Master Milagros supervised as they deposited Call on a bed. “Thank you, students,” she said as Tamara hovered anxiously. “Now let’s go and let Master Amaranth get to work.”
Call propped himself up on his elbows, ignoring the shooting pain in his leg. “Tamara —”
“What?” She turned around, dark eyes wide. Everyone was looking at them. Call tried to communicate with her with his eyes. Look after Havoc. Make sure he gets enough food.
“He’s going cross-eyed,” Tamara said to Master Amaranth worriedly. “It must be the pain. Can’t you do anything?”
“Not with all of you here. Shoo! Shoo!” Amaranth waved a hand, and the apprentices hurried out with Master Milagros, Tamara pausing in the doorway to shoot another worried look at Call.
Call flopped back onto the bed, his mind on Havoc, as Master Amaranth cut away his uniform, showing purple bruising down the expanse of his leg. His good leg. For a moment, panic rose in his chest, making him feel as though he was choking. What if he’d managed to make it so that he couldn’t walk at all?
The Master must have seen some of the fear in his expression because she smiled, taking a roll of moss out of a glass jar. “You’re going to be fine, Callum Hunt. I’ve fixed worse injuries than this.”
“So it’s not as bad as it looks?” Call ventured.
“Oh, no,” she told him. “It’s just as bad as it looks. But I’m very, very good at my job.”
Somewhat comforted and deciding he’d be better off not asking any more questions, Call let her cover his leg in bright green moss and then pack the whole thing with mud. Finally, she gave him a drink of some milky liquid that took away most of the pain and made him feel a bit like he was floating up toward the ceiling of the cave, as though the wyvern breath had hit him after all.
Feeling very foolish, Call slipped off to sleep.
“Call,” a girl whispered, very close to his ear, making his hair move and tickle his neck. “Call, wake up.”
Then another voice. A boy’s voice this time. “Maybe we should come back. I mean — doesn’t sleep help healing or something?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t help us,” the first voice said again, louder this time, and grumpier. Tamara. Call opened his eyes.
Tamara and Aaron were there, Tamara seated beside him on the bed, gently shaking his shoulder. Aaron held up a drooling, panting, tail-wagging Havoc. He had a makeshift rope leash around his neck.
“I was going to walk him,” Aaron said. “But since there’s no one but you in the Infirmary, we thought we’d bring him for a visit first.”
“We brought you some dinner from the Refectory, too,” Tamara said, pointing at a napkin-covered plate on the nightstand. “How are you doing?”
Call moved his leg experimentally, within the mud cast. It didn’t really hurt anymore. “I feel like a moron.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Aaron said at the same time that Tamara said, “Well, you should.”
They looked at each other, and then at Call.
“Sorry, Call, but it wasn’t your best idea,” Tamara said. “And you totally stole Celia’s log. Not that she won’t liiiiiike you anyway.”
“What? She doesn’t,” Call protested, horrified.
“Does, too.” Tamara grinned. “You could hit her on the head with a log and she’d still be all Call, you’re so good at this magic stuff.” She looked over at Aaron, who had an expression on his face that told Call he agreed with Tamara and thought it was hilarious.
“Anyway,” Tamara said, “we just don’t want you to get crushed under a log. We need you.”
“That’s right,” Aaron agreed. “You’re my counterweight, remember?”
“Only because he volunteered first,” Tamara said. “You should have held auditions.” Call had been worried that Tamara might be jealous when she found out Aaron had picked Call as his counterweight, but mostly she just seemed to think that, as much as she liked Call, Aaron could probably have aimed higher. “I bet Alex Strike is still available. He’s cute, too.”
“Whatever,” said Aaron, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t want Alex. I wanted Call.”
“I know,” Tamara said. “He’ll be good at it,” she added unexpectedly, and Call flashed them a grateful smile. Even flat on his back with his leg wrapped in mud, it felt good to have friends.
“And here I was worried you were going to forget about Havoc,” Call said.
“No chance of that,” said Aaron cheerfully. “He ate Tamara’s boots.”
“My favorite boots.” Tamara swatted lightly at Havoc, who dodged away, scooted toward the door, and looked pitifully back at Call in the bed. A small whine rose from his throat.
“I think he wants to go for his walk now,” Call said.
“I’ll take him.” Aaron jogged over to the door and looped the free end of the rope around his wrist. “No one’s in the corridors right now because it’s dinnertime. I’ll be right back.”
“If you get caught, we’ll pretend we don’t know you!” Tamara called good-naturedly as the door swung shut behind him. She reached for the plate on Call’s nightstand and yanked off the napkin. “Yummy lichen,” she said, balancing the plate on Call’s stomach. “Your favorite kind.”
Call picked up a dried vegetable chip and bit into it thoughtfully. “I wonder if we’re going to all be so used to lichen that when we get back home, we won’t want pizza or ice cream. I’ll wind up in the woods, eating moss.”
“Everyone in your town will think you’re crazy.”
“Everyone in my town already thinks I’m crazy.”
Tamara pulled one of her braids around and fingered the end of it thoughtfully. “Are you going to be okay going home for the summer?”
Call looked up from his lichen. “What do you mean?”
“Your father,” she said. “He hates the Magisterium so much, but you — you don’t. At least I don’t think you do. And you’re going to come back next year. Isn’t that exactly what he didn’t want?”
Call didn’t say anything.
“You are coming back next year, aren’t you?” She leaned forward, worried. “Call?”
“I want to,” he burst out. “I want to, but I’m afraid he won’t let me. And maybe there’s a reason he won’t — but I don’t want to know it. If there’s something wrong with me, I want Alastair to keep it to himself.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you except that you broke your leg,” said Tamara, but she still looked anxious.
“And I’m a show-off,” Call said, trying to lighten the mood.
Tamara threw a piece of lichen at him and they talked for a while about how everyone was reacting to Aaron’s new celebrity status — including Aaron. Tamara was concerned about him, but Call assured her Aaron could handle it.
Then Tamara started to tell him about how excited her parents were to have her in the same group with the Makar, which was good, because she wanted them to be proud of her, and bad, because it meant they were even more concerned than usual that she behave in an exemplary manner at all times. And their idea of exemplary didn’t always match up with hers.