The Copper Gauntlet

The drawings sat beside a book explaining a weird, upsetting ritual. The tome was bound in cracked black leather, and the contents were horrifying. They explained how chaos magic could be harvested and used by someone other than a Makar — through the removal of a chaos creature’s still-beating heart. Once in possession of the gauntlet and the heart, chaos magic could be pushed out of a Makar, destroying the Makar completely.

But if they weren’t chaos mages, if they weren’t Makars, they’d survive.

Looking at the shackles on the cot, Call could guess who was going to be experimented on. Alastair was going to use chaos to perform a dark form of magical surgery on Call, one that would kill him if he really was the Enemy of Death and possessed the Enemy’s Makar ability.

Call had thought Alastair suspected the truth about him, but it looked like he’d moved beyond suspicion. Even if Call survived the magical surgery, he’d know this was a test he was supposed to fail. He possessed Constantine Madden’s soul and his own father wanted him dead because of it.

Beside the book was a note in Alastair’s spidery handwriting: This has to work on him. It must. “Must” was underlined several times, and next to it was written a date in September.

It was the date Call was supposed to return to the Magisterium. People in town knew he was home for the summer and probably figured he was returning to ballet school around the same time the local kids went back to public school. If Call had just disappeared in September, no one would have thought anything of it.

Call turned around to look at the shackles again. He felt sick to his stomach. September was only two weeks away.

“Call.”

Call whirled around. His father was standing in the doorway, dressed — as though he’d never planned on sleeping. His glasses were pushed up on his nose. He looked totally normal, and a little sad. Call stared in disbelief as his dad reached out a hand to him.

“Call, it’s not what you think —”

“Tell me you didn’t lock up Havoc here,” Call said in a low voice. “Tell me none of this stuff is yours.”

“I’m not the one who chained him up.” It was the first time Alastair had called Havoc a him and not an it. “But my plan is necessary, Call. It’s for you, for your own good. There are terrible people in the world and they’ll do things to you; they’ll use you. I can’t have that.”

“So you’re going to do something terrible to me first?”

“It’s for your own good!”

“That’s a lie!” Call shouted. He let go of Havoc, who growled. His ears were flat to his head and he was glaring at Alastair through swirling, multicolored eyes. “Everything you’ve ever said was a lie. You lied about the Magisterium —”

“I didn’t lie about the Magisterium!” Alastair snapped. “It was the worst place for you! It is the worst place for you!”

“Because you think I’m Constantine Madden!” Call shouted. “You think I’m the Enemy of Death!”

It was as if he’d stopped a tornado midspin: There was a sudden, charged, horrible silence. Even Havoc didn’t make a sound as Alastair’s expression crumbled and his body sagged against the doorway. When he replied, he spoke very softly. It was worse, in a way, than the anger. “You are Constantine Madden,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know!” Call felt adrift, bereft. “I don’t remember being anyone but me. But if I really am him, then you’re supposed to help me know what to do about it. Instead, you’re locking up my dog and …”

Call looked over at the boy-size shackles and swallowed the rest of his words.