“Mr. Hunt,” said Graves, gesturing for Call and Tamara to come and stand before the table. It was on a raised dais, so the Assembly looked down on them, some impassively, some with pity. “We understand you’ve been orchestrating a plan.”

“That’s right,” Call told him, trying to project all the authority that he’d never thought of himself as having. “We’re going to pull Alex back from chaos.”

“You think you can make him un-Devoured?” said Master Milagros. “That’s never been done.”

“Actually, it has,” said Call. “It requires four Devoured, representing each of the other elements.”

“And you want us to provide you Devoured from our cells?” said Graves. “That’s impossible.”

“You don’t need to,” Tamara cut in angrily. “We’ve already assembled our own team.”

“Though you did promise you’d cooperate with us and help us,” Call added.

“We promised not to stand in your way,” said Graves. “And we have not.”

“Then you’d better not now,” said Call. “Because this whole plan depends on me and Tamara and Jasper doing what you want. And in exchange, we want something.”

“What is it?” said Master North.

“We want to let Alex Strike live,” said Call.

A murmur ran through the room. Call heard traitor and never and, as always, enemy. Anger swelled inside him, and he let himself feel it. It was better than being afraid.

I’m not who you think I am, he thought at the Assembly. I’m worse.

Tamara spoke over the hubbub. “We’ve learned that maybe Alex isn’t in control of himself. Maybe he is in thrall to someone else. Maybe he never chose to do any of those things.”

Jasper whipped his head toward Call. Gwenda frowned. So did Master Rufus. All of them clearly wanted to interrupt, but they didn’t.

“Who could he possibly have been in thrall to?” Graves wanted to know. “We all saw him on the battlefield. We all saw him lead an army of the Chaos-ridden. And had he been in thrall to Master Joseph, the spell would have ended when Joseph died.”

Call took a deep breath. “His stepmother, Anastasia Tarquin.”

They all goggled, looking around at one another. Anastasia Tarquin had been one of them, an Assembly member. It was only after the last battle that they’d discovered her betrayal and realized who she truly was — the mother of Constantine Madden, working behind the scenes to help Master Joseph get hold of Call, in the hopes Call would remember his past.

“All we want is for you to agree that if he’s defeated and it turns out that he wasn’t acting on his own, he won’t be thrown in the Panopticon,” said Call. “I know what it’s like to be misjudged. I know what it’s like for people to think you’re evil when circumstances pushed you in that direction and you didn’t have any good choices.”

“And you really believe that of Alex?” Master Rufus’s expressive eyebrows were raised.

“I know what it’s like to feel like you can’t go back, that you have no hope of a second chance.” Call tried to look his most sympathetic and heroic, but he was afraid that what he actually looked like was someone bugging out his eyes. On the other hand, he couldn’t look more bug-eyed than Jasper did.

“If you believe you can defeat Alex and leave him alive,” said Graves, “then you believe he can be taken prisoner?”

“That is ridiculous,” said Mr. Rajavi, staring in disbelief. “He will still be an out-of-control Makar — ”

“No, he won’t,” said Call quickly. “Stripping him of all chaos will strip his Makar powers, too. He’ll be an ordinary mage.”

Graves shook his head slowly. “This is madness.”

“Think of what he knows,” said Tamara suddenly. “All Master Joseph’s magic, Anastasia’s secrets. If he died and we never learned any of those things …”

Graves’s eyes sparked. “You understand,” he said, “that if he seems rebellious or resistant, we will have to kill him.”

“Of course,” Call said. “We get it. We just think there’s a good person in there, trapped under Anastasia’s commands.”

“Once he’s been subdued, we will have to have him come before the Assembly and give an accounting of all of his misdeeds and Anastasia’s role in them. Then we will decide what to believe,” said Graves.

“I understand,” said Call. “Thank you. But there’s one more thing. I want you to change your policy on the Devoured.”

“You can’t be serious!” Master North said.

“I am,” said Call. “If they’re going to help us defeat Alex here, then they’re going to want to be treated fairly. Not like criminals and monsters.”

“Most of them live quietly among the elements,” Jasper added suddenly. “No one’s saying you shouldn’t arrest a Devoured who does something wrong, but it’s wrong to assume that they’re evil without giving them a chance.”

“This is about your sister,” said Graves, staring narrowly at Tamara. “Isn’t it?”

“Ravan is a good example,” she said stubbornly. “She’s never done anything wrong.”

Jasper coughed a cough that sounded like jailbreak. Call and Tamara ignored him.

“She helped defeat Master Joseph,” said Tamara. “And for that, she’s being hunted.”

“She’s dangerous,” said Graves.

“Many things are dangerous,” Mrs. Rajavi said, voice dry. Her husband looked at her as though there was something he wished to communicate, but she was looking straight ahead. “Although the Assembly may conclude that my decision is biased, I would like to say that knowing Ravan has revealed to me that though the Devoured are not as they were, they are not elementals either. We should treat them better and we might find better allies in them.”

Graves cleared his throat. “This is most irregular.”

Call waited, unwilling to back down.

“We will discuss and inform you of our decision,” Graves finally said, unhappily. “And now we want to wish the three of you good luck tomorrow. We stand ready to assist you once Alex is … subdued. We will be there, shields in place, to make sure that Alex cannot call on any more creatures of chaos. We will be witness to your bravery.”

But we’re not going to be coming to help you. “Uh, thanks,” said Call. “Great. And when we’re done, we’re going to come back and discuss our reward.”

“Reward?” Graves sputtered. “What reward?”

“We’ll let you know,” Call promised, grinning in Jasper’s direction. If they managed the rest of this, getting Jasper’s dad out of prison was going to be a cakewalk.

Then, together, they left the Assembly. As they did, Call heard Master Rufus getting grilled and felt a little bit bad. But it was hard to feel too guilty when he was still so nervous about his plan coming together.

“What was all that back there?” Gwenda asked.

“What do you mean?” Call asked innocently.

“You really think Alex is being controlled by someone else?” She put a hand on her hip and gave him the sort of look you give someone when you believe you can tell if they’re lying by some physical tic. Call hoped that wasn’t true.