“You let me fall,” Jasper moaned.

“I did not,” Aaron said defensively. “He said he could do it himself! He said he’d be fine!”

“Seems okay to me,” said Call. Tamara shot him a quelling look and ran over to Jasper, who pushed himself half upright.

“Ow,” Jasper muttered, collapsing again. “Ow ow ow.”

Tamara was leaning over Jasper, who was milking the attention for all it was worth.

“The pain,” he said. “The agony.”

“Aaron, don’t you have a first-aid kit in your backpack?” Tamara said.

“Yeah, but I left my backpack behind.” Aaron scanned the sky. “How long do you think before they notice they’re hauling an empty car?”

“Probably not very long,” Tamara said. “We need to hide.”

“Right,” Aaron said. “Stand back, Tamara, Jasper.” He reached out a hand and caught Call’s wrist. “Call. Stay.”

Puzzled, Call stayed, as Tamara, Jasper, and Havoc moved a few feet away. Aaron looked exhausted — Call suspected they all did. The aftereffects of the air magic were beginning to catch up with him, flattening out the adrenaline that had been keeping him going. No twenty-minute nap was going to help. He felt as though he might fall over.

Aaron took a deep breath and raised the hand that wasn’t holding Call’s wrist. His fingers shone with a black glow. The darkness spilled down like acid, spreading across the ground. Dissolving it.

Call could feel the pull and tug inside him that meant Aaron was drawing on him to work chaos. Aaron’s eyes were closed, fingers digging into Call’s skin.

“Aaron?” Call said, but Aaron didn’t react. Soil was churning at their feet, like a whirlpool. It was hard to see what was happening, but the force of it shook the ground. Tamara held on to Jasper to keep upright.

“Aaron!” For the first time, Call could imagine how the Enemy of Death’s brother, Jericho, had died. Constantine might have gotten so caught up in the magic he was doing that he forgot about his brother until it was too late.

Aaron wrenched his grip free of Call’s arm. He was breathing hard. The dust of disturbed earth had begun to settle, and Call and the others could see that Aaron had torn a chunk of the ground free, hollowing out a sort of hole, hidden from sight by an overhang of grassy rock.

“You made us a dirt cave,” Jasper said. “Huh.”

Aaron’s sweaty hair was stuck to his forehead and when he looked at Jasper, Call thought that he might be seriously considering disappearing him into the void.

“Let’s rest,” Tamara said. “Call, I know you’re in a hurry to get to Alastair, but we’re all tired and the air magic wiped us out.” She did look a little gray; so did Jasper. “Let’s hide out until we all have our strength back.”

Call wanted to object, but he couldn’t. He was just too tired. He crawled into the cave and flopped down on the ground. He wished for a blanket … and that was his last thought before he dropped into sleep, falling as quickly and as deeply as if he’d been struck in the back of the head.

When he woke, the sun was setting in a blaze of orange. Tamara was slumbering beside him, one hand in Havoc’s fur. On Tamara’s other side, Aaron was tossing fitfully, his eyes closed. Jasper slept, too, his jacket wadded up as a pillow beneath his head.

Call heard a rustling sound outside the cave. He wondered if it was some kind of animal.

Digging around in his pack, he found a half-eaten candy bar and made short work of it. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been resting, but he knew he felt more awake and alert than he had since they’d embarked on this mission. A strange calm settled over him.

I should leave them, he thought.

They’d come far enough. He’d never had friends like this, friends who were willing to risk everything to help him. He didn’t want to reward his friends by leading them to their doom.

Then Call heard another rustling, closer this time. It didn’t sound like an animal, more like a herd, moving slowly and quietly through the brush.

He revised his plan rapidly.

“Tamara, wake up,” Call whispered, poking her with his foot. “Something’s out there.”

She rolled over and opened her eyes. “Mrmph?”

“Out there,” he repeated softly. “Something.”

She poked Aaron and he got Jasper up, both of them yawning and groaning at being awoken.

“I don’t hear anything,” Jasper complained.

“Let’s check it out,” Aaron whispered. “Come on.”

“What if it’s the mages?” Tamara said quietly. “Maybe we should just hunker down?”

Call shook his head. “If they come in here, there’s nowhere to run. We’re literally backed against a wall.”

No one could deny that, so they got their stuff and, tugging Havoc along, emerged from the cave. Night was falling.

“You’ve lost it,” Jasper said. “There’s nothing out here.”

But then they all heard it, a rustling that came from two places at once.

“Maybe the mages found us,” Aaron said. “Maybe we could —”

But it wasn’t a mage that stepped out of the foliage.

It was a Chaos-ridden human who emerged, slack-faced and staring with coruscating eyes that spun with colors like a kaleidoscope. He was huge, dressed in ragged black clothes. Looking more closely, Call realized they were the remains of a uniform. A ripped, old, mud-stained, blood-soaked uniform. There was an emblem over his heart, but in the gloom, Call couldn’t make out what it was.

Jasper had gone papery white. He’d never seen one of the Chaos-ridden before, Call realized.

Call had only long enough to be horrified when another one stepped out to his left. He spun, clutching Miri in his hand, just as a third surged out of some undergrowth to his right. And then another, and another, and another, all pallid and sunken-eyed, a flood of Chaos-ridden coming from all sides.

The Enemy’s army outnumbered them.

“W-what do we do?” gasped Jasper. He had grabbed up a stick from the forest floor and was brandishing it. Tamara was shaping a fireball between her hands. They were steady but her expression was panicked.

“Get behind me,” Aaron ordered. “All of you.”

Jasper moved behind him with alacrity. Tamara was still working on her fireball, but she was already behind Aaron. Most of the Chaos-ridden were massed on the opposite side of the clearing, staring at them with their whirling eyes. Their silence was eerie.

“I won’t,” Call said. He didn’t feel afraid. He didn’t know why. “You can’t. I’m your counterweight and I can tell you’re not rested enough. You just used chaos magic. It’s too soon to do it again.”

Aaron’s jaw was set. “I have to try.”

“There’s too many of them,” Call argued as the army began to advance. “The chaos will consume you.”

“I’ll take them down with me,” Aaron said grimly. “Better this than the Alkahest, right?”

“Aaron —”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, and ran toward them, skidding across pine needles. Tamara looked up from her fireball and screamed.