Jasper looked horrified, probably for several reasons.

“Are you back at the Magisterium?” Call asked.

Master Rufus appeared highly peeved by that question. “Indeed I am, Callum. After spending most of yesterday and all of today fruitlessly searching for you children, one of you must have lost your protection against scrying. I see that you’re in some kind of vehicle. Pull over, tell me where you are, and some mages will be along to get you shortly.”

“I don’t think we can do that,” Callum said, heart pounding.

“And why not?” Master Rufus’s eyebrows twitched with barely contained annoyance.

Call hesitated.

“Because we’re on a mission,” Tamara said quickly. “We’re going to recover the Alkahest.”

“I’m the Makar,” Aaron said. “I’m supposed to save people. They’re not supposed to save me — they resent having to save me. And I’ve been told plenty that I can’t succeed doing stuff alone, so Call is here to be my counterweight. Tamara is here because she’s clever and crafty. And Jasper is …”

“Comic relief?” Call ventured under his breath.

“I’m your friend, too, you idiot!” Jasper burst out. “I can be clever!”

“Anyway,” Aaron said, trying to recover the situation. “We’re a team and we’re getting the Alkahest back, so please don’t send any other elementals after us.”

“Send any other elementals after you?” Master Rufus sounded genuinely confused. “What on earth do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Aaron said in that flat voice he used when he was angry and trying not to show it. “We all know. Automotones nearly killed us, and he came from the Magisterium. You released him to hunt us down.”

Now Master Rufus looked shocked. “There must be a mistake. Automotones is here, our prisoner; he has been for hundreds of years.”

“It’s not a mistake,” Tamara said. “Maybe the other mages didn’t tell you, because we’re your apprentices. But it absolutely happened. Automotones murdered a woman, too. Burned her house down.”

Tamara’s voice shook.

“These are lies,” Master Rufus said.

“We’re not lying,” Aaron told him. “But I guess that means you trust us about as much as we trust you.”

“Then you’re being lied to,” said Master Rufus. “I don’t know — I don’t understand yet — but you must come back to the Magisterium. It’s more important now than ever. This is the only place where I can protect you.”

“We’re not coming back.” Surprisingly, Jasper was speaking. He turned to Call. “Hang up the phone.”

Call stared at ghostly Rufus. “I, uh, don’t know how.”

“Earth!” Tamara yelped. “Earth is the opposite of air!”

“Right. I, uh —” Call reached down and grabbed Miri out of the sheath on his belt. Metal had earth magic properties. “Sorry,” he said, and plunged the knife into ghostly Rufus.

Rufus disappeared with a pop, like a burst bubble.

Tamara screamed.

“I didn’t kill him, did I?” Call said, looking around at everyone’s shocked faces. Only Havoc seemed unmoved. He’d gone back to sleep.

“No,” Jasper said. “It’s just, most people just use the earth power to shut down the connection. But I guess that’s a lot of restraint to expect from you, weirdo.”

“I am not a weirdo,” Call grumbled, sheathing his blade.

“You’re a little weird,” Aaron said.

“Oh, yeah, well, who lost their protective rock?” Call demanded. “Who forgot to transfer it to their new clothes?”

Tamara groaned in frustration. “That’s how the mages found us! Jasper, did you?”

Jasper held up his hands, flummoxed. “That’s what that rock was? No one told me!”

“Now isn’t the time to worry about this,” Aaron insisted. “We made some mistakes. The important thing is that we hide from the mages as best we can.”

Call went to pull the car back onto the main road, when he realized the engine had stalled out.

Aaron had to spark the wires all over again, while they held their collective breaths, since there were no more cars to take if the Morris conked out on them. A few moments later, though, Aaron had it running once more.

Tamara didn’t have any more stones, so they took turns passing around the ones they had, so the mages might not scry the right person at the right time.

Call drove for the rest of the day and through the night, with the other kids sleeping in shifts. Call didn’t sleep, though. At each rest stop, he acquired more and more coffee until he felt as though his head was going to spin around like a top and then pop right off.

The landscape had changed, becoming more mountainous. The air was cooler, and pine trees took the place of mulberry and dogwood.

“I could drive for a while,” Tamara offered, coming out of a Gas and Grub in Maine. Dawn was breaking by then and Call had been caught at least once driving with a single eye open.

Aaron had bought a Butterfinger and a Honey Bun and was mashing the candy bar into the pastry to make a bizarre sugar hot dog. Call approved. Jasper ate pretzels and stared.

“No,” Call said, taking a swig from his coffee. One of his eyes twitched a little, but he ignored it. “I’ve got this.”

Tamara shrugged and handed the directions to Jasper. It was his turn to navigate.

“I refuse,” Jasper said, taking a long look at Call. “You need to sleep. You’re going to drive into a ditch and we’re going to die, all because you won’t take a nap. So take a nap!”

“I’ll set an alarm,” Tamara offered.

“I could stretch my legs,” said Aaron. “Go ahead. Lie down in the backseat.”

Now that they mentioned it, Call was feeling kind of fuzzy-headed. “Okay,” he said, yawning. “But just for twenty minutes. Dad used to say that that was the ideal amount of time for a nap.”

“We’ll take Havoc for a real walk,” Tamara said. “See you in twenty.”

Call climbed into the backseat. But when he closed his eyes, what he saw was Master Rufus, his eyes going wide as Call drew Miri and stabbed the image of him. His expression had reminded Call of the way his father had looked, right before Call used magic to slam him against a wall.

Despite being exhausted, Call couldn’t stop his brain from showing him those images over and over again.

And as soon as he shoved those images away, new ones rose up to take their place. Images of things that hadn’t happened yet, but might. The look of betrayal on Aaron’s face when he discovered who Call really was, the look of fury on Tamara’s. Jasper’s smug certainty that he’d been right about Call all along.

Finally, he gave up and got out of the car. Early-morning sunlight dappled the grass, and the music of distant birdsong hung in the air. Aaron and Tamara and Havoc were gone, but Jasper was sitting at a worn old picnic table. Sparks flew from his fingers as he set fire to a pinecone and then watched it turn to embers.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Jasper said.