Call gaped. “I —”

Jasper waved his hand impatiently. “You don’t have to care. It’s just that we’re going on this big mission to help out the Magisterium. And if we succeed, you’ll be a hero.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If that happens, I want you to intercede with the Assembly. They’ll do whatever you want. Tell them to let my dad go.”

For a moment, Call felt that odd sensation of the world tilting sideways again, but it wasn’t because an evil mage’s memories were getting tangled up with his own. It was because this wasn’t supposed to be his role.

He wasn’t a hero. Jasper wasn’t supposed to ask him for favors or act like he was important.

That was Aaron. It was supposed to be Aaron.

Hey, came the voice in his head. I’m good with it not being me. I was good with it not being me back then, but there was no one else. And now there’s no one else but you.

Call nodded. “If we do this mission, you’ll be a hero, too. You could ask them yourself.”

Jasper’s look was dubious. “Just say you’ll do it. You’re the Makar.”

“I can’t tell them to release your dad, but I can insist that they don’t give him the death penalty no matter how his trial goes,” said Call. “And I can insist he has a trial, a fair one.”

For a moment, Jasper was silent. Then he gave a long sigh. “Promise?”

“I promise. Do you want to spit-shake on it?”

Jasper made a face. “No, I trust you. Besides, that’s disgusting.”

Call grinned, glad Jasper was acting normal around him. Together, they walked toward the diner attached to the motel. Alastair was already there with Gwenda and Tamara, sitting in a booth. They’d even gotten their drinks: Alastair was drinking coffee and the girls had milk shakes.

The overhead lighting was flickering and yellow. The linoleum was worn and cracked. But behind the case, there were pristine, glistening pies and top hat–high cakes topped with cherries and coconut flakes. Call’s mouth started to water.

Jasper sat down on Gwenda and Tamara’s side, leaving Call to sit with Alastair. Tamara grinned at him as he slid in across from her.

The waitress came back and took their order. Jasper got an orange soda and an enormous burger with bacon. Tamara got a tuna fish sandwich. Gwenda got a gyro. Alastair got steak and eggs. Call ordered a ham steak, a single pancake with chocolate chips, and french fries. Then he ordered two more hamburgers to go, rare, for Havoc.

“Got some news,” said Alastair. “I checked in with Master Rufus on the tornado phone. Alex’s tower is close to being finished. They think they can stall him, but only for three more days. Master Rufus said that we needed to complete our mission by then.”

“Three more days?” Call squeaked. “How are we going to find three Devoureds that fast?”

“Let’s just focus on the task in front of us,” said Alastair. “Convince Lucas and maybe he can send us in the direction of some other Devoureds.”

“But what if he can’t?” Call asked, which was admittedly not the most heroic thing to say.

“You really think this plan will work?” Alastair asked.

Call nodded.

“Then we’ll find a way,” his dad reassured him.

Their food came, but even though it looked delicious, Call couldn’t taste it.

That night he tossed and turned on the bed, sleeping only in fits and starts. Havoc licked his face, letting him know that the wolf was there with him. It helped, but he woke up over and over anyway, coming full awake as dawn was cresting outside the window.

It was time to go to Niagara Falls.

A few hours later, nursing an enormous cup of coffee, Call piled into Alastair’s Rolls-Royce. There was less chatter today in the car and more nervous tension. Everyone seemed stressed, and when they stopped for lunch at McDonald’s, even Jasper could only eat five hamburgers and a bag of fries.

After a few hours, everyone in the car had nodded off except Havoc, Call, and Alastair. “I’m sorry,” Alastair said, peering into the rearview mirror to make sure the others were asleep. “I shouldn’t have suggested running away, back at the Magisterium.”

Call was startled. “You’re the one who was right,” he said. “Way back when. I never should have gone to the Magisterium at all.”

Alastair shook his head. “No, Master Joseph would have found us eventually. I was sticking my head in the sand. I was wrong. You wouldn’t have known how to protect yourself from him. You might have died, along with all the people you’ve saved.”

Call fell silent. He thought of himself as fighting the evil inside him so often, he never stopped to consider any good he might have done.

The road went on and on. Eventually Call dozed off. He was awoken at a gas station by the smells of coffee and microwaved cinnamon buns. He drank some of the coffee, stretched, went to the restroom, and decided against washing his face with the slightly brownish water coming from the tap.

Back in the car, he drank more coffee and ate three glazed cinnamon buns. By the time they arrived at the parking area of Niagara Falls State Park, he was ready to buzz off his seat like a hummingbird from the sugar.

They found a place to put the car and proceeded on foot, ignoring the aquarium and the other fun stuff, to head straight for the visitors’ center. There, they got the explanation that they could go to the observation tower and from there, if they wanted, they could take an elevator down to the bottom of Niagara Falls and go on a boat ride. There was even a place called “the crow’s nest” where they were pretty sure to get mist right in the face.

Call had wondered if the elevator would be made of glass, but it was ordinary metal. When they reached the bottom, the doors opened on a torrent of noise. They hurried out onto the deck. They could see tourists walking back and forth on red wooden decks, clad in bright yellow ponchos. The decks were connected by wooden walkways leading up and down.

The falls poured down so close that Call was awestruck, even though they weren’t there to sightsee. As the water hit the rocks at the bottom, it exploded into white mist, then ran in torrents over the boulders past the falls and rushed away at incredible speed.

“Come on,” said Alastair in a low voice. “Follow me.”

He led them down several walkways as they ducked among tourists in ponchos. They were all getting wet in the downpour, and Call’s leg was starting to hurt. Alastair moved purposefully to the edge of a deck and beckoned them close, then climbed nimbly over. He helped Call over next — it was a short drop — and the others, even Havoc, landed quickly beside them.

They were on a narrow path that led by the water. Something about the path told Call it was a mage path, something invisible to normal eyes. Maybe the fact that no one else was on it. Maybe the fact that the only footprints in the dirt weren’t footprints at all, but stamps that looked as if they were in the shape of the symbol for the element of water.

The sun had come out, and it dried them as they made their way along the path, the noise of the river drowning out any conversation that wasn’t shouting. Alastair stopped at a place where the path jutted out into the water in a small promontory. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lucas!” he shouted. “Lucas, can you hear me?”