The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(35)

Of course, he hadn’t realized this would work. He hadn’t known how much time it would take or what it would drain out of him.

All of a sudden, Call felt very dizzy.

That was when he remembered: A piece of his soul was missing.

He was going to pass out, he realized. Instinctively, he reached out for someone to grab, but there was no one there.

When Call tumbled to the floor, he did it entirely alone.



Call awoke in Constantine’s old room. Horrifyingly, Anastasia was sitting at the end of his bed, in a white pantsuit with a pin stuck through one lapel. On it, a moonstone eye winked at him.

He bit off a scream.

Whatever strangled sound he had made was what alerted her to his being awake.

“What are you doing here?” he wanted to know.

She smoothed the covers over his chest. “Master Joseph told me what you did. You’ve saved the world — do you know that?”

Call shook his head.

“You’ve changed what it is to be a mage. Oh, Call, you’ve changed everything. No longer will Constantine be thought of as a monster. His legacy will be honored. Your legacy.”

A horrible shudder went through him. He really hadn’t thought about those kind of consequences. And she didn’t understand. What he’d done wasn’t easy to replicate. He couldn’t just tear off pieces of his soul all the time. He had no idea how what he’d done was going to affect his power at all. He might never be able to do it again.

But he pushed that thought away for later.

“Is Aaron … is he still okay?” he asked.

“He’s resting,” she told him. “As you were.”

“Is he … angry with me?” Call wanted to know.

She blinked at him in confusion. “But, Con, why would anyone be angry with you? You’ve performed a miracle.”

He struggled upright. The covers were twisted around him. “I need to talk to Aaron,” he said. “I need to see Tamara.”

She sighed. “All right. Wait a moment.” She stood up, smoothing down her pantsuit. Her eyes were shining as she looked at him. “You don’t know what this means,” she said. “You don’t know who else you could bring back. You have broken into the dominion of death, Con. There are — there were reasons that people wanted Makars dead, back in the old country. But you’ve changed all that.”

Call felt his stomach lurch as she walked out of the room. Reasons people wanted Makars dead? Besides the obvious? He couldn’t think about it. He needed to see Aaron. Aaron was the proof he’d done the right thing. He’d saved Aaron. He’d never raise another person, never touch a piece of his own soul again. But this had been worth it. It had to be.

Anastasia returned, this time with Tamara, who was wearing a dress made of white tiers of lace. She walked with her head down, not looking at Call.

Anastasia went over to the door and stepped out, though Call could still see her shadow. She was standing just outside in the corridor, listening.

Call decided he didn’t care. He was so glad to see Tamara again his whole body had gone cold, then hot all over. He wished he could see her expression.

“Tamara,” he said. “I’m sorry —”

She cut him off. “You lied to me.”

“I know you’re mad,” he said. “And you have every right to be. Just please hear me out.”

Her chin jerked up. Her eyes were red from crying, but they blazed with emotion. “Yeah, you shouldn’t have lied, but that’s not the point, Call. And I’m not mad — I’m scared.”

He felt cold again. Cold all over.

“You shouldn’t have done what you did,” she said. “You shouldn’t have been able to do it. There’s only one person who was able to move around souls, who even got close to raising the dead. I staked everything on you not being the Enemy of Death. I broke you out of prison because I believed it. But I was wrong.” She shook her head. “You are Constantine.”

Call flinched as if she’d hit him. He thought about all the days he’d sat in prison, believing she might say these same words to him. And now she had.

“I just wanted Aaron back,” he tried to explain. “I thought I could fix things.”

Tamara wiped her eyes. “I want him back, too. I want to believe that he is back, just like he was before, but I don’t know …”

Call started to get up, out of the bed. Both his legs felt weak, but he forced himself upright, clinging to one of the bedposts. “Tamara, listen. He’s not Chaos-ridden. I used a piece of my own soul to revive him. He’s Aaron. He can talk. He can remember. He remembers Alex murdering him.”

“After you passed out, he started screaming,” she said flatly. “Just screaming and screaming.”

“He’s scared. Anybody would be. He’s scared and he’s —”

“It didn’t seem like fear,” Tamara said, her face like marble. Call didn’t want her to be right, but there was a pit in his stomach. Tamara wasn’t wrong a lot.

“He’s our best friend,” he said, his voice scraping out of his throat. “I couldn’t just let him go.”

“Sometimes we have to let people go,” Tamara said softly. “Sometimes things happen that can’t be fixed.”