The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(26)
Tamara paused in front of one door. “In here,” she said in a low voice.
They stepped inside, and Call immediately saw what she’d noticed. A bow and arrow hung on one wall, and a sharp lance was propped against another. The whole room was a jumble of weird items — books, photo albums, boys’ clothes, furniture, sports equipment.
A cold feeling had set up house in Call’s stomach. Tamara had picked up a dagger with some initials etched on it — JM.
“Jericho Madden,” he said. “This must be Jericho’s stuff.”
“What’s it doing down here?” she asked.
Call frowned. “Probably Constantine had it stored for when he brought his brother back.”
It must have been here for maybe twenty years. And now that Jericho’s body was destroyed, it would be down here for a lot longer.
Call couldn’t help wondering where Aaron’s stuff was, but he couldn’t talk about that. It would definitely tip her off that he was considering bringing Aaron back.
Aaron, who would definitely not laugh if Call told him the stupid thing he had done.
Okay, Aaron hadn’t been perfect. He might have laughed.
Pushing all those thoughts away, Call lifted stacks of things and looked around. He found a few schoolbooks and novels and then a small, unmarked leather notepad. Call opened it. The handwriting looked like it belonged to a teenage boy. Drawings of lizards and other kids decorated the edges of the pages. Unlike Constantine’s notes, these weren’t just graphs and experiments.
I am doing a special project with Master Joseph and Con. Master Rufus gave me this book and told me to take notes on what happens, so that’s what I am going to do. So far, being the brother of the Makar means I get shuffled off wherever he goes. I am barely considered a mage in my own right anymore. Everyone only considers me his counterweight. No one wants to know how weird it is to feel his soul pulling at my own.
Call held the book up with a shudder to show Tamara. “Jericho kept a diary,” he told her.
Tamara’s eyebrows rose. She was looking at a Polaroid that she turned toward Call. It was of Anastasia with two little boys dressed in white. In the photograph, Anastasia had on a flowered dress and was sitting in the grass, unsmiling. Tamara turned it over. Someone had written the year on the back.
With a sigh, since Call knew how all of this turned out, he tucked the diary into a pocket of his flannel, to be read later.
“Maybe there’s something here they overlooked,” Tamara said. “Something they wouldn’t let us have on our own, but they kept for him?”
“Like a tornado phone?” Call asked, thinking of the one on Master Rufus’s desk he’d used to contact his father when he’d first come to the Magisterium.
“Too good to hope for,” Tamara said.
They searched and searched, but they didn’t find anything else that seemed useful. The only thing remotely interesting was a bunch of old books about Makars from all over the world and their dubious achievements. A few of them had been called things like the Scythe of Souls, the Hooded Kestrel, Devourer of Men, the Maw, Shaper of Flesh, the Scourge of Luxembourg, and the Face Harvester — definitely inspirations for Constantine’s “Enemy of Death.” Several claimed to have discovered the secret of immortality, among other scary things, but obviously, the books didn’t actually tell you what the secrets were. Finally, Tamara sat down on a nearby chair.
“We should probably go back before anyone notices we’re missing,” she said.
Call nodded, suddenly conscious that they were alone, and that he’d just poured out his heart to her. No Jasper around to make snide comments, or Master Joseph or Alex to stare creepily. Just him and Tamara.
“Look, Tamara,” he said. “Everything I said before, it was dumb. You probably liked Aaron. You probably didn’t even mean to save me instead of him. You probably have a lot of regrets.”
Tamara reached out and took one of Call’s hands. He wasn’t conscious of how cold he’d grown until he felt the warmth of her skin. “I wake up in the night sorry I didn’t save Aaron. But, Call — I’m not sorry I saved you.”
He couldn’t quite draw a breath. “You’re not sorry?”
She leaned toward him. Their faces were very close together. He could see her small Fatima necklace glittering around her throat. “I thought you knew how I felt.”
“How you felt?” Call wondered if he was doomed to repeat everything she said. She was clutching both of his hands now, nervously. Her eyes were huge and dark and fixed on him.
“Call,” Tamara said, and he kissed her. He wasn’t sure later what prompted him or suggested to him it would be a good idea. He had no idea what instinct told him he wouldn’t get slapped or, worse, informed that he was a really good friend but Tamara just didn’t feel that way about him.
But neither of those things happened. Tamara made a little noise and moved to adjust into a better position and what had been Call pressing his mouth nervously against Tamara’s became something else. Something that made it feel like his heart was exploding inside his chest. She put her hands lightly against either side of his face and the kiss went on for so long that Call’s ears were roaring.
Finally, they pulled apart. Tamara was blushing bright red but looked pleased. And Call felt happy. For the first time since Aaron had died, he felt happy.