The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(40)

A huge, snakelike winding ribbon of fire that slipped over the ridge of a hill. The elemental reared up like a cobra, fire spilling from her edges, and Call remembered running through the Panopticon with Jasper and seeing her there in the hallways.

Ravan. Tamara’s sister. Which meant Tamara had summoned her. Tamara had been planning this escape for far longer than a single day and night. When Call kissed her in the tunnels, she must have been planning even then. He’d thought that bringing back Aaron had made her stop trusting him, but she must have stopped trusting him before that. Because if she’d trusted him, she would have told him she was contacting Ravan. And she hadn’t. The knowledge was like a heavy block sitting on his chest.

The air wobbled again beneath him, his concentration stuttering. Master Joseph shot a bolt of icy magic at Ravan, who dodged it with a smoking hiss.

Call could hear contempt in that hiss. Fire exploded along the ridge of the hill. Through the leaping orange flames he thought he could see two small figures running.

Tamara had trusted Jasper but not Call. She was leaving Call, leaving him here because she’d meant what she’d said in his room. That she’d staked her whole life on the certainty that he wasn’t the Enemy of Death, but he was.

Only now, hovering over the burning landscape, did Call realize how much it had always mattered that Tamara believed in him.

Pain rose up in Call, a pain that made him feel like he was choking.

Master Joseph was shouting, and the dark, swarming figures below were hurling magic at Ravan, but she was fast and clever and dodged everything they sent at her.

Call raised one hand. He was remembering a maze made out of fire, how he’d been lost in it until he’d realized his chaos magic could suck the oxygen out of everything, killing fire. He could kill Ravan. In that moment, he knew he could do it.

“Call.” It was Aaron. He was out on the roof of the house, one hand on Havoc’s ruff. He was barefoot, and had found a T-shirt somewhere to replace his uniform top. He looked pale in the darkness. “Let them go.”

Call could hear his own breath in his ears. Trucks were spinning their wheels all over the front lawn of Master Joseph’s house, none of them willing to get close enough to Ravan to explode their gas tanks.

“But —”

“It’s Tamara,” said Aaron. “You think Master Joseph will forgive her for running? He won’t.”

Call didn’t move.

“He’ll kill her,” Aaron said. “And you won’t be okay after that. You love her.”

Call lowered his hand slowly, hovering just above the roof. He felt Aaron reach forward, grab the back of his shirt, and pull him down onto the tiles. He collapsed, half on top of Havoc, nearly knocking Aaron over. By the time they’d sorted themselves out, Call could no longer see the small running figures of Tamara and Jasper.

Hot tears started in Call’s eyes, but he blinked them back. “She left me.”

Aaron sat up, disentangling himself from Call. He scooted sideways on the roof tiles, Havoc behind him. “She left us, Call.”

Call made a choking sound that was partly a laugh. “Yeah, I guess she did.”

“She wants to warn the Magisterium,” Aaron said. “It’s better for us not to go there.”

Call suddenly realized what was weird about the way Aaron was talking. “Why do you suddenly hate the Magisterium so much?”

“I don’t hate them,” said Aaron. He looked out toward where the battle must be taking place. “But it’s like I can see them more clearly than I could when I was alive before. They only ever wanted what they could get from us, Call. And they can’t get anything from me anymore. And they’ll want to punish you. You proved them wrong, you know. They never believed Constantine could really raise the dead.”

Call stared at him, trying to decode something from his expression, from the clear green of his eyes, but this Aaron wasn’t easy to read. He was, however, super creepy.

But he hasn’t been back long, Call reminded himself. Maybe death clings to you for a while, shadowing everything. Maybe that shadow lifts eventually.

“Do you think I did the right thing, bringing you back?” After he asked it, Call felt like he couldn’t quite breathe until he had the answer.

Aaron made a sound that was not quite a sigh. It was like wind whistling through trees. “You know I’m not a Makar anymore, right? I’m not a mage at all. That part of me is gone and everything feels — I don’t know, washed-out and dull.”

Call felt a little sick. He’d known Alex had taken Aaron’s Makar power with the Alkahest, but not that Aaron would come back with no magic at all. “That could change,” he said desperately. Without Aaron, he didn’t know what he’d do. He didn’t know what he’d become. “You could get better.”

“You should be asking yourself if you’re glad you brought me back,” Aaron said with a half smile. “The mages will never take you back now, and I know you don’t want to stay here with Master Joseph.”

“I don’t need to ask myself anything,” Call said fiercely. “I’m glad I brought you back.”

Havoc barked at that, and nosed in between them. Aaron reached to pat the wolf, and Call felt the tension in his chest ease slightly. Surely if there was something really wrong with Aaron, Havoc would sense it?