She stepped forward, shoulders back, and walked up to the gate. As she had with the very first gate she stepped through, she put up her hand to touch it. Then she disappeared from view.

“Now you, Alex Strike.”

“Okay,” Aaron said, looking nervous. He wiped his hands against his pants. Stepping up to the gate, he took a deep breath, then walked through, disappearing as well.

Call couldn’t see either of them. He couldn’t see if they’d made it to the other side. All he could see was Master Rufus’s implacable expression and the eyes of the other mages, waiting for him to be judged.

“Callum Hunt,” said Master Rufus. “Your turn.”

Call swallowed and moved toward the gate.

“Wait!” a voice called. “Stop!”

Call whirled around. To his surprise, there was Alastair. He looked much as he always had, except a little blurry around the edges, and he was no longer wearing his glasses. He glanced over at Master Rufus, and Call realized his teacher must have summoned his dad to the ceremony.

“We need to do this now,” called Master North.

Alastair disappeared, and reappeared again only a foot from Call. Call stepped toward his father, and they hugged quickly. Alastair was actually starting to feel substantial — Call could almost feel the texture of his jacket. “I went through the Gate of Balance, once,” Alastair murmured. “You can, too. You’re my son.”

“I know.” A great calm had come over Call. He let go of his dad. Somewhere someone was muttering about having Devoureds in the Hall of Graduates, but nobody was actually moving to do anything about it.

A lot had changed at the Magisterium, Call thought, taking his final step toward the Gate of Balance. There was cheering behind him: Alastair, Gwenda, Jasper, even the Rajavis.

He wasn’t going through alone. He had support at his back, and his two best friends on the other side.

He took a deep breath and stepped through.

It was the eye of a tornado. Images from his life flashed all around him — a cave of ice, his old skateboard, the kitchen at Alastair’s, the Refectory full of students, Master Rufus lecturing, Aaron and Tamara laughing, Havoc as a puppy zipped into Call’s coat. Love for all those things rose up in him, expanded in his chest.

He saw the golden tower fall, Alex on his dragon, Drew dangling Aaron over the chaos monster, Anastasia dying, Master Joseph watching him. But he didn’t feel anger. He had bested those things, those people. He had won. The better part of him had won, and there were no memories circling him that weren’t his own. There were no memories of Constantine Madden’s, no memories that belonged to Maugris. Only memories that belonged to him.

He knew now who he really was.

He was Callum Hunt.

The tornado whirled away, and the calm that came after it was almost deafening. He was standing on the other side of the gate with Aaron and Tamara; both of them were grinning at him. They’d both made it. For the moment, the crowd couldn’t see them — though Call could see the mages in the distance, gazing anxiously toward the gate. In a moment the wall of illusion would fall, but for this moment they were together, unseen.

“We did it,” said Tamara. She grabbed Aaron’s hand in one of hers, and Call’s in the other. “We made it, together.”

Call and Aaron linked their hands, too.

“And we’ve got to promise not to be like the other chaos users,” Aaron said to Call, gripping his hand tightly. “Not like Maugris. When we’re old and it’s time for us to die, we’re going to go. We’re never going to do anything like this ever again.”

Call nodded. “No hopping bodies.”

“No hopping bodies,” Tamara said. “You watch each other. And I’ll watch both of you. And if one of you breaks the pact, it’s up to the other one of you to stop it — along with me. Understood?”

Aaron smiled and there was something in his gaze, something odd in those eyes that hadn’t always belonged to him. “I promise,” he said. “I definitely promise. So long as I live, I will never, ever steal another body again.”

Call looked steadily into Aaron’s eyes. “I promise, too,” he said. “From now on, we play by the rules.” He smiled at Aaron, pushing down his flicker of doubt. He was a good person now. They were both good people now.

They just had to stay that way.