The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(3)

When Call was escorted back to his cell, he had the next surprise of the day. His father, Alastair, was standing outside, waiting for him.

Alastair gave a little wave, and Call wiggled his cuffed hands. He had to blink a lot or the devastatingly villainous charms of the Enemy of Death were going to dissolve into tears.

Call’s guards brought him into his cell and uncuffed him. They were older mages, dressed in the dark brown uniform of the Panopticon. After undoing his hands, they fastened a metal cuff around his leg, one that connected to a hook in the wall. The chain was long enough to allow Call to wander around the cell, but not long enough for him to reach the bars or the door.

The guards left the cell, locked it, and retreated into the shadows. Call knew they were there, though. That was the point of the Panopticon: Someone was always watching you.

“You’re all right?” said Alastair roughly, as soon as the guards were gone. “They haven’t hurt you?”

He looked as if he wanted to grab Call up and run his hands over him for injuries, the way he used to when Call fell off a swing set or knocked into a tree on his skateboard.

Call shook his head. “They haven’t tried to hurt me physically at all,” he said.

Alastair nodded. His eyes looked pinched and tired behind his glasses. “I would have come sooner,” he said, settling himself on the uncomfortable-looking metal chair the guards had placed on the other side of the bars, “but they weren’t allowing you visitors.”

The wash of relief Call felt was incredible. Somehow he had managed to convince himself that his father was happy they’d locked him up. Or maybe not happy — but better off without him.

He was so glad that wasn’t true.

“I tried everything,” Alastair told his son.

Call didn’t know how to respond. There was no way for him to say how sorry he was. He also didn’t understand why all of a sudden he was allowed to have visitors … unless he’d outlived his usefulness to the Assembly.

Maybe these were the last visits he’d ever have.

“I saw Master Rufus today,” he told his dad. “He said they were done interrogating me. Does that mean they’re going to kill me?”

Alastair looked shocked. “Call, they can’t do that. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“They think I murdered Aaron!” Call said. “I’m in prison! Obviously, they think I did something wrong.”

And I did do something wrong, he added in his head. Even if Alex Strike had been the one to actually kill Aaron, keeping Call’s secret was the reason he was dead.

Alastair shook his head, dismissing Call’s words. “They are afraid — afraid of Constantine, afraid of you — so they’re looking for an excuse to keep you here. They don’t really believe you were responsible for Aaron’s death.” Alastair sighed. “And if that doesn’t comfort you, think of this — since they don’t understand how Constantine transferred his soul to you, I am sure they don’t want to risk you transferring your soul to someone else.”

Call’s dad hated the mage world and wasn’t much of an optimist to begin with, but in this case, Alastair’s grimness made Call feel better. He definitely had a point. It had never even occurred to Call that he could transfer his soul to someone else, or that the mages might be worried about it.

“So they’re going to keep me here, locked up,” Call said. “And then they’re going to throw away the key and forget me.”

Alastair was silent for a long moment after that, which was a lot less reassuring.

“When did you know?” Call blurted out, afraid the silence might drag on longer.

“Know what?” Alastair asked.

“That I wasn’t your real son.”

Alastair frowned. “You are my son, Callum.”

“You know what I mean,” Call said with a sigh … although he couldn’t deny that it made him feel better that Alastair had corrected him. “When did you realize I had his soul?”

“Early,” Alastair said, surprising Call a little. “I guessed. I knew what Constantine had been studying. It seemed possible he had succeeded in shifting his soul into your body.”

Callum remembered the damning message his mother had left for Alastair, the one that Master Joseph, the Enemy of Death’s instructor and most devoted minion, had shown him, but that his father had left out of his story:

KILL THE CHILD.

It still chilled him to think of his mother writing that with her dying strength, of his father reading those words with a squalling baby — Call — in his arms.

Alastair could have just walked out of the cave if he guessed what it meant. The cold would have done the rest.

“Why did you do it? Why did you save me?” Callum demanded now. He hadn’t meant his words to sound so angry, but they did. He felt angry, even though he knew the alternative was his own death.

“You’re my son,” Alastair said again, helplessly. “Whatever else you are, you are always and also my child. Souls are malleable, Call. They’re not set in stone. I thought if I raised you correctly … if I gave you the right guidance … if I loved you enough, you would be all right.”

“Look how that turned out,” Call said.

Before his dad could answer, a guard reappeared in front of the cell to announce that visiting time was over.