The Golden Tower (Magisterium #5)(21)

“He believes my daughter Kimiya was in love with him,” Mr. Rajavi said. “She is a foolish girl, but very ashamed of being led astray. Being with him again is the last thing she would wish.”

Graves gave him a skeptical look but didn’t comment.

“I saw Alex,” Mr. Rajavi went on. “He didn’t seem at all like the boy I remembered. He wore an enormous cape and seemed to delight in frightening us. All his demands might seem absurd, but he does really have power and the childishness of his desires. That, to my mind, makes them all the more frightening. A grown mind is reasonable, but a child’s mind is capricious.”

“A Devoured of chaos,” Assemblyman Graves said after a moment. “We have no experience with such a thing, do we?”

A silence followed.

“No,” he said, after letting it go several moments. “Callum, as a Makar, what do you know of this?”

Call cleared his throat and started to panic. This was the kind of situation he never did well in. He always said the wrong thing.

You don’t know anything either, Aaron told him. Just tell them that.

“There’s this lizard I know,” Call said.

He could hear Aaron’s groan in his head, but Call went doggedly on. “And he warned me about something else — something that had been sent into chaos. So I guess the only thing I know is that maybe Alex brought chaos elementals back with him? Like maybe that dragon.”

Graves didn’t seem impressed. “Could you become a Devoured of chaos?”

“What?” Call blurted out.

Graves adjusted his spectacles. “If you used your ability to manipulate chaos without a counterweight, you might well be drawn in and yourself made into one of the Devoured. You would be a creature of chaos, not quite human. But you might be able to take down Alex. It would be a very heroic act.”

Call just stared at him. He couldn’t believe Graves was really suggesting such a thing, but then he recalled the way Aaron had known they were treating him well because they were going to eventually ask him to die for them. Now Call was the only Makar in town. Unfortunately for the Assembly, Call had never been particularly good at gratitude.

You thought I was a sucker, is that it? Aaron asked.

“No!” Call said, then realized he’d answered Graves more directly than he’d intended.

“Call’s correct. He’s not doing that. It would be suicide,” said Master Rufus, interrupting any possible objections. “Call, Jasper, Tamara — I want you to understand what’s happening here, because telling you that Alex wants you delivered to him is a risk. A risk not everyone here thought we should take.” He glowered at Graves, who glowered back. “Now that you know of Alex’s requests, now that you know of the danger he poses to you directly, you might be justified in wanting nothing to do with it. Alex believes we’d never tell you he’s asked for you as prisoners, out of fear you’d run away, but I trust you. I believe you won’t run because of the death and destruction it would bring on innocent people.

“We have no plans to turn you over to Alex, but I move that we start building his stronghold, because that will make him believe we’re cooperating and buy us some time. You need to use that time. Call, you are our only Makar. Reach inside yourself. Find your power. Figure out how to defeat Alex.”

Everyone stared at Call.

Say you’ll do your best, Aaron told him.

“If I’m going to do this on my own,” said Call, in a hard voice, “if I have to figure out how to defeat Alex, even though I’m still a student, then I want something from you. Whatever I do, whatever my friends decide we need to do to destroy a Devoured of chaos, I don’t want you to stand in our way. I want you to help me. Enough treating me like I’m an enemy — the Enemy. Understood?”

There was a silence. Master Rufus’s face was unreadable; Call wondered if he’d gone too far.

Graves took his spectacles off his nose and squinted down the table at Call. “We understand, Mr. Hunt,” he said. “We understand you very well.”

“Good,” Call said, and stood up. To his relief, Tamara and Jasper stood up, too, clearly ready to go where he went. “Then I’ll do my best.”





CALL MADE IT all the way back to their rooms before his burst of fearlessness deserted him. They found Gwenda waiting nervously in the room for them, and there was something about the look on her anxious face that knocked the last of Call’s strength. He collapsed onto the couch, face in his hands.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t.”

Tamara climbed onto the couch next to him and reached for his hand. Call noticed Jasper noticing the gesture, but didn’t care. What did it matter what Jasper, or anyone, suspected about his relationship with Tamara at this point?

“We’ll help you,” Tamara said. He was glad she hadn’t said everything would be okay. But Tamara was too smart to say that. She knew those kind of promises didn’t mean anything; she made the kind she could keep. “You won’t be alone.” She looked up. “Right, Jasper?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

And I’ll be here, said Aaron. Remember when it was me on this couch? Remember me throwing my shoe because I knew being the Makar meant I’d have to die for the Magisterium?