“Your father held him back,” Aaron said.

Havoc took a few steps toward Call. Call held his arms out and Havoc bounded into them, licking his face.

“That’s a way more touching reunion than you had with me,” Tamara said. She was going over Aaron’s cuts and scratches, using earth magic to heal the worst of them. She’d already fixed Jasper’s bloody lip.

Call patted Havoc on the head. “I should have known Master Joseph wasn’t going to kidnap you. He only likes dead things and weird things.”

“We’re all weird,” Tamara pointed out. She examined Aaron. He’d used what must have been immense amounts of chaos magic without a counterweight and, although he was still standing, he looked on the verge of collapse. “Well, you’re not actively bleeding anymore, but I don’t know enough healing magic to check to see if you have anything sprained, or broken, or —”

“Is anyone going to talk about the fact that Call’s a Makar?” Jasper said, cutting into the discussion.

Everyone looked horrified. “Jasper!” said Tamara.

“Oh, sorry,” Jasper said. “I didn’t realize we were pretending it didn’t happen.” He turned to Call. “Did you know you were a Makar before? Oh, wait, never mind, I forgot I can’t trust anything you say.”

“He didn’t know,” said Alastair. “Chaos magic was locked into Constantine’s body and when the body was destroyed, the chaos magic was released. It must have been attracted to Call’s soul. When Constantine became a Makar, it was because there was a danger to his brother. Jericho was attacked by a rogue elemental in the caverns, and Constantine — made it disappear.”

Tamara looked at him narrowly. “How do you know that?” she said.

“Because I was in the same apprentice group that he was,” said Alastair. “There were five of us. Sarah, Declan, Jericho, Constantine, and me. Rufus was our Master.”

Aaron, Tamara, and Jasper all goggled at him. “They say Constantine got perfect scores on the Trials,” said Jasper. “Perfect scores.”

“We were the best in our year,” said Alastair. He sounded tired and distant, like he was talking about something that had happened a million years ago.

“You were friends with Constantine? Good friends?” Aaron said. Despite being messy and bloody and dirty, he looked ready to defend himself, to defend them all.

“He and Jericho and Sarah were my best friends,” said Alastair. “You know how apprentice groups are.”

“Speaking of which,” Tamara said, casting a worried glance at Aaron, “we need to figure out how to get this apprentice group out of here.”

“Nice segue,” Call muttered. Tamara gave him a dirty look.

“Water magic,” Alastair said, and started to walk down to the edge of the beach. “Gather up some wood. We’ll spell together a raft.”

Suddenly, the whole beach lit up as if a spotlight had been shone on it. Call staggered back, clutching his backpack, fingers digging into the straps. He heard Jasper yell something, and then mages were flying above them.

Master North, Master Rockmaple, Master Milagros, and Master Rufus hovered in the air.

“Dad,” Call shouted, rushing to his father. “They’re going to kill you — you have to go. I can try to hold them off!”

“No!” Alastair cried against the wind. “I deserve punishment for taking the Alkahest, but I’m not the one who’s in the greatest danger —”

“CALLUM,” Master Rufus said. “TAMARA. AARON. ALASTAIR. JASPER. DO NOT STRUGGLE.”

And with that, air swirled around Call, thickening and lifting them into the sky. Despite what Master Rufus said, Call still struggled.

“We must have been hidden from them by the tomb,” Tamara said. “It must have been enchanted the way the Magisterium is — to prevent scrying. But now that it’s gone, they found us.”

“Don’t hurt us!” Jasper shouted. “We surrender!”

Master North raised his hands and out of clouds came three long eel-like air elementals. They were large and placid, until they unhinged massive jaws. He saw one swallow Aaron, gulping him down into its gullet. A moment later, the second elemental was racing toward him, large maw waiting.

“Aaaaugh!” Call yelled as he tumbled inside it. He was expecting to land in the stomach of a creature, but where he fell was soft and shapeless and dry, the way he imagined lying on clouds might feel — even though he knew that clouds were actually just a bunch of water.

Havoc rolled in after him, looking really freaked out. The Chaos-ridden wolf howled and Call hurried over to try to calm him down. Call wasn’t sure Havoc was going to get used to flying. Then Alastair came rolling in, hands still up, as though he was in the middle of readying a spell.

The elemental began to move, swimming through the sky, following the mages back to the Magisterium. Call could tell where it was going, because he could see through the creature in places. It was opaque and cloudy in some spots, translucent in others, and completely transparent in a very few spots. But wherever he touched, the elemental seemed like a solid thing.

“Dad?” Call said. “What’s going on?”

“I think the mages want to be sure we don’t get away, so they created a prison inside an elemental. Impressive.” Alastair sat down on the cloud belly of the creature. “You four must be quite slippery.”

“I guess,” Call said. He knew what he had to say to his father, what he’d wanted to say since he’d first seen Alastair’s notes to Master Joseph. “I’m sorry about what happened. You know, this summer.”

Alastair glanced over at Havoc, who was trying to pull up his paws at once and slipping around. Call followed his glance and remembered that he wasn’t sorry about everything.

“I’m sorry, too, Callum,” Alastair said. “You must have been very frightened by what you saw in the garage.”

“I was afraid you were going to hurt Havoc,” Call said.

“Is that all?”

Call shrugged. “I thought you were going to use the Alkahest to test out your theory about me. Like, if I died, then I was really —”

Alastair cut him off. “I understand. You don’t need to say anything else. I don’t want anyone to overhear us.”

“When did you start to suspect?”

Call saw the weariness in Alastair’s face as he answered, “For a long time. Maybe since I left the cave.”

“Why didn’t you say anything — to me, at least?”

Alastair looked around, as though evaluating if the elemental might be eavesdropping on them. “What was the point?” he said finally. “Better you not know, I thought. Better you never know. But we can’t speak about this anymore now.”

“Are you mad at me?” Call asked in a small voice.

“For what happened in the storage room?” Alastair asked. “No, I’m angry with myself. I suspected Master Joseph had been in contact; I worried he already had his hooks in you. I thought that if you knew more, you might be tempted by the idea of power. And after he began writing to me, I was afraid of what he wanted to do to you. But I forgot how frightened you must have been.”