arm, though, and Call supposed that the Masters hadn’t been able to cushion him enough.

Master Rockmaple ran toward the children. Alex’s dragon reared back, letting out a puff of black fire. “You will not follow me,” Alex said, and thrust out his hand.

Darkness poured from it. Call remembered his dream again. A whole city torn apart by chaos.

The darkness began to form a whirling void, like a black, sucking funnel. As it spread toward the Magisterium, it sucked in leaves and stones. It seared the ground as it passed.

It was closest to Master Rockmaple, because he had run to grab the children. He raised his hands, and fire blazed between them. With a stern look, he hurled fire toward the chaos —

And the black wave surged forward and enveloped him. With a howl, he was dragged into the void.

He was gone.

People were screaming again, turning to run back into the Magisterium, but the press of bodies created a blockage at the gates. They were trapping themselves outside. It was going to be a massacre.

Call thrust his own hand out, reaching down inside himself. The counterweight to chaos is the soul. He knew the soul tap, how to find the energy of his own life-force, and he reached for it heedlessly, ignoring the almost physical pain as he drew on it.

Use me! Aaron called. Use my energy, too!

Call only shook his head. His hair whipped on the wind from the chaos void. Tamara was yanking on his arm, trying to get him to back away. He bent his fingers slightly, the way he had in his dream —

The void began to fragment, coming apart in pieces like black glass shattering.

But darkness was all around Call and he felt himself falling.





CALL WOKE WITH a start. For a moment, he thought that he was lost in chaos, until he heard the familiar hum of voices and the distinct mineral smell of the caves of the Magisterium. He sat up, startling Master Amaranth.

He was in the infirmary. Call relaxed and slumped back on the pillow.

The mage came over to him, her coppery hair pulled back and her snake coiled around her head like some enormous headband. Today, it was a bright yellow green that turned to blue and then purple as Call watched. A moment later, red stripes emerged on its scales.

You almost died, Aaron said in his head.

“Oh,” Call said. He remembered something like that. Something about the hole ripped into chaos and trying to close it and trying to tap into his own soul.

I tried to hold on to you, but it felt like you were slipping away, Aaron went on. He sounded panicked and angry. Call guessed that made sense. If he’d died, Aaron would have died, too.

That is NOT the point — Aaron began, but Master Amaranth interrupted.

“Against my advice, your friend is still here,” she said.

Call thought for a bizarre moment that she meant Aaron, before he whirled around to see Tamara sitting on the cot beside him. She set down the anatomy book she’d been reading and hurried over to his bed.

“Sorry,” he said, although whether he was saying it to her or to Aaron, he wasn’t sure. “I guess I am not so good at defeating my enemies, huh?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Tamara fondly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

You don’t understand, Aaron said. I wasn’t going to die. If your soul was used up, I would have been alone in here.

Call guessed that was one way that Aaron could get a body.

That’s not funny, said Aaron.

Tamara sat down in the chair next to his cot. She was smiling, and he was incredibly relieved to see her, too. Things hadn’t been looking good when he lost consciousness. “You’re all right?” he said. “Everyone’s okay?”

“Mostly,” Tamara said. “You tore Alex’s chaos tornado apart, and then you passed out and I didn’t exactly notice what else was going on.” She blushed. “But basically Alex escaped in all the yelling.” She bit her lip. “We lost Master Rockmaple, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Call said again. He knew he should have acted earlier.

“I told you it’s not your fault,” Tamara said, with a return of her usual bossiness. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about Alex, though,” she added. “After you passed out, I managed to talk to my dad. He said that Alex was right, that there’s never been a Devoured of chaos. There are so few Makars already and so few mages become one of the Devoured, and Makars never have before. We don’t know how to stop him. We don’t even know much about the Devoured. In the mage world, we don’t like to admit it can happen.”