“Yeah,” Call said. “Why would she want to kill me?”
“She could be working for an organization,” Aaron replied stubbornly. “Look, Drew had a totally fictitious background. He wasn’t who he said he was. Master Rufus said there was a spy. She could be the spy.”
Call shook his head, unbuckling Miri from his belt and laying the knife down on the kitchen table. “Celia comes from an old magic family. She is who she says she is.”
“How do you know?” Aaron continued. “Just because she told you about some aunt doesn’t make it true. Or maybe the whole family supports the Enemy. Remember how you thought the note came from her? What if it did come from her? That’s a simpler explanation than anything else. Besides, if you could tell she was a spy, she wouldn’t be a very good spy, would she?”
“You might as well accuse Havoc of being a spy,” said Call. They all looked at Havoc. He was asleep, his tongue hanging down to the floor. As he slept, his feet paddled as if he were going after an imaginary duck.
“I’m not saying we should drag her in front of the Assembly right now,” Aaron said. “Just that we should keep an eye on her. In fact, we should keep an eye on anyone behaving weirdly.”
“Wanting Call to ask her out isn’t weird,” said Tamara, rubbing Havoc’s stomach. “Well, maybe a little weird, but not illegal.”
“Thanks,” said Call. “Thanks for the support.” He picked up Miri and headed toward his bedroom, then turned around in the doorway to look back at Aaron. “I’m going to sleep.”
“So am I.” Aaron crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m sleeping on the floor in front of your room. In case anything tries to attack in the night.”
Call slumped. “Do you have to?”
In answer, Aaron lay down on the floor in front of Call’s bedroom door, recrossed his arms over his chest, and shut his eyes. Havoc flopped down beside him.
Traitor, Call thought. With a sigh, he retreated into his bedroom, shutting his door firmly.
The room was lit with dim phosphorescent light. Call kicked his boots off and went to sit down on the bed. His leg was aching. He felt tired and dispirited and more annoyed about Celia and Jasper than he would have anticipated. He could see his own reflection in the wardrobe mirror. He looked tired. The room was full of shadows behind him.
Call froze.
One of the shadows was moving.
CALL WANTED TO scream. He knew he should scream, but surprise and terror robbed him of breath. The shadow moved again, uncoiling against the uneven rock of the ceiling. As it slithered closer to the phosphorescent moss, Call’s panicked hope that it was just a trick of the light was dashed.
It was a huge air elemental, whip-fast and insubstantial in places. It looked like an enormous eel from the deepest part of the ocean — if eels had huge, tooth-filled mouths on either side of their long bodies. It moved sluggishly, like dank, humid air at the edge of a storm.
“Aaron,” he tried to yell, but his voice came out as a whisper too soft to be heard by anyone but the elemental. One of its heads pulled away from the ceiling with a wet, sucking sound and dangled down toward him. Its mouth opened, and Call could see that despite being formed of ephemeral air, the thing had teeth that seemed very real and very sharp. The skin around its mouth was pulled back so that its maw was in a perpetual rictus grin. It looked like it was going to bite him in half and then laugh about it. It had no eyes, just indentations in its head.
Miri, he thought. The knife Alastair had given him, the one made by his mother. It was on the nightstand, several feet behind him. Could the elemental see him? Call wasn’t sure. Slowly, slowly, he edged back on the bed. He stretched his body flat, lying down in a way that exposed his most vulnerable parts — his neck and stomach. The elemental moved toward him as if sniffing the air.
Call swallowed, reaching up over his head, reaching until his fingers brushed the edge of Miri’s hilt.
In the other room, Havoc began to bark.
The elemental sprang. A scream tore from Call’s lungs as he seized the blade and sat up, slashing blindly forward. The heavy weight of the creature knocked him back on his bed. Its open maw snapped at his face while the dagger embedded itself just under the creature’s jaw. He tried to push it back with the knife, but although the blade cut deeper into the elemental’s airy flesh, it squirmed closer.
He felt those horrible teeth against his skin and the sharp talons razoring at his clothes and slicing skin. He rolled off his bed, feeling the warmth of blood. It didn’t hurt yet, but he had a feeling it was going to.
If he survived.
The elemental whipped around, fast as a tornado, and dived for Call just as he leaped for the door. He could hear Havoc frantically barking on the other side, could hear Aaron’s sleepy, confused voice. “What’s going on? What’s wrong, boy?”
Call yanked at the door. It didn’t open.
“Aaron!” Call shouted, finding his voice. “Aaron, there’s an elemental in here! Get the door open!”
“Call?” Aaron sounded frantic. The doorknob jiggled and the door shook in its frame, but it didn’t budge.
“It’s covered in locking spells!” Aaron shouted. “Call, get out of the way! Back up!”
Call didn’t need to be told twice. He flung himself away from the door and rolled against his wardrobe, yanking the front of it open as the elemental dived. It hit the wardrobe door, sending splinters of wood in all directions. Call just had time to leap away and scramble under the bed as it lunged for him again. He kept moving, coming out on the other side of the mattress. The elemental was a coiling mass above him. One of its heads jammed itself under the bed, but the other drew back, hissing, clearly about to strike.
Call held up Miri just as there was a soft explosion around the door. The elemental whipped toward it, its mouth opening in hideous surprise. Darkness was eating away at the edges of the door — but not just darkness.
Chaos.
Call felt the pull under his rib cage and realized what was happening. Aaron was using his chaos power, drawing on Call as a counterweight. Call held still as the door began to crumble in on itself.
It vanished, sucked away into the void. Aaron exploded into the room, wild-eyed. “Makar!” he yelled, his own hand still raised in summoning, black light burning around it. “You idiot, use your magic!”