The Golden Tower (Magisterium #5)(55)

Master Amaranth regarded him suspiciously. He guessed that she had a lot of kids either trying to get in or out of her office. Her snake, coiled like a stole over her shoulders, flashed between sky blue and yellow. “If you really feel you should, Callum. If you feel at all dizzy or faint, come back immediately.”

“Can I go with him?” Tamara said, standing up and shrugging off her blanket.

Master Amaranth threw up her hands. “I suppose so. After all, who am I to delay the heroes of the Magisterium with a little thing like making sure they’re well?”

Jasper had looked ready to ask to go, too, until Gwenda had come in to the infirmary and hugged all of them. Then, all of a sudden, he’d seemed to develop a pain in his leg that required Gwenda to sit by his bed and tell him how brave he’d been.

Call escaped into the hall, Tamara behind him.

“We’re going to see Aaron, right?” she asked.

He nodded. “If we can get down there. We don’t have the key anymore.”

“Warren led us there once,” Tamara said, and proceeded to call to the little lizard. “Waaaaarrrrrren, where are you? The time is actually over. We did it. It’s over. But we need your help one last time.”

A tongue snapped down from the ceiling, smacking Tamara in the nose and causing her to rub it vigorously. “Gross!” she yelled. “That’s disgusting, Warren.”

The elemental lizard made a wheezing hiss that might have been laughter. Then he crawled down from the ceiling and with each movement, he got bigger. The gems on his back shone with a fiery light as he grew and grew and grew. By the time he was done, he was larger than Havoc, with a mouth full of gemstone teeth.

“Uh,” said Call. “Whoa. I didn’t know you could do that. How come I didn’t know you could do that?”

“In your past is your future,” Warren said. “And in your future, your past.”

Call sighed, realizing there was no chance that Warren, no matter his size, was going to give him an honest answer. “Can you take us the secret way to where Aar — I mean Alex is being held?”

“Another secret? Yes, Warren will keep another secret. Warren will take you to the place. But you will owe Warren and someday Warren will ask for something, too.”

“I thought saving the world was what we did in return,” said Tamara tartly.

Ignoring her, Warren set off. It was actually easier to follow the larger version of him. He still was able to climb along the ceiling, which made Call a little nervous. He was afraid he was going to get dropped down on.

They made it through the secret entrance into the elemental prisons, through the chamber of fire and then into the chamber of air, where strange whooshing elementals were enclosed in cages of clear crystal that reminded Call of his time in the Panopticon.

They spotted Aaron easily. He was sitting on the floor of a small cell.

Master Rufus was pacing in front of it. “We’re going to the Assembly meeting in a few minutes,” he said. “But first, I want you to tell me what’s going on.”

Aaron looked at the wall. It was shocking how much he looked like Aaron now to Call, and not Alex. As if the shape of his face had subtly changed. Call knew he’d never answer Master Rufus, not when the answer could get Call and Tamara in trouble.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?” Call said. “You heard what Anastasia said. Alex was in her thrall before. Now he’s free.”

Rufus’s expressive eyebrows rose. “And just what are you doing here? A place you’re absolutely not supposed to be. I am sure there’s no mystery to that either.”

“Uh,” Call said. When Aaron wasn’t in his head, it was a lot harder to come up with the kind of answers that teachers liked.

Rufus shook his head. “I don’t believe it anyway,” he said flatly. “Controlling someone is powerful magic, the kind that requires constant supervision. Yet Anastasia Tarquin rarely visited the Magisterium.”

“She was here during our Bronze Year,” said Tamara. “That was when Alex started to go evil.”

“Even if he were being controlled,” said Rufus, “even if her death freed him, he would still be Alex Strike. But Havoc approached him and treated him as if he were one of you. Someone he knew and loved.”

In the cage, Aaron shook his head very slightly. Call wished he could still read Aaron’s mind and knew what he was trying to communicate.

“When you said you wanted to give Alex a second chance, I wondered what you knew,” said Rufus. “I knew you would never forgive Alex for killing Aaron. But you were insistent that he live. And here he is, seemingly unharmed. And seemingly no longer Alex.”

Tamara swallowed. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

“I think you know what I mean,” said Rufus. “But I want you to say it. Let me make one thing clear: The Assembly meeting that will determine what happens to Alex is about to start. If you tell me nothing, I will oppose his freedom in every way I can. If you tell me the truth now, I may help you.”

“Those aren’t great terms,” said Call.

Master Rufus crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re the only terms you’re going to get.”

“Fine,” Call said, casting all caution to the winds. “That’s not Alex. That’s Aaron.”