They began to walk.
This was pretty much exactly what his father had warned him about.
“You know what I miss from home?” Aaron asked as they went, picking their way past concretions that looked like tattered tapestries. “It’s going to sound super lame, but I miss fast food. Like the greasiest possible burger and a mound of fries. Even the smell of them.”
“I miss lying out in the backyard in the grass,” Call said. “And video games. I definitely miss video games.”
“I miss wasting time online,” Tamara said, surprising Call. “Don’t give me that face — I lived in a town just like the kind you guys grew up in.”
Aaron snorted. “Not like where I grew up.”
“I mean,” she said, taking over the maintenance of the spinning blue globe of water, “I grew up in a town full of people who weren’t mages. There was a bookshop where the few mages met up or left messages for one another, but other than that, it was normal.”
“I’m just surprised your parents let you go online,” Call said. It was such a regular, non-fancy way to waste time. When he imagined her outside the Magisterium, having fun, he imagined her riding a polo pony, although he wasn’t exactly sure what that was or how it was different from a regular pony.
Tamara smiled at him. “Well, they didn’t exactly let me….”
Call wanted to know more about that, but as he opened his mouth to ask, his breath caught at the sight of the remarkable room that had just appeared in front of him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE CAVERN WAS quite large, the ceiling carved to be vaulted like the ceiling of a cathedral. There were five tall archways, each flanked by marble pillars, each inlaid with a different metal: iron, copper, bronze, silver, or gold. The walls were marble, indented with thousands of human handprints, a name carved over each one.
A bronze statue of a young girl with long, wind-whipped hair was in the center of the room. Her face was upturned. The plaque beneath her read: Verity Torres.
“What is this place?” Aaron asked.
“It’s the Hall of Graduates,” said Tamara, whirling around, her expression awed. “When apprentices become journeymen and journeywomen mages, they come here and press their handprints into the stone. Everyone who’s ever graduated from the Magisterium is here.”
“My mom and dad,” Call said, walking through the room, looking for their names. There was his father’s — Alastair Hunt — high up the wall, too high for Call to reach. His father must have levitated to get his hand there. A smile pulled at the corner of Call’s mouth, as he imagined his father, this very young version of his father, flying just to show he could.
He was surprised that his mother’s handprint wasn’t next to his father’s, since he assumed they’d been in love even as students — but maybe the handprints didn’t work that way. It took a few minutes more, but finally he found it, over on a far wall — Sarah Novak, pressed into the base of a stalagmite, the name scrawled in a fine point, like it had been done with a weapon. Call crouched down and rested his hand inside the place his mother’s had been. Her hands were shaped like his; his fingers fit neatly inside the phantom ones of a girl long dead. At twelve, his hands were as big as hers had been at seventeen.
He wanted to feel something, with his hand pressed inside his mother’s, but he wasn’t sure he felt anything at all.
“Call,” Tamara said. She touched him gently on the shoulder. Call glanced back at his two friends. Both of them had the same concerned looks on their faces. He knew what they were thinking, knew they were feeling sorry for him. He shot to his feet, shaking off Tamara’s hand.
“I’m fine,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Look at this.” Aaron was standing in the middle of the room, in front of a large archway made of a shimmering white stone. Carved across the front were the words Prima Materia. Aaron ducked under it, popping out the other side with a curious look. “It’s an archway to nowhere.”
“Prima materia,” Tamara murmured, and her eyes widened. “It’s the First Gate! At the end of every year at the Magisterium, you go through a gate. It’s for when you’ve learned to control your magic, to use your counterweights properly. After, you get your Copper Year armband.”
Aaron went pale. “You mean I just went through the gate early? Am I going to be in trouble?”
Tamara shrugged at him. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem like it’s activated.” They all squinted at it. It stood there, being a stone archway in a dark room. Call had to agree that it didn’t seem exactly operational.
“Did you see anything like that on the map?” Call asked.
Aaron shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
“So even though we found a landmark, we’re just as lost as before?” Tamara kicked the wall.
Something dropped down. A large, lizardy thing with shining eyes and flames all down its back and … eyebrows.
“Oh, my God,” said Tamara, her eyes rounding into saucers. The ball of water took a dangerous dip toward the floor as Aaron stared, and this time Call had to stabilize it.
“Call! Always lost, Call. You should stay in your room. It’s warm there,” Warren said.
Tamara and Aaron turned to Call, shooting him both exclamation points and question marks with their eyes.
“This is Warren,” Call said. “He’s, uh, this lizard I know.”
“That’s a fire elemental!” Tamara said. “What are you doing, knowing an elemental?” She stared at Call.
Call opened his mouth to disavow friendship with Warren — it wasn’t like they were close! But that didn’t seem the best way to persuade Warren to help them — and Call knew that, at this point, they really needed Warren’s help.
“Didn’t Master Rufus say some of them were into, you know … absorbing?” Aaron’s gaze followed the lizard.
“Well, he hasn’t absorbed me yet,” Call said. “And he slept in my room. Warren, can you help us? We’re lost. Really lost. We just need you to lead us back.”
“Shortcuts, slippery paths, Warren knows all the hidden places. What will you trade for the way back?” The lizard scrambled closer to them, spraying gravel from between its toes.
“What do you want?” Tamara asked, rooting around in her pockets. “I have some gum and a hair tie, but that’s about it.”
“I have some food,” Aaron offered. “Candy, mostly. From the Gallery.”
“I’m holding the water,” Call said. “I can’t go through my pockets. But, uh, you can have my shoelaces.”
“All of it!” said the lizard, head bobbing up and down with excitement. “I will have all of it when we get there and then my Master will be pleased.”
“What?” Call frowned, not sure he’d heard the elemental quite right.
“Your Master will be pleased when you are back,” the lizard said. “Master Rufus. Your Master.” Then he ran along the cave wall, fast enough that Call had to breathe hard to keep up and keep the ball of water moving at the same time. A few drops got lost in the rush.
“Come on,” he said to Tamara and Aaron, his leg aching from the effort.