The Golden Tower (Magisterium #5)(22)

Yeah, Call replied.

“And I’ll help, too,” Gwenda said, then paused. “Wait, what did I just promise to help with?”

Jasper told her quickly about the meeting, and the message from Alex.

“You mean you have to figure out how to defeat a Devoured of chaos?” Gwenda said incredulously. “Actually, wait, we have to figure out how to defeat a Devoured of chaos, since I just promised to help? I can’t believe it. I always wondered how you got sucked into these things, Tamara and Jasper, and now I know.”

“No kidding,” said Jasper. “How do we wind up saying these things? Who wants to be involved in this kind of stuff?”

“You don’t have to be if you don’t want to,” said Call.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jasper. “Of course I do. I mean, I don’t want to, but you get the point. What’s our first move?”

“Do you think Alex has allies?” said Gwenda, sitting down on the table. “Besides Anastasia Tarquin, I guess.”

“Not like Master Joseph did,” said Call. “Alex isn’t the Enemy of Death. He doesn’t care about ending death and grief. He only cares about power. So a lot of the people who followed Constantine and his group probably won’t follow Alex.”

“What was up with the dragon?” Gwenda asked. “It must have been a chaos elemental, but it was huge. Was that Automotones? Do you think that was what Warren was warning us about?”

“Automotones is a different huge elemental, but since Alex came back, who knows what else came with him,” said Tamara. “We have to assume that even if he doesn’t have followers, he can still control enough monsters that a direct attack would be chancy.”

“No one knows how to stop a Devoured of chaos,” Call said. “I mean, I don’t even know much about the Devoured. Mages don’t seem to like to talk about them.”

Tamara sighed. “Yeah, when Ravan became one of the Devoured, my family pretended she was dead. They thought it was better that way. But when I needed her help, she was there for me. She still considered herself to be my sister.”

“Is she … human?” Gwenda asked, looking uncomfortable.

Tamara shook her head. “She doesn’t have to be human to matter.”

The last time Call had seen Ravan close up she’d been ushering him and Jasper out of the Panopticon, a pillar of terrifying fire. The last time he’d seen her from a distance, she’d been helping Tamara and Jasper escape Master Joseph. She’d been a plume of flame.

Don’t forget the battlefield, Aaron said. She was there, too.

“Alex seems like exactly the same jerk he was before,” said Call. “But Ravan — wait, can you still get ahold of her?”

“What do you mean?” Tamara asked.

“We could ask Ravan about being Devoured,” Call said. “About strengths and weaknesses. Maybe she could help us figure out how to defeat Alex.”

“The mages are still looking for her,” said Jasper. “They don’t like to let Devoured just walk around loose. If they caught her, they’d bring her back to the Magisterium and lock her up again.”

“We’re not going to get her caught,” said Call. He looked at Tamara in what he hoped was an innocently hopeful manner.

She sighed. “Yeah, I can contact her, but Jasper’s right. She would be taking a chance sending back a message. She might not try.”

“Everything’s a long shot right now,” Call said.

“In the meantime we should try to find Warren again,” Gwenda said. “I bet he knows more than he’s letting on.”

“He always knows more than he’s letting on,” Call admitted.

“Well,” said Jasper. “It’s time we got it out of him. We need to interrogate that lizard. Get a bright light and tie him to a chair and tell him he will be sleeping with the fishes if he doesn’t tell us everything he knows.”

Tamara’s eyebrows went up. “He’s always sleeping with the fishes,” she said. “At least he is when he’s not eating them.”

“We could lure him out with a plate of food,” said Gwenda. “What do you think he’d like to eat?”

They debated that for a while and wound up using magic, a trip to the Refectory, a net, and a rummage through their own junk drawers to come up with a plate they were sure had something to appeal to Warren. On it were cave crickets, eyeless fish, gems, coals, and lichen that tasted like cotton candy.

The four of them, Havoc trailing behind, walked through the parts of the cave calling “Warren!” and finally set the plate down to wait.

Nothing happened. Jasper started to whistle. Gwenda started a game of tic-tac-toe with Tamara.

“The time is closer … !” Call said loudly, hoping the little lizard would be unable to resist finishing his favorite sentence.

“What?” Gwenda said, and then yelped as Warren scuttled out of the shadows. He made a beeline for the plate and devoured a cricket.

“Delicious,” Warren said. “Many thanks for food kindly provided.”

“Warren,” Call said. “We need your help.”

“Warren guessed that,” Warren said, discarding the lichen. He snapped up a few more crickets. “You have seen the Devoured of chaos, yes? You know why Warren warned you.”