“What about the people who actually like me?” said Call, feeling sick.

“They’re all at this table,” said Gwenda.

“That’s not true!” Tamara protested. “There are people who like you, Call. And Havoc likes you. And Warren.”

“Warren doesn’t like anyone,” said Call, pushing his plate away. He thought about his dream of the Collegium — wouldn’t it just be more of this?

Kai suddenly stood up. His brown eyes met Call’s and he shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said, and crossed the room to sit down at Celia’s table.

They all stared after him, stunned. Rafe broke the silence. “Charlie’s his boyfriend, and he’s completely on Celia’s side,” he said. “You have to understand — it’s been really hard on Kai.”

Jasper looked grim. “Battle lines are being drawn,” he said, and for once, he wasn’t kidding around. Call almost imagined he could see a thin glowing line separating their table from Celia’s.

Dragging a fork through his lichen, Call knew that he was going to have to do something. He just wished he knew what.

After lunch, exercises were outside in the woods and included Gold Years and Iron Years. They were to accompany the younger kids as they explored the area around the Magisterium and tried out some newly learned magic.

“Don’t let them wander off,” Master Rufus said. “This will be good for all of you, to take responsibility for younger mages, to help them and also to realize how far you’ve come in your own studies.”

“None of them are going to want to partner with me,” Call said to Tamara, then was a little ashamed. His friends already had to deal with the hostility that people they cared about felt toward Call. He didn’t have to complain on top of it.

Tamara patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Maybe there’s a tiny evil one.” He glowered at her and she smiled cheerfully back at him. “That’s the spirit. Your evil little fan will like that.”

He laughed despite himself.

Meanwhile, Jasper was puffing himself up with the thought that someone was going to be impressed with him. “I have a lot of wisdom to pass on,” he was saying to Gwenda. “The important thing is that I find an apprentice worthy of me.”

“I really think none of them deserve you,” Gwenda told him, and he nodded thoughtfully.

“You’re so right.”

“Oh,” she said. “I know I am.”

Once they were through the Mission Gate, Call couldn’t help noticing that the woods were strangely quiet. No bird calls came from the trees. He couldn’t even hear crickets.

He looked toward the others. Tamara and Master Rufus had paused, too. The silence was truly eerie. Woods were never really quiet — there was always birdsong, or the sound of distant animals in the underbrush. But there was nothing. Call was about to say something to Master Rufus when the Magisterium gates opened again, and more and more apprentices filed out with their Masters. Suddenly it was harder to hear the silence of the woods over the human chatter.

“We’ve already paired you up,” Master Rockmaple said, loudly enough that the apprentices began to quiet down. “I will call out the name of a Gold Year and then the Iron Year they are to be paired with.”

A breeze blew through the trees, and in the moment after Master Rockmaple finished speaking Call was unnerved again to hear the whistle of wind through branches and nothing more. No animal sounds. But there was the sound of something else. It sounded to Call like something familiar.

“Rockmaple,” Master Rufus said, “I think we should go back inside and postpone this exercise for another —”

Then Call remembered. It was the sound he had heard when he and his father had gone to Niagara Falls once. An enormously loud rushing noise, as if the air were splintering.

A buzz rose among the apprentices, but there was no time to do anything. Before Master Rufus could even finish his sentence, high over the trees an elemental appeared.

Call heard Tamara gasp. “A dragon.”

The dragon was massive, shiny black and sinuous, with small, membranous wings and enormous, fang-lined jaws. Its eyes were a brilliant red. A human rider sat on its back — one in a long cloak that was whipped by the wind.

Call reached for Tamara; she grabbed his hand and held it. He could feel Aaron inside his head, flinching in disbelief — and horror.

Impossibly, the rider was Alex. Changed, but still recognizable, even though a nimbus of darkness surrounded his head. It was as if someone had cut the light out of the sky surrounding him. His eyes were enormous black holes that shimmered, as though full of stars.

Apprentices screamed. People started running back toward the Magisterium. Not all of them recognized Alex, but they definitely recognized bad news when they saw it. Call and Tamara stood their ground, though Master Rufus had moved to block them from Alex’s direct view.

He’s dead. Aaron sounded stunned. He’s got to be dead. He was sucked into chaos.

The dragon opened its enormous jaws and out came black fire. It seared across the tops of the surrounding trees, setting them aflame. They burned without light, without heat. Call remembered his dream, the black flame spreading from his hands. The dragon was breathing pure chaos fire.

“Quickly, everyone inside!” Master Rufus shouted. He gestured for the students to get back. “Tamara! Call! Get out of here!” The Masters were running, circling the students in order to herd them back to the Magisterium gates. Iron Years were running, almost tripping over one another in their eagerness to get back toward the gates.

“Wait!” shouted one of the Masters. “Stay close —”

But it was too late. The dragon swooped down, Alex clinging to its back, and caught two Iron Years. One of them was Axel, the little kid who’d been curious about Call when he’d first arrived at the Magisterium. He looked terrified, but he wasn’t crying. He looked like he was trying to bite the chaos dragon’s claws. Next to him was an Iron Year girl screaming as she tried to kick her way free. But the dragon held fast, swooping up into the sky with the Iron Years gripped tightly in its claws.

Astride the dragon, grinning now, Alex shouted, his voice booming across the forest. “Stop! All Masters of the Magisterium, stop where you are! I am Alexander Strike, the first ever Devoured of chaos, and I will destroy you all unless you follow my commands.”

A Devoured of chaos? Call looked over at Master Rufus, but Master Rufus was intent on staring at Alex. He looked enraged. All the Masters did, but they had stopped in their tracks, knowing they had no choice. Above them, they could hear the Iron Years screaming, their cries carried thinly on the wind.

Call turned to Tamara. She was trembling with fury.

“We have to do something,” she said. The black flames licked higher, eating up more of the woods. Fire, Call thought. He had put out fire before.

It nearly killed you, Aaron protested. Now, without a counterweight —

Alex was still talking. “First, release Anastasia Tarquin from captivity or I will drop these brats into the fire and then finish off the rest of you. After you watch them burn.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Anastasia Tarquin? Not everyone knew she had been Alex’s stepmother; even Call was astonished Alex cared enough to bother springing her from prison.