The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(56)

As he fed the chaos, he felt the energy pour out of him. Everything inside him was going into spilling out the power of nothingness. Alex was screaming as the heavy black coils circled him like the coils of a snake.

Call gasped. He felt the gravity of the earth pulling him down. He was weakening. He could see Aaron standing alone on the battlefield. The Chaos-ridden ignored Aaron’s presence: He was nothing to them, not a mage, and maybe, like them, not even really alive.

Aaron was staring at Call. He was shaking his head, and Call knew that it was because Call ought to be reaching for his counterweight right now. But Call didn’t have a counterweight — and even if he had, he wasn’t sure he would have reached out. This was too much magic. It licked at his soul.

Alex sent chaos back at him, a coiling choking cloud that drew him into it.

He thought of Ravan, of how she must have felt using so much fire magic that she became a Devoured of fire. He saw her now, flying through the air in a spray of sparks. No longer human. He didn’t want to become a creature of chaos. And so, with the last of his magic, he pushed the chaos away — thrust it all back into the void and thrust Alex with it. Alex fought, sending spiraling arrows of nothingness at Call, but Call scraped the very bottom of his own soul for power.

Alex’s face contorted as he realized what Call was doing. Before he could so much as scream, he was gone, pulled into the void. All across the field, his Chaos-ridden howled for him — one long horrible sound that hung over the battlefield. Then they clattered to a stop, like toys whose batteries had sparked and died.

Call glanced toward where Aaron had been, but he was no longer there. He turned to find him, to find someone, but he was having trouble focusing. He felt dizzy and his vision had gone blurry. Slumping down, he felt darkness close in at the edge of his vision. He wasn’t sure if he was falling into chaos or into something far deeper.

Stay awake, he ordered himself.

Stay alive.

“Callum!” Master Rufus was saying. “Callum, can you hear me?”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed.

“Call. Please be okay. Please.”

It was Tamara and she sounded like she’d been crying, which didn’t make sense, since she’d been so mad.

Call tried to speak, tried to tell her that he was okay. He couldn’t do it. Maybe he wasn’t okay after all.

He cracked his eyes open slightly. Probably too slightly for anyone to notice. His vision was blurred, but he was right: Tamara was leaning over him, and she’d been crying. He wanted to tell her not to cry, but maybe she wasn’t crying over him. Maybe she was upset about Havoc. That made more sense. If he’d told her he was okay and she was crying about Havoc, it would have been embarrassing for both of them — especially because he’d probably start crying about Havoc, too.

“You did it,” she whispered to him. “You saved everyone. Call, please, please wake up.”

At that, he tried harder to move, but he still couldn’t. It was as though every part of him was weighted down and even opening an eye fully felt like fighting against that heaviness.

“I’ll tell him something that will cheer him up.” Jasper’s voice came from his other side. Jasper was a dark-haired blur somewhere behind Tamara. If Call could have groaned, he would have. “Call, Celia and I got back together. Isn’t that great?”

For a brief moment, Call entertained a brief fantasy that everyone would punch Jasper for him, but no one did. It wasn’t fair.

“He’s dying,” someone said. Master Graves of the Assembly, his dry voice unmistakable. He didn’t sound particularly displeased by his announcement. “He used far too much chaos magic for anyone to survive. His soul must be riddled with it now.”

Master Rufus turned slowly, and even through the blur Call could see the rage in the look he turned on the other mage. “He did this because of you,” Master Rufus said. “You caused this, Graves, and don’t think that any of us will forget it.”

There was a sniffing sound on Graves’s part and then Call heard another voice, closer. Tamara glanced up and stiffened. She didn’t move, though, or say anything as another figure drew near. Someone Call recognized despite the blur.

It was Aaron.

Aaron who knelt down beside him. Aaron who put a cool, calm hand on Call’s chest.

“I can help him,” Aaron said.

“What are you going to do?” Tamara asked. Call wondered if she remembered what she had said to him: that Aaron cared about Call because he had a piece of Call’s soul inside him.

Aaron was a blur with a halo of light hair. His voice sounded firm, almost like the old Aaron. “Call’s not supposed to die. I’m the one who should be dead.”

Tamara drew in her breath. Call fought to open his eyes wide, fought to say something, to stop Aaron, but then he felt Aaron’s hand press against him, and something moved deep in his chest.

Suddenly, there was air to breathe again. Something was moving inside his rib cage. Something with a light touch, like fluttering wings. He felt it brush his soul.

The soul tap. Aaron was doing the soul tap they’d both learned. But how? Aaron wasn’t a mage anymore, wasn’t a Makar. And why bother? Did he want to know what it was like to feel someone’s soul wink out and die?

“What are you doing?” Tamara whispered. “Please don’t hurt Call. He’s been hurt enough.”