“Aaron, duck!”

He ducked. She threw the fire. It arced over Aaron’s head, landed among the mass of the Chaos-ridden, and exploded. Some of the Chaos-ridden caught fire, but they kept coming. Their expressions didn’t change, even when they fell down, still burning.

Now Call was more afraid than he could remember being. Aaron was nearing the first line of the enemy army. He held his hand up, chaos beginning to whirl and grow in his palm like a tiny hurricane. It swirled upward —

The Chaos-ridden reached Aaron. They seemed to swallow him up among them for a moment, and Call’s stomach dropped into his shoes.

Call started to stumble toward them — and halted. He could see Aaron again, standing stock-still, looking bewildered. The Chaos-ridden were walking around him, making no move to touch him at all, like water parting around a rock in a stream.

They marched past Aaron, and Call could hear Jasper and Tamara breathing harshly, because the Chaos-ridden were moving in their direction now. Maybe they wanted to take out the weak ones before starting on Aaron. Call was the only one with a knife, although he wasn’t sure how much Miri would help. He wondered if he’d die here, protecting Tamara and Jasper — and Aaron. It was a heroic way to go, at least. Maybe it would prove he wasn’t what his father thought.

The Chaos-ridden had reached them. Aaron was trying to push his way through, trying to reach his friends. The first of the Chaos-ridden, the huge man with the spiked wristbands, came to a stop in front of Call.

Call tightened his grip on Miri. Whatever else, he would go down fighting.

The Chaos-ridden spoke. Its voice sounded like a croak, rusty from disuse. “Master,” it said, fixing its whirling eyes on Call. “We have waited for you for so long.”

The first Chaos-ridden knelt down in front of Call. And then the next Chaos-ridden knelt, and the next, until they were all on their knees and Aaron was standing among them, staring at Call across the clearing with a look of disbelief.

MASTER,” SAID THE leader of the Chaos-ridden (or at least that’s what Call assumed he was). “Shall we kill the Makar for you?”

“No,” Call said quickly, horrified. “No, just — stay where you are. Stay,” he added, as if he were talking to Havoc.

None of the Chaos-ridden moved. Aaron began walking toward Call, boots crunching on pine needles. He navigated his way gingerly among the kneeling army.

“What,” said Jasper, “is going on?”

Call felt a hand on his shoulder. Whirling around, he saw it was Tamara. She was staring at the Chaos-ridden; she ripped her gaze away from them and fastened it on Call. “Tell us what this all means,” she said. “Tell us what you are to them.”

It was there in her voice — even if she didn’t know the answer already, she strongly suspected it. Call had thought Tamara would look angry, figuring this out. But she didn’t. She looked incredibly sad, which was worse.

“Call?” Aaron asked. He was standing only a couple of feet from Call now, but it felt like a long way away. He stood there uncertainly, trying not to look around him at the Chaos-ridden, who remained on their knees, awaiting a command. Call looked over them, some of their bodies young and some old, but none of them beneath fourteen years of age. None of them younger than he was.

Tamara shook her head. “You were mad at me for lying to you. Don’t lie to us now.”

There was a torturously terrible pause. Jasper was staring (and still grasping his stick, as if that would protect him). But Aaron was looking at Call hopefully, as if he expected Call to be able to clear all of this up, and that was the worst.

“I’m the … Enemy of Death,” Call said. The Chaos-ridden made a noise — a sort of long sigh, all of them at once. None of them moved, but it served as an awful testament to what Call was saying. “I’m Constantine Madden — or whatever’s left of him.”

“That’s not possible,” Aaron said, speaking slowly, as if he thought Call had hit his head too hard. “The Enemy of Death is alive. He’s at war with us!”

“No, Master Joseph is,” said Call. He stumbled on, through the explanation he’d been given, the one he didn’t want to understand. “The Enemy of Death was dying at the Cold Massacre. He pushed his soul into the body of a baby.” He swallowed. “That baby was me. My soul is Constantine Madden’s soul. I am Constantine.”

“You mean you killed the real Callum Hunt and took his place,” Jasper accused. Fire ignited in his palm, spreading up the bark of the stick he held until the tip of it burst into flame. It was probably the best display of fire magic Jasper had ever achieved, but he barely seemed to notice. “Quickly — we have to destroy him before he kills us all, before he kills the Makar. Aaron, you have to run!”

Aaron remained exactly where he was, though, staring at Call with a mix of disbelief and misery. “But you can’t be,” he said finally. “You’re my best friend.”

The Chaos-ridden leader lurched to his feet. All the other Chaos-ridden rose as well, like an army of puppets. They began to march toward Jasper, passing around Call as if he weren’t there.

“Wait,” Call shouted. “Don’t! Everyone stop.”

Nothing happened. The dead-eyed warriors kept coming. They weren’t moving fast, but they were moving steadily toward Jasper, who wasn’t backing away. The flame in Jasper’s hand still burned and there was a terrible look in his eyes, as though he was ready to die fighting. It was a far cry from the Jasper who had complained throughout the trip, the Jasper who whined over minor injuries. This Jasper appeared fearless.

But Call knew it wouldn’t do Jasper any good. However fearless he was, he couldn’t hold his own against hundreds of Chaos-ridden. Call had been terrified before when they had obeyed him; now he was terrified that they wouldn’t.

“Stop!” he shouted again, in a ringing voice. “You, who are born of chaos and the void, stop! I command it!”

They lurched to a stop. Jasper was breathing hard; Tamara was at his side, light burning in her palm. Aaron had moved toward them as well. His heart lurched. His friends, ranged against him.

“I didn’t know,” Call said, hearing the pleading in his own voice. “When I came to the Magisterium, I didn’t know.”

They all stared at him. Finally, Tamara spoke. “I believe you, Call,” she said.

Call swallowed and went on. “Most of the time, it doesn’t even seem possible. I’m not going to hurt anyone, okay? But, Jasper — if you go for me, the Chaos-ridden are going to kill you. I don’t know if I can stop them.”

“So when did you find out?” Aaron demanded. “That you were — what you are?”

“At the bowling alley, last year,” Call said. “Master Joseph told me, but I didn’t want to believe him. I think my dad always suspected, though.”

“And that’s why he threw such a fit when you didn’t flunk out of the Magisterium,” Jasper said. “Because he knew you were evil. He knew you were a monster.”

Call flinched.

“That’s why he wanted Master Rufus to bind your magic,” said Aaron.

Call hadn’t realized how much he had wanted Aaron to contradict Jasper, until he didn’t. “Listen, here’s the part I couldn’t explain, because it wouldn’t have made sense before. My dad doesn’t want to hurt Aaron with the Alkahest. He wants to use it to fix me.”