“What are you looking at?” Jasper asked him gruffly when he noticed Call staring in his direction.
“Nothing,” Call said. The last person he needed to be worrying about was Jasper.
That night, Alastair grilled steak and they ate it outside, on paper plates, along with buttered corn, snap peas, and cold slices of watermelon. Tamara threw watermelon at Aaron, who got seeds down his shirt. Havoc stood on top of Jasper when Jasper refused to give him a piece of steak. They took turns seeing who could make the sparks above the banked coals on the grill dance. It was almost like a party, except for the specter of Jen’s death, which kept them from laughing too loudly or forgetting for too long that they could be next.
Two days later, Alastair drove them all to the Magisterium. Call sat in the front seat, gazing out the window, while Aaron dozed in the backseat. Tamara was listening to music on her phone and Jasper was reading the most recent comic book he’d found in Call’s room and gotten obsessed with. Havoc was stretched out across their laps, dead asleep.
“You let me know if you want to come home,” Alastair said to Call for what must have been the millionth time. “You’ve done enough. You know plenty of magic — enough to control your abilities. You don’t need the Magisterium.”
Call remembered the way Graves had insisted that Master Rufus give the Assembly updates on how Call and Aaron were doing. He remembered all the references to countries where mages with the ability to control chaos were killed or had their magic bound — even though the party was supposed to be in their honor. While Constantine Madden had been alive, Makaris were awesome. They were desperately needed weapons. They meant the end of the war. But with Constantine Madden dead, Aaron and Call were just a reminder of that war and how it could happen again. Call doubted he would be allowed to quit attending the Magisterium, no matter what Alastair thought.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Call said. “I’ll be fine.”
As they neared the Magisterium, the roads grew narrower and more winding. They were completely unmarked: Only those who knew where the Magisterium was could find it. Call had often wondered what magic kept hikers and ordinary townspeople from nearby from happening across it. Something advanced, he guessed. Something to do with the earth. The trees grew thick along the sides of the road. Call couldn’t help thinking about the Order of Disorder — it was clear that the Assembly knew about them and tolerated them, but he couldn’t quite figure out why.
There was a beeping sound up ahead, bringing Call’s attention back to the road. They pulled up into a clearing, where a school bus had already arrived. Students were pouring out of it, carrying suitcases and duffel bags. The main gate of the school was open: Call could see mages in their somber black, and various students already wearing their uniforms — red, white, blue, green, and gray — mixing with kids who had just arrived and were still wearing jeans and T-shirts.
Aaron woke up and he and Jasper and Tamara started poking one another, leaning out the windows as they recognized friends from previous years — Celia threw them a guarded smile as she headed through the gates with Gwenda, who was in her apprentice group with Jasper. Alex Strike was talking to Anastasia Tarquin, who had pulled up next to the school bus in a white Mercedes. Call had seen the car before: She’d picked up Alex from the Rajavis’ last year. Call had nearly forgotten: Anastasia Tarquin was Alex’s stepmother.
Anastasia emerged from the car, looking elegant, as usual, in a white pantsuit. Alex was gesturing at her, looking annoyed, as a black van pulled up beside them. The back opened and two muscular young men leaped out, much to the delight of quite a few of the students of the Magisterium. They began carrying large pieces of furniture through the gates — a desk, a lamp, an immaculately white sofa.
“What’s going on there?” Alastair wondered aloud as they all piled out of the Rolls. Call stretched to get the kinks out of his muscles. So did Havoc.
“The Assembly posted Anastasia at the school to keep an eye on things,” said Alex, who had abandoned his stepmother to come say hello. He high-fived Call and Aaron, and smiled at Tamara. “She’s moving into Master Lemuel’s old office. She takes this stuff really seriously and, well, she also overpacks.”
“Is she going to be looking for the spy?” Alastair asked.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking about that,” said Alex, looking over at Jasper worriedly. “I mean, no one is supposed to know.”
Alastair raised his eyebrows. “Good thing she’s being so discreet.”
Alex looked back at his stepmother, who was supervising the carrying of several large steamer trunks into the caves. They were covered with old-fashioned stamps from faraway places — Mexico, Italy, Australia, the French Riviera, Provence, Cornwall. “She’s got a cover story about making sure everything goes smoothly ridding Chaos-ridden animals from the forest.”
Call put one hand on Havoc’s back in what he hoped would be a reassuring manner. Havoc looked up at him, tail beginning to wag. A wave of anger passed through Call at the idea that anyone would want to hurt Havoc.
They better not, he thought.
Alastair turned to Call. “If you change your mind, you know how to get ahold of me,” he said, then hugged Call tightly — a little too tightly, actually, making Call worry for his ribs.
“Bye, Dad,” Call squeaked. Even if he had been squeezed a little too hard, this was the first time his father was okay with his attending the Magisterium. It was a great feeling.
Tamara had gone over and found Kimiya and was laughing with her. Jasper had headed toward Celia and Gwenda. Only Aaron had waited for Call. He gave him a slanted smile and Call wondered how hard it was for Aaron to be around other people’s families all the time.
“Give me that,” Aaron said, slinging Call’s duffel bag over his shoulders and lifting his own luggage in his other hand. He started toward the school, seemingly not even weighed down a little bit by what he was carrying. Call walked behind him, stiff-legged from the trip, and thought about all the ways that life wasn’t fair.
The caverns were humid but cool. Water dripped down from the jagged icicle stalactites to the melted-candle stalagmites below them. Sheets of gypsum hung from the ceiling, resembling banners and streamers from some long-forgotten party. Call walked past it all, past the damp flowstone and the pools shining with mica, where pale fish darted. He was so used to it that he no longer found it to be particularly creepy. It was just the place he went to school, as familiar to him now as the bang of metal lockers and the squeak of his sneakers on the gymnasium floor had been three years ago.