“You can’t just leave,” said Master Milagros. “Call was attacked, and Jennifer murdered. Our apprentices need to be somewhere where we can keep them safe.”
“Since you can’t even keep the children safe at a party, I think it’s a stretch to promise they’ll be safe anywhere else just because you’ll be there.” Alastair’s voice was cold.
“School begins in three days,” Master Rufus said. “I expect to see both the Makaris there and so does the Assembly. We will keep them safe — you’re going to have to trust us.”
Alastair turned to Rufus, some of the rage Call remembered from the Iron Trial lighting his face.
“It’s been a long, long time since I trusted you, Rufus,” Alastair said. “And look what happened then.” His hand shot out, and the ropes surrounding them fell away to ash. Sparks curled between his fingers. Call looked at Aaron with wide eyes. “Let me know when you have found the person who did this, because until then I’ll trust you as far as I can throw you. Come on, boys.”
Call and Aaron scrambled to follow Alastair as he stalked toward the staircase. Amazingly, people shifted aside to let him pass, even the members of the Assembly. Probably because everyone thought he was the person who’d chopped off Constantine Madden’s head and he looked about ready to chop off one of theirs.
Call and Aaron exchanged wide-eyed looks as Alastair dragged them toward the steps.
“Wait!” Tamara said, running up to them, pulling Jasper behind her like a tugboat. Her parents were still where she’d left them; they’d detached Alex from Kimiya and were comforting their daughter themselves. “I’m coming with you. We both are.”
“What?” Jasper said. “No! I didn’t think you were serious. Your hot sister needs a shoulder to cry on. I volunteer myself. I would be much better at that than staying in whatever hovel Call and his weird dad —”
Tamara kicked him savagely and he lapsed into a sullen silence.
Alastair regarded them both with surprise. “Well, you’re welcome, but I don’t think your parents would stand for it. I’ve know them for a long time and I’d be surprised if they agreed to let you out of their sight.”
Tamara firmed her jaw, determination writ in every line of her face. “We have to take shifts watching over Call. I told them so and they agreed with me.”
“Shifts?” Aaron said.
“Someone tried to kill Call,” said Tamara. “That means we can’t ever let him out of our sight. Someone has to be watching him constantly, twenty-four hours a day.”
“Even when I’m sleeping?” Call asked.
Tamara fixed him with a gimlet eye. “Especially when you’re sleeping,” she said. “You’re defenseless then.”
Call wasn’t thrilled about the plan. “What? No! I don’t want Jasper watching me sleep — that’s creepy. I don’t want anyone watching me sleep!”
“We can discuss this later,” Alastair said. “If you want to come with us, Tamara, Jasper, we’re going now.”
Call looked over at Aaron, but he wasn’t paying attention to the discussion. He was staring past them, down the hall at the War Room and beyond, where Jen’s body was floating. Call thought about their carefree summer of building robots and running through sprinklers and wondered if he’d been foolish to think that just because he’d tricked the mages into believing things had changed, they really had.
“Come on,” Tamara said to Aaron, touching him on the shoulder and pulling his attention back to the here and now. Call allowed himself to be herded by his father toward the stairs. They passed the drinks table, now overturned, where Jen had handed Call the note.
When Alastair got to the stairs, he lifted Call in the air, moving him to glide swiftly and easily just above the steps of the staircase. He did it in a distracted, effortless manner, the same way he’d burned away the velvet ropes, as though he wasn’t even really paying attention to what he was doing. Call was shocked. His dad had avoided using magic for so long that Call didn’t think he really remembered how.
They reached the top of the steps and Alastair set Call gently down. He began striding ahead of the four kids, along the jetty, back toward where the car was parked.
They had just passed the giant weird statue of Poseidon when Jasper noticed Alastair’s Rolls-Royce Phantom. He gave a long, appreciative whistle that ended abruptly — in a choking noise — when he realized that the car he was admiring belonged to Call’s father.
“Not what you expected?” Call asked as Alastair opened the door and ushered them into the spacious backseat.
For once, Jasper didn’t seem to have anything to say. They all piled silently into the car, Call crawling into the front seat beside his dad. As they pulled away from the boardwalk, Call looked back to see a group of mages standing at the edge of the ocean, near the Collegium entrance. As he watched, one of them walked into the water and disappeared.
“Water mages. They’re retrieving the girl’s body,” said Alastair in a grim tone.
Call looked away. It was hard to believe that cheerful Jen, who’d teased him when she handed him the message, who Jasper had wanted to meet, was dead. The evening was supposed to honor the end of the war and somehow that made everything that had happened that much more grotesque. But could there ever really be peace, Call thought, when the Enemy of Death wasn’t dead?
Somehow, back at the house, Alastair found enough pillows and blankets for all of them. Aaron abdicated his military cot so Tamara could move it into the den, because he was like that. Jasper claimed the couch, though he complained bitterly that it didn’t fold out, and accused Havoc of giving the couch fleas. Call, who knew perfectly well that Havoc was flea-free, was back to hating Jasper. Aaron took a pile of blankets, made a makeshift bed on the floor at the foot of Call’s, and went to sleep.
Call was almost asleep himself when there was a knock on his door. It was Tamara, looking faintly embarrassed. “Do you have anything I could sleep in?” she asked. “All I have is this” — she indicated her floaty dress — “and, yeah, I probably shouldn’t …”
Call realized he was blushing. He wished it could be totally uncomplicated, having a girl best friend. It should be just like it was with Aaron. It shouldn’t matter that Tamara was a girl. Still, he felt clumsy and stupid as he fished around in his T-shirt drawer until he found an oversize shirt that read WELCOME TO THE LURAY CAVERNS on it in Day-Glo yellow. He handed it over silently.