“I still believe that the safest thing would be to teach them,” Anastasia said, the edge in her voice unmistakable. “You may believe me derelict in my duties, but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t neglected yours as well.”

“I do teach them,” Master Rufus said, turning his sternest look on her. “I teach them what they need to know.”

“Ah,” she said, and it seemed clear that she was no longer upset because she was sure she had the upper hand. “So Aaron and Callum know that they have the power to remove a living soul from its body? They understand how to do it? What a relief, because I thought you were so terrified of their abilities that you were planning on keeping them in the dark, even if it got them killed.”

“I have excused our students,” Master North said with unusual heat. “Tarquin, let them go. Defy me again and I will bar you from the school, no matter the Assembly’s orders.”

Outside the meeting room, Call turned to Aaron and Tamara. Tamara raised her eyebrows in a gesture that seemed to capture how completely weird that meeting had been. Aaron shook his head. After walking a short way, they saw a familiar path, which was good, since it turned out the stones were only for a one-way journey and they would lead back to the meeting again and again.

Finally, Aaron spoke. “Good thing we got out of there before Jasper’s date. I was getting worried.”

“You don’t really think that Celia’s the one, do you?” Call asked. “I mean, not really, right?”

“I know you don’t want it to be her,” Aaron said, walking past moss that fluoresced blue when their breath touched it. “I know you think she’s your friend, but we’ve got to be careful. Celia did something odd around the time of both attacks. It could be coincidence. Or maybe not.”

“So how is the date going to help?” Tamara asked. “Even if it is Celia, Jasper’s not a target.”

“Jasper promised me that he’d say stuff about Call. If she takes the bait, then we’ll know.”

Tamara rolled her eyes. She probably thought that Call wouldn’t notice in the dim light of the moss, but he did.

They arrived breathless at the Gallery, which was lit up for the night with spangled streamers of moss, glimmering blue and green. Students splashed in deep pools of water that glowed turquoise. Call remembered the first time he’d been there: Celia had invited him during their Iron Year, and it had been one of the first things about the Magisterium that he’d really liked. It had made him catch his breath and realize he was looking at stuff no ordinary person would ever see.

Now he looked around the place with more familiarity. He certainly recognized people — there was Alex, lounging in a corner with Tamara’s sister and another Gold Year girl. Gwenda and Rafe were jumping out of one of the pools of water, splashing each other. Kai was over by the glass tubes that dispensed fizzing candy, digging through a mountain of sweets with one hand and holding up a book with another.

“Look at me!” someone yelled. For a second Call thought he saw a skinny, brown-haired figure in a worn T-shirt, beckoning toward him. Someone whose eyes glowed black in a face that was too pale.

Drew.

Call blinked, and the vision resolved itself into Rafe, cannonballing into a pool. Water went everywhere. People clapped and cheered; Aaron leaned over and whispered to Call and Tamara, “There they are.”

He pointed to where Jasper and Celia sat on a big overstuffed purple couch. Celia looked pretty in a pink dress, her hair tied up in a ponytail. Jasper looked like Jasper.

A stone bowl floated between them. Celia dipped her fingers in, and when she brought them out, they shone. She blew on them, and multicolored bubbles spiraled up toward the ceiling. She giggled.

“Ugh,” said Call. “Celia’s staring at Jasper with googly eyes. This is so weird. She doesn’t even like Jasper. Or at least if she does, she’s never mentioned it before.”

“She’s leading him into her clutches,” said Aaron.

“You’re both idiots,” said Tamara, sounding resigned. “Come this way.”

They crept around the big bar full of snacks and candy, keeping to the wall. It was dark; Call followed the light of Tamara’s glinting gold barrettes. When they emerged on the other side, they were behind the purple couch, much closer to Celia and Jasper. It was Jasper’s turn with the bowl, apparently. He gave Celia a meaningful look, then blew on his fingers. Bubbles in the shape of hearts rose into the air.

“Oh, gross,” said Call. “I’m going to puke.”

Tamara had to slap a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. “It’s a date,” she said when she’d stopped wheezing. “On dates, people are supposed to have fun.”

“Or pretend to,” Aaron said, narrowing his eyes at Celia. He really seemed to think she might be guilty.

“How is staring at each other fun?” Call demanded.

“Okay,” Tamara said, giving both boys an unfathomable look. “If you two jokers were taking somebody out, what would you do?”

Call watched Celia’s cheeks go pink as Jasper leaned in and said something to her. It was weird to watch. For one thing, it was bizarre to see Jasper be nice to someone. Usually, even when he was in his not-a-total-jerk guise, he had an edge to the stuff he said. But with Celia, he seemed like he was acting like a normal person.

And she seemed into him.

Which was totally unfair, since the only reason that Jasper even asked her out was to cover up what they’d really been doing in the library.

Come to think of it, Celia had always said that Call was overreacting when he talked about what a jerk Jasper was. Maybe she’d liked Jasper! Maybe she’d only been pretending to like Call to get closer to Jasper.

“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “Whatever she wanted to do.”

Call had forgotten the question that Aaron was answering. For a moment, Call kind of hoped Celia was the spy after all. It would serve Jasper right if she were.

Tamara poked Call in the shoulder. “Wow. You must really like her.”

“What? N-no!” he sputtered. “I was just lost in thought! About how Jasper is a total sucker.”

Aaron nodded sagely. Jasper and Celia were dipping their fingers at the same time and blowing, causing illusions of butterflies and birds to fly up in the air. Both of them started to laugh, just before one of Jasper’s birds swooped down to eat one of Celia’s butterflies.

That was more like it! Call grinned. He wondered what would happen if he conjured the illusion of a cat to chase all the birds.

“You should just ask her out if you like her that much,” Tamara said slowly, thinking through her words carefully. “I mean, I think she’d forgive you if you explained.”

“Explained what?” Aaron asked.

Call overheard Jasper start to complain to Celia about Fuzzball, Gwenda’s ferret. And even though Celia had told Call all about Jasper’s allergic reaction to Fuzzball last year, so Jasper had to know she knew, Celia still totally pretended this was new information. Jasper ate it up. He went on and on about the dumb ferret and how much he didn’t like it and she acted like she was fascinated.

Call wanted to scream.

“Ooh, look,” Celia said when Jasper had finally exhausted the ferret topic. “Alex Strike is starting up a movie. Do you want to go watch?”