The Silver Mask (Magisterium #4)(6)

Then a face formed in the fire — a familiar face. A girl’s face, made entirely out of flames.

“Makar,” said Tamara’s sister, Ravan. She had been consumed by the element of fire, and lived on as a Devoured of fire, an elemental with a person’s soul. Or a person with an element’s soul. Call had once broken into a prison of elementals with Aaron and Tamara, and had seen the Devoured of Air and Fire and Earth and Water there. As far as he knew, there had never been a Devoured of chaos. The idea was terrifying.

“This is no time for dawdling,” Ravan instructed. “Through the third doors on the right, you will find the way outside.”

Her face vanished, bleeding into the flames. The fire changed shape, becoming a sparking, flaming archway.

“What. Is. That?” Jasper demanded.

“A fire elemental,” Call said, not wanting to implicate Tamara when he had no idea what was going on. “I know her. She lives at the Magisterium.”

“So this is a jailbreak? You made me part of your stupid jailbreak?” Jasper shouted, voice cracking. “This really is all your fault, Call. I —”

“Shut up, Jasper,” Call said, pushing Jasper toward the third door. “You can yell at me when we’re outside the burning building.”

“Once again swept along by the cruel broom of fate,” Jasper muttered as they went.

As Ravan had instructed, they bolted down the hallway and then turned right at two double doors with a long wooden bar laid across them. Jasper grabbed the bar and yanked it to the side. Call threw himself against the doors, and they burst open.

Sunlight and air. Jasper flung himself out the doors and then yelled. There was a thumping noise. “Stairs!” he shouted. “Watch out for the stairs.”

Behind Call, everything was flames. He took a deep breath and followed Jasper outside. There were steps, a short flight down, with Jasper at the bottom, rubbing his knee. But there was also sunlight and fresh air and clouds and all the things that Call hadn’t seen in so long. He sucked in a greedy breath and then another.

“Come on,” Jasper said. “Before someone sees you.”

As they moved away from the prison, the smoke thinned. Call looked back.

The Panopticon was a huge gray stone circle behind them, shaped like an upside-down bucket. Orange flames leaped from the windows and roof.

They came to a stretch of green lawn. There’d been no window in Call’s room, but if there had, this is what he would have been able to see: flat greenness, a fence in the distance, and trees beyond that.

Right now it was a scene of total chaos. Groups of prisoners were chained together, guards circling them. Others were being loaded into vans. Mages in olive green Assembly robes were running over the grass, waving their arms, trying to direct panicked, soot-blackened guards, officers, and prisoners in different directions.

One of the Assembly Members caught sight of Call and shouted for guards.

“Where’s my ride?” said Jasper, coughing. “I gotta get out of here.”

“You’re just going to leave me?” Call said.

“I know what happens if I hang around you,” Jasper replied. “I’ll get dragged into some horror show, with severed heads and Chaos-ridden. No, thank you. I have to win Celia back. I don’t want to die.”

“At least take these off me.” Call held out his chained wrists. “Give me a chance, Jasper.”

Guards were making their way toward Call now, talking to one another as though they were planning strategy. They weren’t moving fast though and with Call’s back turned they couldn’t see what Jasper was about to do.

“Fine,” he said, and edged over to grab Call’s wrists. “Wait — what are these made of? I’ve never seen metal like this.”

“You two,” a voice barked. Call practically jumped out of his skin. It was an Assembly member in a white suit — Anastasia Tarquin, he realized in a paralyzing moment of mixed relief and fear. Her silver hair was pulled tightly back and her pale eyes blazed. “Get over here. Now, now.” She snapped her fingers, her gaze sweeping over Call impersonally, as if she didn’t know him at all. “Hurry up.”

The guards stopped advancing, looking relieved that someone else was taking over.

Muttering imprecations, Jasper fell in beside Call and let Anastasia lead them across the grass. “Transporting the Makar,” she said, holding up her hand every time someone seemed to be about to approach or question them. “We have to get him moved as quickly as possible. Out of my way!”

A beige van was parked at the far end of the grass. Anastasia opened the back doors and hustled Call in. He couldn’t see the driver up front.

Jasper balked. “There’s really no reason for me to go in a car with prisoners —”

“You’re a witness,” Anastasia snapped. “Get in there, deWinter, or I’ll tell your parents you didn’t cooperate with the Assembly.”

Eyes wide, Jasper scrambled in behind Call. The van had benches along both sides and bars above head level that cuffs could be slotted into to keep the prisoners in place. Call took a seat, and Jasper went to a place on the opposite side. No one affixed Call’s handcuffs. Instead, the doors slammed shut, plunging them into cool darkness.

“This is weird,” Call said.