“Very well,” said Master Rufus. “I will think about what you’ve said and I will make my decision at the Assembly meeting.” He waved a hand and the sheer wall keeping Aaron locked away came down. “Even if you can’t tell the whole truth,” he advised Aaron, “speak from the heart.”

Tamara went over and hugged Aaron tightly. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, and Call felt a tremor of familiar jealousy. He pushed it away, just glad to have his friend back in the world.

Aaron walked over to Call and hugged him just as tightly as he and Tamara had embraced. “Thank you,” Aaron said, his voice soft. “For everything. For my life. You’re my counterweight, my balance. You always will be.”

“Come along,” said Master Rufus, guiding Aaron to walk in front of him. With a wave of Rufus’s wrists, Aaron was wearing restraints. “Before we’re late for the Assembly meeting.”

Call and Tamara followed Master Rufus out of the halls of elementals and through a few echoing chambers, until they came to the same large room the Assembly had used before. There was the same table and this time Aaron was placed in the center, so that he stood there, with everyone staring at him. Call remembered what that had felt like.

“Alex Strike,” Mrs. Rajavi began, and Call could hear the anger in her voice. “You have murdered one of our members in front of us. You are responsible for many more deaths and much disruption. Yet you claim you were under the influence of Anastasia Tarquin. Do you have any proof of that?”

“She confessed it,” said Aaron. “Everything I did was under her influence.”

“Do you remember being controlled?” demanded Master North. He was sitting in the place Graves had once sat. “Do you remember what you did?”

Aaron shook his head. “I don’t have any memory of being a Devoured of chaos,” he said — which, Call figured, was the truth. “Or of betraying the Magisterium. I’m loyal to the Magisterium, and I hate Master Joseph.” He spoke with a venom that would have been hard to fake.

“You understand it isn’t easy to believe you,” said Master Milagros, but her voice was gentler. “We all saw you burn the woods around the Magisterium. We saw you torture children and murder Master Rockmaple.”

“That was Anastasia,” Aaron said. He looked more nervous now, probably because he actually was lying, which always made him uncomfortable. It hadn’t been Anastasia, it had been Alex.

They’re both dead, now, Call thought at him as hard as he could. For once, he missed the time he’d been able to speak to Aaron silently. You’re not hurting them. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about them, it just matters if you’re okay.

“Why did she do all of that?” said Master Rufus. His expression was impossible to read. “Why use you to try to bring down the school, the Assembly?”

“She blamed and hated all mages for the death of her sons,” said Aaron. “I thought at first I would be like a new son to her, but I was just something for her to use. She’d learned a little from Constantine’s books. She was able to hold a small piece of my soul, to control it, like the Order of Disorder controls the animals in the woods. When everyone found out about Aaron, that’s when she acted. She took control of me and made me murder him and take his Makar powers. I don’t remember anything after that.”

Tamara bumped Call’s shoulder with her own. “That was pretty good,” she whispered. Pretty good lying, she meant.

Murmurs went around the room. “She did confess,” Call heard someone say, and “But what if he’s not telling the truth? What if they were in on it together?” said someone else.

“I think it is time to put this to a vote,” said Master North. “All in favor of accepting Alex Strike’s story as true and allowing him back at the Magisterium, raise your hands.”

Call knew he and Tamara weren’t allowed to vote. Tamara was staring at her parents with mute appeal: after a long moment, both raised their hands. It seemed to Call that a lot of people had raised their hands — but, he saw to his horror, Master Rufus’s hand was down. Aaron stared at his Master, pale with shock.

“All right,” said Master North, making a note. “Now, everyone in favor of sending Alex Strike to the Panopticon, raise their hands.”

Just as many hands went up, now Master Milagros’s among them. But Master Rufus still kept his hands flat on the table.

“Rufus?” said North, pausing with pen in hand.

“I abstain,” Rufus said in a voice as dry as gravel.

Master North shrugged. “Then it’s a tie,” he said. “Rufus, you’re going to have to vote. We need a tiebreaker.”

“He has to,” Tamara whispered. “He has to vote for — for him.”

She looked at Aaron. Call was barely able to keep his seat. His fingernails were digging into his palms so hard it hurt.

Master Rufus rose to his feet. “There is one thing that can determine the truth here,” he said. “Rather than a vote cast on intuition alone, I would like to see Alexander Strike and Callum Hunt pass through the Fifth Gate.”

The room exploded. Master Rufus remained expressionless through it all, like a rock in a churning stream.

“Call is my apprentice,” said Rufus. “Alex was my assistant. I can tell you they are both ready. The Fifth Gate, the Gate of Gold, is about doing good works in the world, about genuinely intending to do good. If the gate opens for them and allows them through, then they have learned that lesson. Note that Constantine never walked through that gate; he left the school before he could be asked to do so. If Alex can walk through the Gate of Gold, then I believe we should accept that whatever he’s been forced to do by circumstance, he has a pure heart.”

The mages quieted down, listening to Rufus speak. When he was done, there was a long silence.

“Very well,” said Master North finally. “I would very much like to see these two tested by the gate. In alchemy, gold is considered to be the purest of metals. The Gate of Gold will test the purity of your hearts. Fail, children, and be locked away forever. There will be no more chances. Go back to your rooms, don your uniforms, and prepare yourselves.”

“If they’re walking through the gate,” Tamara said, “I am walking with them.”

“And if you fail, you will share their fate?” asked Master North. Master Rufus did not look pleased.

“No,” said Mrs. Rajavi, standing. “Of course she won’t. No one doubts that Tamara has been acting on the behalf of the Magisterium and the mage world. Her fate is not in question.”

Mr. Rajavi stood with his wife. “Leave our daughter out of this.”

“I broke Call out of prison. I believe in Alex,” Tamara told the mages. “Enough to share their fate. I am walking through the gate with them. And if the gate rejects me, then I don’t deserve anything different from what they get.”

“Tamara —” Call started. He believed she’d make it through the gate, but he didn’t like even the specter of her and the Panopticon anywhere close together.

“Very well,” said Master North, cutting Call off. “You three go and prepare. I will see you in the Hall of Graduates.”