“Because we thought you knew,” Master Joseph ground out. “I thought you were lying low on purpose — allowing your mind and body to grow so that you might once again become the formidable foe to the Assembly that you were before. I did not approach you because I assumed that if you wished to be approached, you would have contacted me.”

Call laughed bitterly. “So you didn’t come near me because you didn’t want to blow my cover, and all that time, I didn’t even know I had a cover? That’s freaking hilarious.”

“I see nothing amusing about it.” Master Joseph didn’t change expression. “It is fortunate that my son — that Drew was able to ascertain that you had no idea who you really are, or you might have inadvertently given yourself away.”

Call stared at Master Joseph. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked abruptly.

“Kill you? I’ve been waiting for you,” Joseph said. “All these many years.”

“Well, your whole stupid plan has been for nothing, then,” Call said. “I am going to go back and tell Master Rufus who I really am. I am going to tell everyone at the Magisterium that my father was right, and that they should have listened to him. And I’m going to stop you.”

Master Joseph smiled, shaking his head. “I think I know you a little better than that, in any guise. You’ll go back and you’ll finish your Iron Year, and when you return for your Copper Year, we’ll talk again.”

“No, we won’t.” Call felt childish and small, the weight of the horror overwhelming him. “I’ll tell them —”

“Tell them what you are? They’ll bind your magic.”

“They won’t —”

“They will,” said Master Joseph. “If they don’t kill you. They’ll bind your magic and they’ll send you away to a father who knows now, for certain, that he is not your father.”

Call swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought, until this moment, what Alastair’s reaction would be to this revelation. His father, who had begged Rufus to bind his magic … just in case.

“You’ll lose your friends. Do you really think they’d let you close to their precious Makar, knowing who you are? They will raise Aaron Stewart to be your enemy. That’s what they’ve been looking for all this time. That’s what Aaron is. He is not your companion. He is your destruction.”

“Aaron’s my friend,” Call said, in a hopeless sort of voice. He could hear how he sounded, but he couldn’t stop it.

“As you say, Call.” Master Joseph had the serene look of a man who knew better. “It seems your friend has some choices ahead of him. As do you.”

“I choose,” said Call. “I choose to go back to the Magisterium and tell them the truth.”

Joseph smiled a glittering smile. “Do you?” he said. “It is easy enough to stand here and throw your defiance at me. I would have expected nothing less from Constantine Madden. You were always defiant. But when it comes down to the wire, when the choice must be made, will you really give up everything that matters to you for the sake of an abstract ideal you only partly understand?”

Call shook his head. “But I’d have to give it up anyway. You’re not exactly going to let me go back to the Magisterium.”

“Of course I am,” Master Joseph said.

Call jolted back, slamming his elbow painfully into the wall behind him. “What?”

“Oh, my Master,” the older mage breathed. “Don’t you see —”

He never finished his sentence. With an enormous crash, the roof tore itself apart. Call barely had time to look up before everything overhead seemed to explode in a shower of splintered wood and concrete. He heard Master Joseph’s hoarse shout, just before a mountain of rubble poured down between them, obscuring the mage from view. The ground buckled under Call, who fell sideways, throwing out his arm to pin a squirming, panicked Havoc.

Everything shook for another moment, and Call buried his face in the wolf’s fur, trying not to choke on the thick, swirling dust. Maybe the world was ending. Maybe Master Joseph’s allies had decided to blow the whole place up. He didn’t know, and he almost didn’t care.

“Call?” Through the ringing in his ears, Call heard the familiar voice. Tamara. He rolled over, one hand still gripped in Havoc’s fur, and saw what had ripped the building apart.

The huge sign that read MOUNTAIN BOWLING had plunged through the roof, slicing the building in half like an axe plunging through a concrete block. Aaron was crouching on top of the sign as if he had ridden it down through the air, Tamara behind him. The sign was sparking and hissing where electrical wires had been severed and bent.

Aaron sprang off the sign and ran across the floor to Call, bending down to grab his arm. “Call, come on!”

In disbelief, Call scrambled up, letting Aaron haul him to his feet. Havoc gave a whine and jumped up, planting his front paws on Aaron’s waist.

“Aaron!” Tamara yelled. She was pointing behind them. Call spun around and peered down through the clouds of dust and rubble. There was no sign of Master Joseph.

But that didn’t mean they were alone. Call turned back to Aaron.

“Chaos-ridden,” Call said grimly. The hallway was full of them, marching over the rubble, their gait eerily regular, their roiling eyes burning like fires.

“Come on!” Aaron turned and sprinted toward the sign, jumping up onto it and reaching back to haul Call up after him. The sign was still attached to its base: The main part of it had crashed through the building at an angle, like a spoon that had fallen into a pot and was leaning against the side. Tamara was already running up over the words MOUNTAIN BOWLING, Havoc at her heels. Call started to limp after her, when he realized Aaron wasn’t following. He whirled around, sparks springing up from the wires at his feet.

The room below them was rapidly filling with Chaos-ridden, who were methodically making their way over to the sign. Several of them were already climbing onto it. Aaron stood a few feet above them, looking down.

Tamara had already made it far enough up the sign to drop onto the roof. “Come on!” he heard her shout as she realized they hadn’t followed her — and that she had no way to get back up onto the sign. “Call! Aaron!”

But Aaron wasn’t moving. He was balanced on the sign as if it were a surfboard, the expression on his face grim. His hair was white with powdered concrete, his gray uniform torn and bloody. Slowly, he raised his hand, and for the first time, Call saw not just Aaron his friend, but the Makar, the chaos magician, someone who could be as powerful one day as the Enemy of Death.

Someone who would be the Enemy’s enemy.

His enemy.

Darkness spread from Aaron’s hand like a bolt of black lightning: It shot forward, wrapping the Chaos-ridden in shadowy tendrils. As the darkness touched them, the lights in their eyes went out, and they slid to the ground, limp and unresisting.

That’s what they’ve been looking for all this time. Your destruction. That’s what Aaron is.

“Aaron!” Call shouted, sliding down the sign toward him. Aaron didn’t turn, didn’t even seem to hear him. He stood where he was, black light exploding from his hand, searing a path across the sky. He looked terrifying. “Aaron,” Call gasped, and tripped over a knot of torn wires. Excruciating pain shot through his leg as his body twisted and he fell, knocking Aaron to the ground, half pinning the other boy under him. The black light vanished as Aaron’s back hit the metal of the sign, his hands jammed between himself and Call.