The Golden Tower (Magisterium #5)(56)
Aaron looked at the ground. Master Rufus didn’t seem surprised. “Aaron didn’t die on the battlefield.”
“His soul went into me,” said Call. “I carried him in my head. But we knew he needed a body. And Alex killed Aaron! He murdered him, for no reason! It was only fair he should be the one to give Aaron back a body and a life.”
“And you knew about this, Tamara?” said Rufus.
Tamara slipped her hand into Call’s. Even in the tension of the moment, Call noticed the warmth of her fingers; her touch gave him confidence, and he stood a little straighter. “I knew about all of it,” she said. “I agreed to protect Call and Aaron. If Aaron hadn’t taken over Alex’s body, Alex would have kept on fighting until Call was dead — and he would have hurt a lot more people than that. You saw what he did to Graves. Now a good person is alive because of what we did.”
“Doling out life and death as if you were small gods,” Master Rufus said. “What did I teach you? What is it about my methods that encourages my students to such heights of arrogance?” The last part came out a lot louder than Rufus usually spoke to them, even when they were disappointing him.
Call was taken aback, but it was Aaron who spoke. “It wasn’t your fault. Or I guess if it is your fault, then it’s because you keep picking Makars.”
Rufus gave him a long look. “Go on, Mr. Stewart.”
Aaron sighed. “Chaos magic isn’t like other kinds. I bet there are lots of kids at the Magisterium who’ve used their magic for all kinds of weird stuff. Faking precious gems and selling them, enchanting magical things to make non-magic people hop on one foot or whatever, showing people movies with faked endings. That’s what testing the limits of regular magic gets you. Testing the limits of chaos magic gets you … this.”
“You sound like yourself, Aaron,” Rufus said. “If I wasn’t so angry, I’d be amazed.”
“We don’t want more trouble,” Call said. “I didn’t want any of this trouble. I didn’t even want to come to mage school, if you remember.”
Rufus looked like he was about to object, but Call cut him off. “I wasn’t right about that — but what I’m trying to say is that we’re not going to play with life and death anymore, or anything like that. We’re going to the Collegium and we’re going to keep our heads down.”
“Very well,” said Master Rufus. “I will think about what you’ve said and I will make my decision at the Assembly meeting.” He waved a hand and the sheer wall keeping Aaron locked away came down. “Even if you can’t tell the whole truth,” he advised Aaron, “speak from the heart.”
Tamara went over and hugged Aaron tightly. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, and Call felt a tremor of familiar jealousy. He pushed it away, just glad to have his friend back in the world.
Aaron walked over to Call and hugged him just as tightly as he and Tamara had embraced. “Thank you,” Aaron said, his voice soft. “For everything. For my life. You’re my counterweight, my balance. You always will be.”
“Come along,” said Master Rufus, guiding Aaron to walk in front of him. With a wave of Rufus’s wrists, Aaron was wearing restraints. “Before we’re late for the Assembly meeting.”
Call and Tamara followed Master Rufus out of the halls of elementals and through a few echoing chambers, until they came to the same large room the Assembly had used before. There was the same table and this time Aaron was placed in the center, so that he stood there, with everyone staring at him. Call remembered what that had felt like.
“Alex Strike,” Mrs. Rajavi began, and Call could hear the anger in her voice. “You have murdered one of our members in front of us. You are responsible for many more deaths and much disruption. Yet you claim you were under the influence of Anastasia Tarquin. Do you have any proof of that?”
“She confessed it,” said Aaron. “Everything I did was under her influence.”
“Do you remember being controlled?” demanded Master North. He was sitting in the place Graves had once sat. “Do you remember what you did?”
Aaron shook his head. “I don’t have any memory of being a Devoured of chaos,” he said — which, Call figured, was the truth. “Or of betraying the Magisterium. I’m loyal to the Magisterium, and I hate Master Joseph.” He spoke with a venom that would have been hard to fake.
“You understand it isn’t easy to believe you,” said Master Milagros, but her voice was gentler. “We all saw you burn the woods around the Magisterium. We saw you torture children and murder Master Rockmaple.”
“That was Anastasia,” Aaron said. He looked more nervous now, probably because he actually was lying, which always made him uncomfortable. It hadn’t been Anastasia, it had been Alex.
They’re both dead, now, Call thought at him as hard as he could. For once, he missed the time he’d been able to speak to Aaron silently. You’re not hurting them. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about them, it just matters if you’re okay.
“Why did she do all of that?” said Master Rufus. His expression was impossible to read. “Why use you to try to bring down the school, the Assembly?”
“She blamed and hated all mages for the death of her sons,” said Aaron. “I thought at first I would be like a new son to her, but I was just something for her to use. She’d learned a little from Constantine’s books. She was able to hold a small piece of my soul, to control it, like the Order of Disorder controls the animals in the woods. When everyone found out about Aaron, that’s when she acted. She took control of me and made me murder him and take his Makar powers. I don’t remember anything after that.”