A look worse than anger crossed Tamara’s face. It was pity. “You’re not objective, Call.”

Neither are you! Call started to yell, but Master Rufus had whirled around and was looming over all of them menacingly.

“Not one more word about Alastair Hunt out of any of you,” he said. “Or you’ll be sorting sand instead of having dinner.”

Call had spent his first week at the Magisterium sorting sand and privately thought he’d rather take on a chaos elemental. He shut his mouth, and so did Aaron and Tamara. Tamara looked grim and Aaron looked despondent. He was biting at his fingernails, which was something he did only when he was really upset.

“Now,” said Master Rufus, turning around. Call realized that they’d made their way into a large grotto without his even noticing. The walls were covered in springy blue moss the color of the sky. Master Rufus began to pace, his hands behind his back. “We all know that in order to use an element, you require a counterweight, something that keeps you in balance so an element won’t take control of you. Right?”

“It keeps you from being Devoured. Like that fire guy,” Aaron said, referencing the monstrous, burning being they had met in the deep caverns below the Magisterium.

Master Rufus made a pained face. “Yes, the being that was once Master Marcus. Or, as you put it, ‘that fire guy.’ But there is more to it, no?”

“It’s an opposite,” Tamara said, tossing her braids. “So it pulls you in the other direction. Like the counterweight for fire is water.”

“And the counterweight for chaos is?” said Rufus, looking hard at Aaron.

“Call,” Aaron said. “I mean, my counterweight is Call. Not everyone’s is Call. But the counterweight for chaos is a person. Just … not always Call.”

“Eloquent as always,” said Rufus. “And is there a problem with a counterweight?”

“It’s hard to find one sometimes?” Aaron was clearly guessing, although Call thought he had to be right. Finding fire seemed like it would be hard. Maybe adult mages all carried lighters.

“It limits your power,” Tamara said. Master Rufus nodded in her direction, indicating that she’d given the superior answer.

“Limiting your power is part of how it keeps you safe,” he said. “Now, what is the opposite of a counterweight?”

Tamara answered that, too, showing off. “What we did with the sand last year.”

Call wanted to make a face at her, but he was pretty sure he’d get caught. That was the problem with three-person classrooms.

Master Rufus nodded. “Sympathetic acceleration, we call it. Very dangerous because it draws you deeper into the element. It gives you power, but the price can be very high.”

Call hoped this wasn’t the beginning of a lecture about how he had been a problem back then and was still a problem now.

But Master Rufus moved on. “What I’d like you all to do is to practice using your counterweights. First, gather up something to represent each of the elements. Aaron, this is going to be especially challenging for you, as you have chosen Call for your counterweight.”

“Hey!” Call said.

“I meant only that working with a human counterweight is challenging. Now, go, find your counterweights.”

Call walked around the edge of the grotto, finding a rock. Air was all around him, so he figured he had that covered. Fire and water were harder, but he used magic to turn some of the water from the silty cave pool into an orb he kept floating near his head. Then he took a vine and resolved to light it on fire with magic when the time came.

He went back to where the others were standing. Of course, they’d completed the exercise before he had.

“Very good,” said Master Rufus. “Let’s start with air magic. I am going to use air magic to send each one of you up into the air — but keep hold of your counterweight. It’s going to be your only contact with earth magic. Come down once you feel you need to use the counterweight.”

One by one, they were sent up into the air. Call could feel it whistling around him, the exhilarating lure of flying making him giddy. Flying was his favorite part of magic. In the air, his leg never bothered him. He began to use air magic, forming patterns of color, making clouds and then flying through them. The more magic he expended, the more he understood how someone could be Devoured. It seemed to him that becoming part of the air wouldn’t take much. He could relax into it and be blown along like an errant leaf. All his worries and fears would be blown away, too.

All he had to do was drop his bit of rock.

“Call.” Master Rufus was looking up at him. “The exercise is over.”

Call twisted around to see that Tamara and Aaron were already on the ground. He reached down to his stone and let the weight of its connection to earth fill him, lowering him slowly until he was standing again, his leg aching as always.

Rufus gave Call a measured look. “Well done, everyone,” he said. “Now, Aaron, we’re going to try an exercise involving chaos. Something small.”

Aaron nodded, looking nervous.

“You shouldn’t be worried,” said Rufus, indicating that they should clear a space in the center of the room. “If I understand correctly, you defeated many Chaos-ridden when you fought Master Joseph last year.”

“Yes, but …” Aaron bit at a fingernail. “I did it without a counterweight.”

“No, you didn’t. Call was there.”

“It’s true,” Tamara said. “Call was practically holding you down.”

“You may have used his magic instinctively,” said Rufus. “The counterweight of chaos is a human being because the counterweight of the void is the soul. When you use chaos magic, you seek a human soul to balance you. Without a counterweight, you can easily use up your own magic and die.”

“That sounds … bad,” Aaron said. He moved into the center of the room, and after a second, Call joined him. They stood awkwardly, shoulder to shoulder. “But I don’t want to hurt Call.”

“You won’t.” Master Rufus strode to the corner of the grotto and returned carrying a cage. In the cage was an elemental — a lizard with curved spines running along its back. Its eyes were bright gold.

“Warren?” Call said.

Master Rufus set the cage on the ground. “You will make this elemental disappear. Send it into the realm of chaos.”

“But it’s Warren,” Call objected. “We know that lizard.”

“Yeah, I’m really not sure I want to do … that,” said Aaron. “Can’t I disappear a rock or something?”

“I’d like to see you work with something more substantial than that,” said Rufus.

“Warren does not want to be disappeared,” said the lizard. “Warren has important things to tell you.”

“Hear that? He’s got important things to tell us,” said Aaron.

“He’s also a liar,” pointed out Tamara.

“Well, you’d know all about being a liar, wouldn’t you?” Call snapped.

Tamara’s cheeks pinked but she ignored him. “Remember when Warren took us to the wrong cave and the Devoured almost killed us?”