“I’m trying to help!” he protested.

Aaron leaned out the open door. “What if some of the Chaos-ridden attack one of the mages? What if someone gets hurt? Not all animals are like Havoc.”

“Don’t worry about the Masters,” Call said. “Those animals didn’t look in great shape. I bet most of them run for the forest the first chance they get.”

“Like we should be doing,” Tamara reminded him, heading for the door and pushing past Aaron. “Let’s get out of here.”

Keeping his head down and the fingers of one of his hands buried in Havoc’s ruff, Call followed her. Aaron brought up the rear, keeping Jasper in front of him.

They emerged into a clearing and froze. The small outpost was completely overrun. Masters were running back and forth, trying to capture the Chaos-ridden animals fleeing in every direction. Jets of fire and ice were shooting through the air. Call was pretty sure he saw Master Rockmaple being chased around a tree by a Chaos-ridden golden retriever. Master North whirled, a gleaming ball of fire beginning to rise from the palm of his hand.

Alma suddenly lunged out of the small wooden house where she had given them lemonade. A whirlwind of air was whipping around her. She threw out her hand, and a tendril of air shot free and knocked Master North off his feet. His bolt of fire went wide, catching the leaves and branches of the tree over his head. It started to burn as Tamara took firm hold of Call by the collar and hauled him out of the clearing, into the woods.

They were all running, Tamara, Aaron, Jasper, even Call, limping a little but gaining a pretty good speed. Just as the sounds of the fighting behind them died down, Call heard a voice.

“I told Alma you were troublemakers,” said Master Lemuel, standing ominously in their path. “She wouldn’t listen.”

Aaron stopped short, and the others nearly crashed into him. Master Lemuel raised his eyebrows.

“I’m going to tell you one thing,” he said, “and you can believe me or not. But I dislike the Masters of the Magisterium more than I dislike you. And I don’t want them to get what they want. Understand?”

They nodded in unison.

He pointed toward a narrow brook that ran through the trees. It was actually very pretty here, Call thought, which might have been something he would have appreciated under other circumstances.

“Follow that to the highway,” Lemuel said. “It’s the fastest way. From there, you’re on your own.”

There was a silence. Then Aaron said, “Thanks.”

Of course Aaron would say thanks, Call thought, as they hurried toward the brook. If someone were hitting Aaron over the head, he would thank them for stopping.

They made their way along the brook for half an hour in silence before Jasper spoke up.

“So what’s your plan now? It’s not like we’re safe once we hit the highway,” Jasper said. “There’s no buses, and we don’t have a car —”

“I have a plan,” Tamara said.

Call turned toward her. “You do?”

“I always have a plan,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Sometimes, even, a scheme. You should take lessons from me.”

“This better be a really good plan,” Aaron said, smirking. “Because you sure are talking it up.”

Tamara pulled her phone out of her bag, checked it, and then kept walking.

THE FIRST SIGHT of the highway made Call shudder as he remembered the last time he’d crossed it, looking for Aaron. He recalled vividly the pain in his legs as he forced himself to hurry, the panic at the thought of Aaron in danger, and then the discovery that he wasn’t the person he’d always thought himself to be.

Jasper squatted and petted Havoc’s head when the wolf came up to him. For a moment, he didn’t seem like such a jerk.

Then he saw Call looking and glared.

Call sat down on the ground, watching the occasional car whir by. Tamara was typing things into her phone. He wasn’t sure if she was researching stuff for their quest or just e-mailing friends from home. Aaron frowned thoughtfully into the middle distance, the way heroes in comic books did. They could make a figurine of him looking like that.

Call wondered how Aaron would look when he found out that Call had lied to him — lied to him a lot.

He was still wondering about that when the sleek black town car pulled up.

The window rolled down and Tamara’s butler, Stebbins, pushed back his sunglasses to show his pale blue eyes. “Get in,” he said. “We’ve got to make this quick.”

Jasper scrambled into the backseat. “Oh, sweet hydration.” He grabbed a water bottle from one of the cup holders and guzzled the whole thing.

“That dog’s not coming in here,” Stebbins said. “He’ll track dirt all over the seats and his nails could scratch up the leather.”

“They’re not your seats,” Tamara reminded him, patting the cushion next to her. The wolf hopped into the car and then turned around, looking dubious.

Call got in next, pulling Havoc onto his lap. It was hard to believe that the wolf had once fit underneath his shirt. Now he was almost as big as Call himself.

Aaron got into the front.

“I assume this will be our usual deal,” Stebbins said to Tamara, turning in his seat. “What’s the address?”

Call told him, although he didn’t know the number, just the road. Stebbins punched the location into his apparently non-magical GPS.

Then they were off.

“What’s the usual deal?” Jasper asked Tamara under his breath.

“Stebbins drag races with my parents’ cars,” she told him, keeping her voice low. “I cover for him.”

“Really?” Jasper asked, frowning at the guy in the front seat with what appeared to be new respect.

As they drove on, Call found himself dozing against the window until his head started knocking against the glass. They were heading down a dirt road.

He blinked. He knew exactly where they were. “Just pull up here,” he said.

Stebbins stopped the car, squinting. “Here?” he asked, but Call was already opening the door. Havoc immediately ran around in circles, clearly relieved to be free.

The kids got out and Stebbins put the town car in reverse, probably glad to be rid of them.

“Are you kidding me?” Jasper said when they saw the landscape of cars. “This is a junkyard.”

Call glared, but Tamara shrugged. “He is kind of right, Call.”

Call tried to see the familiar area through her eyes. It was pretty bad. It looked like a parking lot, except that the vehicles weren’t in tidy lines. Cars were haphazardly grouped together. Some had been driven in, but most had been towed and dumped wherever they fit. Rust bloomed along their hoods and along their sides, pocking the once-shiny chrome trim. Long grass had grown up around them, a telltale sign of how long they’d been abandoned.

“He keeps most of these for parts,” Call said, feeling uncomfortable. He’d always thought of his dad as eccentric. But he had to admit that having a lot of corroding vehicles seemed a little bit worse than eccentric. Alastair could never use all the cars he’d collected, not even for parts since so many had rusted through, but he’d kept on collecting them anyway. “The good cars, the ones he’s planning on restoring, are in the barn.”