“Here, here,” the lizard urged, flicking his tongue toward an arched doorway at the other end of the room. Someone had carved words into the highest part of the arch:
Thoughts are free and subject to no rule.
Beyond the archway flickered an odd light. Call moved toward it, curiosity getting the better of him. It gave off a golden glow, like that of a fire, though it was no warmer when he stepped through the door than it had been on the other side. He was in another large space, a cavern that seemed to spiral down along a steep and winding path. All along the walls of the room were shelves holding thousands upon thousands of books, most with yellowed pages and ancient bindings. Call stepped to the center of the room, where the sloping path began, and looked over the edge. There were levels and levels, all illuminated with the same golden light and ringed with more bookshelves.
Call had found the Library.
And other people were there, too. He could hear the echoes of their hushed conversation. More Masters? No. Glancing around, he saw Jasper three tiers down, in his gray uniform. Celia was standing across from him. It had to be really, really late, and Call had no idea why they were out of their rooms.
Jasper had a book open on a stone table, his hand extended in front of him. Again and again he thrust out his fingers, gritting his teeth and scrunching up his eyes, until Call started to worry he was going to make his head explode, trying to force the magic to come. Again and again, there was a spark or a puff of smoke between his fingers, but nothing else. Jasper looked ready to scream with disappointment and frustration.
Celia paced back and forth on the other side of the table. “You promised that if I helped you, you’d help me, but it’s almost two in the morning and you haven’t helped me with anything.”
“We’re still on me!” Jasper yelled.
“Fine,” Celia said long-sufferingly, sitting down on a stone stool. “Try again.”
“I’ve got to get this right,” Jasper said softly. “I’ve got to. I am the best. I am the best Iron Year mage at the Magisterium. Better than Tamara. Better than Aaron. Better than Callum. Better than everyone.”
Call wasn’t sure if he belonged on that list of people Jasper clearly worried he wasn’t better than, but he was flattered. He was also a little disappointed that Celia was hanging out with Jasper.
Warren scrabbled in his cage. Call turned to see what the fussing was about.
The lizard was staring at a framed illustration of a man with huge, red-orange spiraling eyes magnified and diagrammed to one side of the body. Chaos-ridden, Call thought. A shudder ran through him at the sight — along with something else, some feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on, as if the inside of his head was itchy or he was hungry or thirsty.
“Who’s there?” Jasper said, looking up. He raised his hand defensively, half shielding his face.
Feeling stupid, Call waved. “It’s just me. I got a little — lost — and I saw light coming from in here, so I —”
“Call?” Jasper stepped away from the book, his hands flailing. “You were spying on me!” he shouted. “Did you follow me here?”
“No, I —”
“Are you going to tell on us? Is that the idea? You going to get me in trouble so I don’t do better than you at the next test?” Jasper sneered, though he was clearly shaken.
“If we want to do better than you on the next test, all we have to do is wait until the next test,” said Call, unable to resist.
Jasper looked like he was going to burst. “I’m going to tell everyone you were sneaking around at night!”
“Fine,” said Call. “I’ll tell everyone the same thing about you.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Jasper said, grabbing the edge of the table.
“You wouldn’t, would you, Call?” Celia asked.
All of a sudden, Call didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to be fighting with Jasper, or threatening Celia, wandering around in the dark, or hiding in a corner while the Masters talked about things that made the hair rise up on his neck. He wanted to be in bed, thinking over his conversation with his dad, trying to figure out what Alastair had meant and if there was any way that it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. Plus, he wanted to hunt around the bottom of his box for any last gummi candies.
“Look, Jasper,” he said. “I didn’t take your spot on purpose. You should at least be able to tell by now that I actually, really, didn’t want it.”
Jasper dropped his hand. His expensive haircut was growing out, his black hair falling over his eyes. “Don’t you get it? That makes it worse.”
Call blinked at him. “What?”
“You don’t know,” Jasper said, his hands curling into fists. “You just don’t know what it’s like. My family lost everything in the Second War. Money, reputation, everything.”
“Jasper, stop.” Celia reached for him, clearly trying to snap him out of his rant. It didn’t work.
“And if I make something of myself,” Jasper said, “if I’m the best — it could change all of that. But for you, being here means nothing.” He slammed his hand down on the table. To Call’s surprise, sparks flew up from around Jasper’s fingers. Jasper jerked his hand back, staring at it.
“I guess you made it work,” Call said. His voice sounded strange in the room, soft after all Jasper’s yelling. For a second, the two boys looked at each other. Then Jasper turned away and Call, feeling awkward, started to back toward the door of the Library.
“I’m sorry, Call!” Celia called after him. “He’ll be less crazy in the morning.”
Call didn’t reply. It wasn’t fair, he thought — Aaron having no family and Tamara having her scary family and now Jasper. Soon, there would be no one left for him to hate without feeling bad about it.
He grabbed the cage and headed for the nearest passageway. “No more detours,” he told the lizard.
“Warren knows the best way. Sometimes the best way isn’t the fastest.”
“Warren shouldn’t talk about himself in the third person,” Call said, but he let the elemental lead him the rest of way back to his room. As Call raised his cuff to open the door, the lizard spoke.
“Let me out,” he said.
Call paused.
“You promised. Let me out.” The lizard looked up at him imploringly with his burning eyes.
Call set the cage down on the stone floor outside of his door and knelt down next to it. As he reached for the latch, he realized that he had failed to ask the one question he should have asked from the start. “Uh, Warren, why did Master Rufus have you in a cage in his office?”
The eyebrows on the elemental went up. “Sneaky,” he said.
Call shook his head, not sure which one of them Warren was talking about. “What does that mean?”
“Let me out,” said the lizard, his raspy voice sounding more like a hiss. “You promised.”
With a sigh, Call opened the cage. The lizard raced up the wall toward a spiderwebby alcove in the ceiling. Call could barely see the fire along his back. Call took the cage and stowed it behind a cluster of stalagmites, hoping he could get rid of it in a more permanent fashion the next morning.