“Lucas,” he said, and jumped backward in surprise as the pool shot upward in a column, forming into the shape of Lucas, Devoured of water. The mages gasped and several of them backed away.

It was Call’s turn. He took Greta’s geode out of his pocket, bent down, and brought it down with as much force as he could muster against the side of a rock.

It smashed apart into glittering fragments. They all stared at the fragments expectantly. Nothing happened.

“Is it working?” Jasper hissed into Call’s ear.

“Yoo-hoo,” said a bored voice, and they all turned to see Greta, a rumbling pile of rocks, hovering around the edge of the circle. “I’m here.”

She and Lucas waved at each other. Alastair walked over to them slowly, and Ravan drifted along, trailing sparks. The mages all moved away to give the Devoured space, or perhaps to give themselves space from the Devoured.

Hearing shouting, Call turned to find Gwenda in the middle of a fierce argument with Master Rufus. “But I should go,” she said. “I’m part of the apprentice group! I helped collect the Devoured!”

Master Rufus shook his head. “Absolutely not, Gwenda. Call, Jasper, and Tamara are going because Alex demanded they go. I will not sacrifice the safety of another student for no good reason!”

“It is a good reason,” Gwenda said. “I can help protect them!” She whirled around and saw Call. “Call, tell him I should go with you.”

Call hesitated. “Gwenda, you’ve been a really good friend, and you’ve saved our butts a bunch of times since Gold Year started. I’m sorry if I ever underestimated you. But there’s no way Alex would let you come with us. The minute he saw someone he didn’t ask for, he’d unleash chaos.”

Gwenda’s eyes glittered angrily, but Call could tell she knew he wasn’t lying.

“I don’t want to be left behind,” she said.

Call looked at Master Rufus. “Can’t she come in with the teachers and the Assembly?” he asked. “It would only be fair.”

Master Rufus sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Everyone, listen!” It was Assemblyman Graves’s voice, amplified and echoing. “Callum Hunt. Tamara Rajavi. Jasper deWinter. Please come to stand before me.”

Tamara moved reluctantly away from her family. Jasper peeled himself away from Lucas, and a few seconds later they were all standing in front of Assemblyman Graves, along with Havoc, who’d snuck in next to Call.

“That Chaos-ridden wolf —” Graves began angrily.

“He’s not Chaos-ridden,” said Call. “He’s a regular wolf.”

Graves stared at Havoc, who blinked normal, wide, greenish wolf eyes at him. “I could have sworn —”

Tamara giggled, and immediately stifled the sound. Graves glared. “Bind their hands,” he said.

Master Milagros and Master North came up behind them. Call and the others put their hands behind their backs, and the teachers began to wind strips of flexible enchanted metal around their wrists. Call knew it was necessary, but anger was still boiling inside him.

“These will come off when you tug against them three times in rapid succession,” Graves told them. “But they will also be destroyed, so please don’t test that in advance.”

Tamara looked over at him guiltily, clearly having been just about to do that.

Alastair whirled into the air, becoming only wind, whooshing around Call’s head. “I’ll be with you,” he promised. A moment later, a metal whistle dropped into Call’s bound hands. He closed his fingers tightly over it. When he looked at Jasper, a bottle of water was tucked into his pocket. Tamara had an acorn, and Kimiya, a pack of matches that looked scorched on one end, as though Ravan hadn’t wanted to stop burning.

“Prepare yourself,” said Graves. “We will be flying to the tower.”

All around, the mages rose up into the air. Call could feel himself being lifted up, could feel the wind whooshing beneath him, but with Alastair so close, even though his magic was bound, he couldn’t be afraid. He remembered how much he had wished for weightlessness, had wanted to fly so that he could avoid all the difficulties of having a leg that hurt a lot.

But that had been a kid’s wish. His problems now couldn’t be solved by a little magic.

Maybe they can be solved by a lot of magic, Aaron said in his head.

They flew over fields and gray highways snaking by underfoot, the forest and the Magisterium retreating behind them. Call glanced over to see Havoc being whirled through the air, his paws flailing, and Tamara nearby, her dark hair flying like a banner. She looked over at him and gave an encouraging smile.

In the distance, the golden tower rose, ever closer. For being built so quickly and for no real purpose but to stall Alex, the shimmering tower was both beautiful and formidable. Call wondered what purpose it might serve after today.

Assuming, of course, that purpose wasn’t as his tomb.

They landed on a stretch of grass in front of the single door to the tower. As soon as their feet touched the ground, a dark cloud passed over the sky, signaling Alex’s arrival with a bolt of lightning that struck a bare stretch of foliage, blackening it and making everyone jump.

“That ridiculous child,” Graves ground out.

From the sky, Alex and his retinue heaved into view.

Alex was still on the back of his dragon-shaped chaos elemental but now his outfit had gotten even more elaborate. He wore black — of course — and huge black boots with massive silver buckles in the shape of lightning bolts. Around his shoulders was a cape.

Is that an actual cape? Aaron demanded.

Yep, Call thought. It definitely was — it was even fluttering in the breeze. Alex’s hair was spiked up with gel. Flying beside him were two more chaos elementals, both in horselike shapes that looked far less fixed. They sometimes seemed to have wings; other times instead of legs, they seemed to have the long, searching tentacles of octopi. Call guessed one was for Anastasia. The other, he feared, was for Kimiya.

As Alex landed, his cape whipped through the air and Call spotted the dull metal crown on his head, its spikes like teeth. For a moment, even though Call knew it was all calculated, that Alex only cared about the illusion, the illusion worked. Call actually felt a thin tendril of fear and shuddered.

“Assemblypeople of the mage world and other luminaries, I am glad that you’ve decided to cave to my demands and acknowledge my superiority,” said Alex. “This tower you’ve built me is pretty nice. I plan to reign from it quietly and not disturb you too much. I don’t want to do any gross Enemy of Death stuff, like reanimating people or animals. That’s not my thing. My thing is letting everyone know how awesome and scary I am.”

“You mean everyone in the mage world?” asked Graves. Even though this was for show, he looked furious. “You still intend to keep the great secrets of magic, don’t you?”

Alex chortled, and the crowd of creatures around him hooted and cackled. It was much more frightening than anything he’d said. He might be a ridiculous child, as Graves had said, but he had access to enormous power and creatures that could wield it.

“The what?” he sneered.

“The silence of the mage world!” Graves thundered. “We do not tell those without magic of the existence of magic. It endangers them and endangers us. It was difficult enough to build this stupid tower without alerting them to the magic that was happening — ”