“The last human counterweight died when the Makar died in battle,” Aaron said. “And we all know what happened before that. That’s how the Enemy of Death killed his brother. I can’t see anyone lining up for it.”
“I will,” said Call.
Aaron abruptly stopped talking, his face cycling through expressions. At first he looked incredulous, as though he suspected Call of saying it as a joke or just to be contrary. Then when he realized Call was serious, he looked horrified.
“You can’t!” Aaron said. “Didn’t you hear anything I just told you? You could die.”
“Well, don’t kill me,” Call said. “How about our goal is not to die? Both of us. Together. Not dying.”
Aaron didn’t say anything for a long moment and Call wondered if he was trying to think of a way to tell Call that he appreciated the offer but he had someone better in mind. It was an honor, like Tamara had said. Aaron didn’t have to take Call. Call wasn’t anything special.
He was about to open his mouth and say all that when Aaron looked up. His eyes were suspiciously shiny, and for a second, Call thought that maybe Aaron hadn’t always been the popular guy who was good at everything. Maybe, back in the foster home, he’d been lonely and angry and sad, like Call.
“Okay,” Aaron said. “If you still want to. When it’s time, I mean.”
Before Call could say anything else, the door banged open and Tamara came in. Her face lit up when she saw Aaron. She ran over and gave him a hug that nearly knocked him off the couch.
“Did you see Master Rufus’s face?” she said. “He’s so proud of you! And the whole Assembly came out, even my parents. All of them cheering. For you! That was amazing.”
“It was pretty amazing,” Aaron said, finally starting to really smile.
She hit him with a pillow. “Don’t go getting a swelled head,” she told him.
Call met Aaron’s eyes over the pillow, and they grinned at each other. “No chance of that around here,” he said.
At that moment, from Call’s bedroom, the Chaos-ridden wolf began to bark.
CHAPTER TWENTY
TAMARA JUMPED UP and looked around the room like she was expecting something to leap out at her from the shadows.
Aaron’s expression turned wary, but he stayed seated. “Call,” he said. “Is that coming from your room?”
“Uh, maybe?” said Call, trying desperately to think of some explanation for the sound. “It’s my … ringtone?”
Tamara frowned. “Phones don’t work down here, Callum. And you already said you didn’t have one.”
Aaron’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you have a dog in there?”
Something crashed to the floor and the barking increased, along with a sound like nails scrabbling over stone.
“What’s going on?” Tamara demanded, walking to Call’s door and yanking it open. Then she screamed, throwing herself back against the wall. Oblivious, the wolf bounded past her out into the common room.
“Is that a —” Aaron stood up, his hand unconsciously going to the band at his wrist, the one with the black void stone in it. Call thought of the dark curling around the wolves the night before, taking them into nothingness.
He ran as quickly as he could to block the pup with his body, his arms held out wide. “I can explain,” he said desperately. “He’s not bad! He’s just like a regular dog!”
“That thing is a monster,” Tamara said, grabbing up one of the knives from the table. “Call, don’t you dare tell me you brought it here on purpose.”
“It was lost — and whimpering out in the cold,” Call said.
“Good!” Tamara screamed. “God, Call, you don’t think, you don’t ever think! Those things, they’re vicious — they kill people!”
“He’s not vicious,” Call said, sinking to his knees and seizing the pup by the ruff. “Calm down, boy,” he said with as much firmness as he could summon, bending so he could look into the wolf’s face. “These are our friends.”
The pup stopped barking, staring up at Call with kaleidoscopic eyes. Then it licked his face.
He turned to Tamara. “See? He’s not evil. He was just excited from being cooped up in my room.”
“Get out of my way.” Tamara brandished her knife.
“Tamara, wait,” Aaron said, coming closer. “Admit it — it is weird that it’s not attacking Call.”
“He’s just a baby,” Call said. “And scared.”
Tamara snorted.
Call picked up the wolf and turned it on its back, rocking it like a baby. The wolf squirmed. “See. Look at his big eyes.”
“You could get kicked out of school for having him,” Tamara said. “We could all get kicked out of school.”
“Not Aaron,” Call said, and Aaron winced.
“Call,” he said. “You can’t keep him. You can’t.”
Call held the wolf more tightly. “Well, I’m gonna.”
“You can’t,” said Tamara. “Even if we let him live, we have to take him outside the Magisterium and leave him. He can’t be in here.”
“Then you might as well kill him,” said Call. “Because he won’t survive out there. And I won’t let you take him.” He swallowed. “So if you want him out, tell on me. Go ahead.”
Aaron took a deep breath. “Okay, so what’s his name?”
“Havoc,” said Call immediately.
Tamara lowered her hand to her side, slowly. “Havoc?”
Call felt himself blush. “It’s from a play my father liked. ‘Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.’ He’s definitely, I don’t know, one of the dogs of war.”
Havoc took the opportunity to burp.
Tamara sighed, something in her face softening. She reached out her other hand, the one without a knife, to stroke the pup’s fur. “So … what does he eat?”
It turned out that Aaron had a bunch of bacon in the back of the cold storage, which he was willing to donate to feed Havoc. And Tamara, once she’d been drooled on and watched a Chaos-ridden wolf roll onto its back so she could pet its stomach, announced that they should all fill their pockets with anything vaguely meaty that they could get out of the Refectory, including eyeless fish.
“We need to talk about the wristband, though,” she said as she tossed a wadded-up ball of paper to Havoc, trying to get him to fetch. He took the paper under the table and began instead to tear off small pieces with his tiny teeth. “The one Call’s father sent him.”
Call nodded. In all the uproar about Aaron and Havoc, he’d managed to push the realization of what the onyx stone meant to the back of his mind.
“It couldn’t have belonged to Verity Torres, right?” he asked.
“She was fifteen when she died,” Tamara said, shaking her head. “But she left school the year before, so her wristband would be Bronze Year, not Silver.”
“But if it’s not hers —” Aaron said, swallowing, not able to say the words.
“Then it’s Constantine Madden’s,” said Tamara, with tight practicality. “It would make sense.”