“Your dad’s in jail,” Kimiya said bluntly. Aaron recoiled as if she’d smacked him. “Which is bad enough, but then you lied about it. To everyone.”
“So what?” said Call. “You’re not entitled to know private things about Aaron.”
“I am if he’s staying at my house!” Kimiya snapped. “My parents deserved to know, at least.” She glared at Aaron. “After everything they did for you —”
Rage went through Call, white-hot; some of it was for Aaron, and some of it was at Aaron. Because he couldn’t quite shut up the nagging voice inside him that said What if, what if, what if, and he hated everything about not trusting Aaron. Including Aaron himself. He pushed himself to his feet, glaring at Kimiya.
“Your parents sucked up to Aaron because he was the Makar,” he snarled. “And now you’re acting like that means he owes you something? He doesn’t owe you anything!”
“Stop it! Both of you, stop it!” Tamara whirled on her sister. “Did you tell Mom and Dad?”
Kimiya looked offended. “Of course I did. They have a right to know what kind of person the Makar is.”
Aaron dropped his face into his hands.
“Tattletale,” Tamara snapped at Kimiya, her face reddening. “Who told you about Aaron’s dad? Who?”
“I told only three people,” said Aaron, his voice muffled. “Call and Jasper and you.”
“Well, I didn’t hear it from any of them,” said Kimiya irritably. “Look —”
“Jasper told Celia.” It was Alex, appearing behind Kimiya and putting a hand on her arm. “And Celia told everyone. Sorry, Aaron.”
Aaron lifted his head. His green eyes were darkly shadowed. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Everyone’s wound up,” Alex said. “After what happened to Jen, and the elemental attack on you guys. They want someone to blame, and, well, you’re a Makar. It makes you potentially scary.”
“I didn’t hurt Jen! And I’d never hurt Call,” Aaron protested. “Or anyone.”
Alex looked sympathetic. “Just stick it out,” he said. “People will find something else to talk about. They always do. Come on, Kimiya.”
With a reluctant sigh, Kimiya let him lead her back to the Gold Years’ table.
Tamara lifted her chin. “We go get food,” she said, “and if anyone says anything to our faces, we set them straight. If they whisper behind our backs, they don’t deserve our attention. Okay?”
After a moment, Aaron rose. “Okay.” As they made their way toward the food tables, he spoke to Call under his breath. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”
Call nodded. He felt bad for even considering Aaron might be the spy.
And yet, the thought of it wouldn’t go away.
By the time they got through the line for food, Call’s plate was piled high with lichen, mushrooms, and tubers although both Aaron’s and Tamara’s plates remained uncharacteristically bare. The three apprentices slid into their usual spots at the same table where Jasper and Celia were, but they took care to pick seats as far from them as possible. Celia looked away from Jasper long enough to glance in their direction with pity, but Call’s evil glare made her turn away fast. He’d always known she liked to gossip, but he’d never thought that she’d tell everyone something like this. Of course, Jasper had probably made Aaron’s family seem worse than it was, to impress her. Probably Jasper and Celia deserved each other. Call hoped they’d suck face for so long they ran out of oxygen and choked.
“We need to find the spy,” Aaron said, bringing Call’s thoughts back to the here and now. “None of this is going to go away until the real spy is caught. And we — especially Call — won’t be safe until then, either.”
“Okay,” Call said slowly. “I mean, I’m in favor of that plan, except for the part where it’s more of a declaration of the end goal and not a plan at all. How are we going to find the spy?”
“Anastasia must know something,” Aaron said. “I mean, given what we found, she has to be involved in some way.”
“Her password is the name of the Enemy of —” Tamara began whispering and then stopped herself. “I mean, Captain Fishface. Her password is Captain Fishface’s brother. She has a picture of Fishface himself in her room. So she’s got to be on the side of his people. The only problem with this theory is that they’re not the people who want Call dead.”
Call opened his mouth to object, but Tamara interrupted him. “Or at least they didn’t want him dead when Automotones was sent to kill Call. Even if Master Joseph’s changed his mind since then.”
“Maybe she hates Master Joseph, hates the Enemy, and keeps that stuff around to remind her of her quest for revenge,” Aaron suggested. “Maybe she sent Skelmis after Call because she knows he’s really Captain Fishface.”
“She doesn’t seem like that,” Call objected.
“Yeah,” Aaron said, his voice brittle. “That’s the same thing you said about Celia. Stop acting like the spy is going to be someone who’s mean to you or who you hate. You can’t just believe that because someone is acting like your friend, they really are your friend!”
“Oh, really?” Call asked, letting Aaron’s words hang in the air.
Aaron sighed and put his head down on the table, cradled in his hands. “That’s not what I meant. That came out wrong.”
“Maybe we should let my sister out. Maybe she could help us,” Tamara said in a small voice.
Call turned toward her, shocked. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pushing at some greens on her plate with a fork. “I need to think more about it. After Ravan became one of the Devoured, everyone — my parents, her friends — acted like she was dead, so that’s how I thought of her. I mean, sometimes I tried to picture her happy, swimming around in the lava of a volcano or something, but I never thought she was trapped here in the Magisterium. And now, seeing her, I feel like everyone lied to me. I feel like we didn’t try hard enough. And I feel like I don’t know how to feel.” Tamara let out a ragged breath.
“If you want to get her out, we’ll get her out,” Call said, with feeling.