“I know,” Call told him. “But I wanted to talk to you about something, while the others aren’t here.”

Jasper narrowed his eyes. “Oh, going behind your friends’ backs? This should be interesting.”

Call sat down at the picnic table. The wind had picked up and it was blowing his hair into his eyes. “When we get to the destination on the map, hopefully, my father is going to be there and he’s still going to have the Alkahest. But I need to talk to him — alone.”

“About what?”

“He’ll listen to me, but not if he thinks a bunch of apprentices are going to attack him. And I don’t want Aaron getting too close, in case my dad does try to hurt him. I need you and Tamara and Aaron to keep back, at least until I finish my conversation.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Jasper still looked suspicious, but not unconvinced.

Call couldn’t tell him the truth — that it was easier to lie to Jasper than to his friends. “Because you care about protecting Aaron a lot more than you care about protecting me.”

“True,” said Jasper. “He’s the Makar. You’re just …” He looked curiously at Call. “I don’t know what you are.”

“Yeah, well,” Call said. “That makes two of us.”

Before Jasper could say anything else, Tamara and Aaron appeared from between the trees, Havoc bounding around excitedly beside them.

Call slid off the bench. “What’s he so happy about?”

“He ate a squirrel.” Tamara sounded disapproving.

As Call headed toward the car, he bent down to pet Havoc’s head and whispered, “Good dog. Excellent hunting instincts. We eat squirrels, not people, am I right?”

“Never too early to start molding his character,” Aaron said.

“That’s what I was thinking.” Together Call and Aaron helped heave a reluctant Havoc into the backseat. Jasper and Tamara clambered in after him, and Aaron took the passenger seat.

The moment they all sat down, the doors of the car slammed shut in unison.

“What’s going on?” Tamara demanded. She scrabbled at her door, but it wouldn’t open. None of their doors would budge. “Start the car, Aaron!”

Aaron reached across Call for the wires, trying to get a spark. Nothing happened. No sound of the engine turning over. He did it again, and again. Sweat started to prickle along Call’s back. What was going on?

From the backseat, Jasper shouted, “I tried to use metal magic and sparks hurt my hand instead.”

“It must be warded,” said Tamara.

Something swooped in front of the windshield. Call yelled and Aaron jerked back, wires dropping from his hands.

Two huge air elementals had appeared in front of the car. One of them looked like a six-legged horse, if horses were about twice the size they normally were. The other one resembled a brontosaurus with wings. Both were bridled and saddled: Master Rockmaple was riding one, and Master Milagros the second.

“We are in so much trouble,” said Jasper.

Master Milagros slid from the back of her six-legged horse and stalked over to the car. She lifted her hands, spread her fingers, and hurled from her palms long threads of glimmering metal wires. They wrapped around the front of the car and within seconds, it was tightly secured.

As she performed her metal magic, Milagros looked through the windshield at the kids. She shook her head disapprovingly, but Callum thought she looked a little bit as if she found the whole thing … funny.

She whirled around without a word to them and marched back to the elementals. She tossed a rope of metal to Rockmaple and climbed back up onto her own elemental, securing her rope to the pommel of the saddle.

“Oh, my God,” said Tamara. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She threw herself against her door, but the car was already rising into the air like the basket below a balloon. Everyone in the car shrieked as maps and empty soda cans and candy bar wrappers flew off the dashboard and out of the cup holders and rattled around inside the car.

“What are they doing?” Call yelled over the sound of the wind.

“Taking us to the Magisterium — what do you think?” Jasper yelled back.

“They’re going to fly us to Virginia? Won’t someone normal, you know, notice?”

“They’re probably using air magic to block us from view,” Tamara said. Then she yelped as the car swung out over the forest below. All Call could see beneath them were miles of green trees.

“In movies, people pretend to be sick to get their jailers to let them out,” Aaron told them. “Maybe one of us could try throwing up — or frothing from the mouth.”

“Like we’re rabid?” Call asked.

“We don’t have time to argue,” Tamara said, reaching into her satchel, clearly completely panicked, and coming out with a little bottle of clear liquid. “I have hand soap. Quick, Jasper, drink it. You’ll definitely froth.”

“I am not drinking that,” Jasper said. “I am a deWinter. We do not froth.”

Aaron squinted at the air elementals pulling their car like a sled, as though he was reconsidering his own plan. “I’m not sure they’d hear us if we shouted anyway.”

“Wait,” said Call, turning in his seat. “I’ve watched my dad work on cars my whole life. You know what goes really early? The floor pan. Look down. It’s rusted, right? All we have to do is kick.”

For a moment, they all just stared at him. Then Tamara started kicking the floor with a vengeance. Havoc leaped up onto the seat, whining as Aaron climbed over the passenger seat to help. After three kicks, his booted foot went right through.

“This is going to work!” Jasper shouted, as much with surprise as with anything else.

A few more kicks and they were able to peel back the floor of the car. Tamara looked over at Call and then Aaron.

“Ready?” she asked.

“I’ve got Havoc,” Call said.

“Wait, who’s got me?” Jasper asked, but Call ignored him and, grabbing hold of his wolf and his backpack, jumped out into the dark nothingness below the car. Havoc yipped, limbs flailing, tail cycling.

Above him, Call saw Tamara leaping out, her hair flying up in the blue sky. A moment later, he saw what he thought was Aaron shoving Jasper through the hole. Then Aaron appeared, falling through the air.

Call drew on the air, weaving an invisible net of magic around and beneath him. His fall slowed, and Havoc stopped barking as they descended steadily into the woods below.

Call hit the ground on his back, but the impact was light. He let go of Havoc, who rolled to his feet, his eyes wild. Call wasn’t sure exactly where they were and cursed himself for, in his panic, not remembering the map. But a moment later he realized that he couldn’t have found their place on it anyway. Even if they’d had it, it would have been useless.

Beside him, Havoc whined, looking up in the sky, as though he might be forced to fly again at any moment. He barked as Tamara drifted down gracefully, her dark braid floating up around her head. She alighted on a fallen log, a huge smile on her face. “That was amazing,” she said. “I always thought I liked fire magic the best, but air —”

WHAM! Jasper slammed down onto a pile of pine needles. A moment later Aaron touched down beside him, his arms crossed, looking furious.