The Copper Gauntlet by Holly Black

CALL UNDERSTOOD WHY neighbor kids would want to sneak into the party. When he came back through the doors with Aaron, Tamara, and a freshly brushed Havoc on a new leash, he took in the full scope of the event and was amazed.

Cloth-covered tables were heaped with platters of food — tiny chicken sausages in pastry, fruit cut into the shapes of moons and stars and suns, salads of herbs and pickled tomatoes, blocks of gooey cheese and crackers, popcorn shrimp on tiny skewers, blackened scallops, seared tuna, gelatin molds with chunks of meat suspended in them, and chilled tins of tiny black beads resting in bowls of ice that Call thought was probably caviar.

Lion-size ice sculptures of manticores flapped crystalline wings that sent a cooling breeze into the air, ice frogs leaped from table to table, and ice pirate ships soared into the sky before running aground on ice rocks. At a central table an ice fountain ran with red punch instead of water. Four ice peacocks perched on the edges of the sculpture, using sparkling claws to ladle the drink into ice cups for passing guests.

Beside the banquet stood a line of topiaries trimmed into tidy shapes — flowers, symbols, patterns, and letters. Bright flowers ringed each trunk, but the brightest sight of all was an arched folly with a waterfall of liquid fire. It flamed and sparked onto the grass where barefoot girls in party frocks ran back and forth putting their hands into the sparks, which ran up and down their skin without seeming to burn them. As if to drive home the point, a painted sign hung in the air above the waterfall. It read CHILDREN, PLEASE PLAY WITH THE FIRE.

Call kind of wanted to run back and forth in it, too, but he wasn’t sure if he was allowed or if it was just for little kids. Havoc nosed in the grass for dropped bits of food. Tamara had tied a pink bow around his neck. Call wondered if Havoc felt humiliated. He didn’t seem to be.

“You’ve been going to parties like this all summer?” Call asked Aaron.

Aaron looked a little uncomfortable. “Pretty much.”

“I’ve been going to parties like this all my life,” Tamara said, dragging them along. “They’re just parties. They get boring fast. Now come on, the glamours are actually cool. You don’t want to miss them.”

They went past the topiaries and the fire waterfall, past the tables and the clumps of partygoers to a wide stretch of lawn, where a small group had gathered. Call could tell they were mages not just by the subtle bands that glittered on their wrists but also from their air of confidence and power.

“What’s going to happen?” Call asked.

Tamara grinned. “The mages are going to show off.”

As if he’d heard her, one of the mages, a compactly built man with light brown skin, raised his hand. The area around the mages started to crowd as Mr. and Mrs. Rajavi called over the rest of the partygoers.

“That’s Master Cameron,” Tamara whispered, looking at the mage, whose hand had begun to glow. “He teaches at the Collegium. He does the best tricks with —”

Suddenly, a wave rose from the mage’s hand. It was as if the grass were the sea instead, goaded into producing a tidal wave. It grew and grew and grew until it towered above them, shadowing the party, large enough to crush the house and flood the grounds. Call sucked in a breath.

The air smelled of brine. Inside the wave, he could see things moving. Eels and sharks snapping their jaws. Salt spray splashed Call’s face as the whole thing crashed down … and disappeared.

Everyone burst into applause. Call would have clapped, too, if he hadn’t been holding Havoc’s leash in one hand. Havoc was whining and nosing his fur. He hated being wet.

“Water,” Tamara finished with a laugh. “Once, when it was really hot, he came over and made a massive sprinkler right next to the pool. We all ran through it, even Kimiya.”

“What do you mean, even Kimiya?” came a teasing voice. “I like water as much as anyone else!” Tamara’s older sister, wearing a silver dress and sandals, had come up behind them. Holding her hand was Alex Strike, who was heading into his fourth year at the Magisterium and was Master Rufus’s frequent assistant. He was dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt, with a bronze band at his wrist, since he hadn’t gotten his silver one yet. He grinned at Call.

“Hey, squirt,” he said.

Call smiled a little awkwardly. Alex had always been nice to him, but he hadn’t known Alex was dating Tamara’s older sister. Kimiya was really pretty and popular, and Call always felt as if he were about to fall over or set himself on fire when he was around her. It made sense that two popular people were together, but it also made him more conscious of a lot of other things — his limp, his messy hair, the fact he was standing there in Aaron’s borrowed clothes.

Master Cameron finished his display with a flourish — sparkling droplets that shot out toward the guests. Everyone squealed, anticipating getting wet, but the water evaporated a few feet above the heads of the crowd, turning into wisps of colored vapor. Mr. and Mrs. Rajavi led the applause as another mage stepped forward, this one a tall woman with a magnificent crown of silver hair. Call recognized her as the woman who had brushed past him imperiously on the front steps.

“Anastasia Tarquin,” said Tamara in a whisper. “She’s Alex’s stepmother.”

“That she is,” Alex confirmed. His expression as he watched her was neutral. Call wondered if he liked her. When Call had been younger, he’d wished his dad would get married again so he could have a stepmother; it seemed better than no mother at all. Only when he was older had he stopped to wonder what would have happened if his dad had married someone he didn’t like.

Anastasia Tarquin raised both hands imperiously, holding thin metal rods in each. When she let them go, they lined themselves up in the air in front of her. She twitched her fingers, and one of them vibrated, sending out a single perfect note of music. Call jumped in surprise.

Alex looked over at him. “Cool, huh? When you master metal, you’ll be able to get it to vibrate to whatever frequency you want.”

The other metal rods were trembling now, each one of them like a different guitar string being plucked, sending out a torrent of music. Call liked music as much as the next person, but he’d never really thought about it before, about how alchemical magic could be used not just to build up and defend, or to attack and battle, but to make art. The music was like rain breaking through the humid air; it made him think of waterfalls and snow and ice floes far out in the ocean.

When the last note of the music died away, the metal rods dropped, falling to the earth and melting into it like rainwater sinking into mud. Mrs. Tarquin bowed and stepped back amid a shower of applause. As she moved away, she winked in Alex’s direction. Maybe they got along after all.

“And now,” said Mr. Rajavi, “perhaps our very own Makar, Aaron Stewart, would favor us with a demonstration of chaos magic?”

Call felt Aaron stiffen beside him as everyone clapped enthusiastically. Tamara turned and patted Aaron on the shoulder. He looked at her for a second, biting his lip, before he straightened up and made his way to the center of the mages’ circle.

He looked very small there.

Doing tricks and going to parties. That’s what Aaron had told Call, but Call hadn’t thought he’d meant actual tricks. Call had no idea what a chaos mage could do that was pretty or artistic. He remembered the rolling, devouring darkness the other Chaos-ridden wolves had disappeared into; remembered the chaos elemental pocked with wide, wet mouths; and shuddered with a feeling that was part dread and part anticipation.

Aaron lifted his hands, fingers spread wide. Darkness rolled in.

A hush spread over the party as more people joined the crowd, staring at their Makar and the growing shadows around him. Chaos magic came from the void, came from nothing. It was creation and destruction all rolled into one, and Aaron commanded it.

For a moment, even Call was a little afraid of him.

The shadows congealed into the twin shapes of two chaos elementals. They were thin, sleek creatures that resembled whippets made entirely of darkness, smaller than the one in Master Joseph’s lair had been. Still, their eyes glittered with the madness of the void.

Gasps went up all around the party. Tamara clutched Call’s arm.

For his part, Call gaped. This didn’t seem like a trick. Those things seemed dangerous. They were regarding the crowd as though they’d like nothing better than to devour everyone watching and pick their teeth with the bones of the people over by the food.

They began to slip sinuously over the grass.

Okay, Aaron, Call thought. Dismiss them. De-summon them. Do something.

Aaron lifted his hand. Threads of darkness began to spiral out from his fingers. His brow was furrowed in concentration. He reached out —

Havoc began to bark wildly, startling Call and Aaron both. Call saw the moment that Aaron’s concentration got away from him, the shadows vanishing from his fingertips.

Whatever he’d been meaning to do didn’t happen. Instead, one of the chaos elementals sprang into the air, toward Tamara’s mother. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opening in astonished terror. Her hand flew out, fire igniting in the center of her palm.

Aaron fell to his knees, flinging out both hands. Darkness exploded outward, surrounding the elemental. The creature disappeared, along with its twin. The chaos elementals were gone, scattered into shadows that melted away into the sunshine. Call became conscious of the fact that it was a summer day again, a summer day at a fancy garden party. He wasn’t sure if there’d ever been any real danger.

Everyone began laughing and clapping. Even Mrs. Rajavi looked delighted.

Aaron was breathing hard. His face looked pale, with a hectic flush on his cheeks as though from illness. He didn’t look like someone who’d just done a trick. He looked like someone who’d almost gotten his friend’s mother eaten.

Call turned to Tamara. “What was that?”

Her eyes sparkled. “What do you mean? He did a great job!”

“He could have been killed!” Call hissed at her, stopping himself from adding that her mom could probably have been killed, too. Aaron was on his feet now, pushing his way through the crowd toward them. He wasn’t making very fast progress, since everyone seemed to want to move closer to touch him and congratulate him and pat him on the back.

Tamara scoffed. “It was just a party trick, Call. All the other mages were standing by. They would have interfered if anything had gone wrong.”

Call could taste coppery anger in the back of his throat. He knew, and Tamara knew, too, that mages weren’t infallible. They didn’t always interfere to stop things in time. No one had interfered to stop Constantine Madden when he’d pushed his chaos magic so far that it had killed his brother and nearly destroyed the Magisterium. He’d been so injured and scarred by what had happened that he’d always worn a silver mask afterward, to cover his face.

He must have hated how he looked.

Call put up his hand to touch the uninjured skin of his own face just as Aaron got to them, flushed and wild-eyed. “Can we go sit down somewhere?” he said, quietly enough for his words not to reach the crowd. “I need to catch my breath.”

“Sure.” Call scrambled to position himself a little in front of Aaron as he leaned down to Havoc. “Pull me over to the fountain,” he told the wolf in a whisper, and Havoc yanked him forward. The crowd parted hastily to let Havoc by, and Call, Tamara, and Aaron followed in his wake. Call was aware of Alex looking after them sympathetically, though Kimiya had already turned her attention to the next mage’s trick.

Colored sparks rose in the air behind them as they rounded a hedge shaped like a shield and discovered a fountain. This one was round, made of yellow stone, and had an aged look that made Call think it must have been brought from somewhere else. Aaron sat down on the lip of it, scrubbing his hands through his wavy blond hair. “I hate my haircut,” he said.

“It looks fine,” said Call.

“You don’t really think that,” said Aaron.

“Not really,” Call said, and gave Aaron what he hoped was a supportive smile. Aaron looked worried. Maybe it hadn’t been that supportive. “You okay?”

Aaron took a deep breath. “I just —”

“Have you heard?” An adult voice floated through the air, through the leaves. It was deep and bass; Call had heard it before. “Someone broke into the Collegium last week. They tried to steal the Alkahest.”

Call and Aaron stared at each other, and then at Tamara, who had gone very still. She put her finger to her lips, quieting them.

“Someone?” replied a light, female voice. “You mean the minions of the Enemy. Who else? He means to start up the war again.”

“No broken Alkahest is going to save him once our Makar is trained and ready” came the reply.

“But if he’s able to repair it, the tragedy of Verity Torres could repeat itself,” cautioned a third voice, this one a man’s, sharp with nervousness. “Our Makar is young, like she was. We need time. The Alkahest is too powerful for us to take an attempt to steal it lightly.”

“They’re moving it to a more defensible location.” The woman’s voice again. “They were fools to keep it on display in the first place.”

“Until we’re sure it’s secure, the safety of our Makar must be our highest priority,” the first speaker said.

Aaron had gone still where he sat, the burbling water of the fountain loud in Call’s ears.

“I thought having a Makar around was supposed to make us safer,” said the nervous voice. “If we’re busy guarding him, who’s guarding us?”

Call stood up, struck by the thought that they were about a second away from overhearing one of the mages say something bad about Aaron. Something even worse than just speculating about the Enemy’s plans for killing him.

Call wished he could tell Aaron that he was pretty sure the Enemy of Death hadn’t tried to steal the Alkahest — whatever that was — and also wasn’t currently planning anything worse than revenge on Jasper.

Of course, he had no idea what Master Joseph was up to. So maybe the minions of the Enemy of Death were behind the attempted theft, which was less reassuring. Master Joseph had plenty of power on his own. He’d been managing without Constantine Madden for thirteen years, however much he said he needed Call.

“Come on,” Tamara said loudly, grabbing Aaron’s arm and hauling him to his feet. She must have been thinking along the same lines as Call. “I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Sure,” Aaron said, although Call could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Nonetheless, he followed Call and Tamara to the buffet table and watched while Call piled three plates with towers of shrimp and scallops, sausages and cheese.

People kept coming up to Aaron, congratulating him on his control of the chaos elementals, wanting to invite him to things or tell him a story about their involvement in the last war. Aaron was polite, nodding along with even the dullest anecdotes.

Call made Tamara a cheese plate, mostly because he was sure that Evil Overlords didn’t make other people cheese plates. Evil Overlords didn’t care if their friends were hungry.

Tamara took the cheese plate, shrugged, and ate a dried apricot off it. “This is so boring,” she whispered. “I can’t believe Aaron isn’t dead from boredom.”

“We have to do something,” Call said, throwing a breaded shrimp up into the air and catching it in his mouth. “People like Aaron act all nice until suddenly they explode and banish some annoying geezer into the void.”

“That’s not true,” Tamara said, rolling her eyes. “You might do that, but Aaron wouldn’t.”

“Oh, yeah?” Call raised his eyebrows. “Take a good look at his face and say that again.”

Tamara studied Aaron for a long moment. Aaron was trapped in conversation with a skinny old mage in a pink suit, and his eyes looked glazed. “Fine. I know where we can go.” She dumped the plate Call had made her and grabbed hold of Aaron’s sleeve. He turned toward her in surprise and then shrugged helplessly at the adult talking to him as she dragged him away from the conversation and toward the house.

Call abandoned his half-finished food on a stone banister and hurried after them. Tamara gave him a brilliant, crazy grin as they pulled Aaron inside, Havoc trotting behind.

“Where are we going?” Aaron said.

“Come on.” Tamara led them through the house until they reached a library lined with richly bound books. Mullioned windows set with colored glass let in sparkling beams of light, and deep-red rugs covered the floor. Tamara crossed the room toward a massive fireplace. A stone urn stood at each side, carved out of multicolored agate. Each one had a word inscribed on it.

Tamara took hold of the first one and twisted it around so that the word faced them. Prima. She moved to the second urn and twisted it until the second word faced them as well. Materia.

Prima materia, Call knew, was an alchemical term. It meant the very first substance of the world, the substance that everything that wasn’t chaos — earth, air, fire, water, metal, and souls — came from.

A sharp click sounded, and a section of the wall swung open onto a well-lit stone hallway.

“Whoa,” Call said.

He wasn’t sure where he’d been expecting Tamara to take them — to her room, maybe, or to a quiet corner of the house. He hadn’t expected a secret door.

“When were you going to tell me about this?” Aaron said, turning to Tamara. “I’ve been living here for a month!”

Tamara looked delighted at having kept a secret from him. “I’m not supposed to show anyone. You’re lucky to be seeing it now, Makar.”

Aaron stuck his tongue out at her.

Tamara laughed and ducked into the hallway, reaching up to pull a torch down from the wall. It glowed a bright gold green and gave off a faint smell of sulfur. She set off down the corridor, pausing when she realized the boys weren’t right on her heels. She snapped her fingers, her curls swinging. “Come on,” she said. “Move it, slowpokes.”

They looked at each other, shrugged, and headed after her.

As they walked, Havoc huffing along after them, Call realized why the hallways were so narrow — they ran through the whole house like veins beside bone, so anyone in any of the public rooms could be spied upon. And at regular intervals there were small hatches that opened into what looked like air ducts, covered by ornate ironwork registers.

Call opened one and peered down into the kitchen, where the staff were making up fresh pitchers of rosewater lemonade and placing tiny squares of tuna onto individual leaves that rested on large glass platters. He opened another and saw Alex and Tamara’s sister cuddling on a sofette beside two brass statues of greyhounds. As he watched, Alex leaned in and kissed Kimiya.

“What are you doing?” Tamara called back, under her breath.

“Nothing!” Call slid the hatch closed. He went a little farther without succumbing to temptation but paused when he heard Tamara’s parents. As he paused, he heard Mrs. Rajavi say something about the guests at the party. Call knew he should follow Tamara, but he itched to eavesdrop.

Aaron stopped and turned to look at Call. Call made a beckoning gesture and Aaron and Tamara joined him at the hatch. Aaron slid it open quietly with nimble fingers and they all peered down.

“We probably shouldn’t …,” Tamara began, but curiosity seemed to overcome her objections partway through her sentence. Call wondered how often she did this by herself and what secrets she’d learned that way.

Tamara’s mother and father were standing in their study, a mahogany table between them. On it was a chess set, though Call didn’t see the usual knights, rooks, and pawns; instead there were shapes he didn’t recognize.

“— Anastasia, of course,” Mr. Rajavi finished. They’d come in in the middle of his sentence.

Mrs. Rajavi nodded. “Of course.” She picked up an empty glass sitting on a silver tray, and, as they watched, it filled itself with some pale liquid. “I just wish there was a way not to invite the deWinters to these things. That family believes that if they pretend long enough it’s still the glory days of magical enterprise, maybe no one will notice how threadbare their clothing or their conversation has become. Thank goodness Tamara cooled on their son once school began.”

Mr. Rajavi snorted. “The deWinters still have friends on the Assembly. It wouldn’t do to put them off entirely.”

Aaron looked disappointed that they were just gossiping, but Call was delighted. Tamara’s parents were awesome, he decided. Anyone who wanted to keep Jasper out of a party was A-OK by him.

Mrs. Rajavi made a face. “They’re clearly trying to throw their youngest son into the path of the Makar. Probably hoping that if they become friends, some of the glory will rub off on him, and their family by extension.”

“From what Tamara has said, Jasper has failed to endear himself to Aaron,” said Mr. Rajavi drily. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, dear. Tamara is the one in Aaron’s apprentice group, not Jasper.”

“And Callum Hunt, of course.” Tamara’s mother took a sip from her glass. “What do you think of him?”

“He resembles his father.” Mr. Rajavi frowned. “Unfortunate about Alastair Hunt. He was a promising metal mage when he studied under Master Rufus.”

Call froze. Aaron and Tamara were both looking at him with apprehensive expressions as Mr. Rajavi went on.

“He was driven mad by the death of his wife in the Cold Massacre, they say. Putters about not using magic, wasting his life. Still, there’s no reason not to extend a welcome to his son. Master Rufus must have seen something in him if he chose him as an apprentice.”

Call felt Tamara’s hand on his arm, pulling him away from the hatch. Aaron closed it behind them and they moved on down the hall, Call with his fingers tangled in Havoc’s ruff for reassurance. His stomach felt a little hollow, and he was relieved when they came to a narrow door, which opened silently into what looked like another study.

The gold-green light of the torch showed big comfortable couches in the center of the room, a coffee table, and a desk. Along one wall was a bookshelf, but the tomes here weren’t the beautifully bound and curated volumes Call had seen in the library. These looked older, dustier and more worn. A few spines were ripped. Some were just manuscripts, tied with stained string.

“What’s this place for?” Call asked as Havoc jumped up on one of the couches, circling a few times before dropping into a napping position.

“Secret meetings,” Tamara said, her eyes sparkling. “My parents don’t think I know about it, but I do. There are books about dangerous magical techniques in here, and all sorts of records dating back years. There used to be a time when mages were allowed to make money off magic, when they had huge businesses. Then they passed the Enterprise Laws. You weren’t allowed to use your magic to make money in the normal world anymore. Some families lost everything.”

Call wondered if that was what had happened to Jasper’s family. He wondered if the Hunt family had made money like that, too — or if his mother’s family had. He realized he knew almost nothing about them.

“So how do mages make money?” Aaron asked, looking around the room, clearly thinking about the massive estate they were in and the party they’d just attended.

“They can either work for the Assembly or they can get a regular job,” Tamara said. “But if you had money from before, you could invest it.”

Call wondered how Constantine Madden had made his money but then figured he probably hadn’t thought the Enterprise Laws applied to him once he went to war against the other mages. Which brought Call right back around to the reason he’d come to Tamara’s in the first place: “Do you think any of the people at the party are headed back to the Magisterium?” Call asked. “Maybe I could get a ride with one of them?”

“A ride? To the Magisterium? But no one’s even there,” Aaron said.

“Someone’s got to be there,” said Call. “And I’ve got to stay somewhere. I can’t go home.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tamara said. “You can stay here until school starts. We can swim in the pool and practice magic. I already worked it out with my parents. We set up a spare room for you and everything.”

Call reached over to pat Havoc’s head. The wolf didn’t open his eyes. “You don’t think your parents mind?”

They’d all heard her parents talking about him, after all.

Tamara shook her head. “They’re happy to have you,” she said in a voice that made it clear they welcomed Call for good reasons and less good reasons.

But it was somewhere to stay. And they hadn’t said anything bad about him, not really. They’d said Master Rufus must have chosen him for a reason.

“You could call Alastair,” Aaron said. “So he won’t worry. I mean, even if he doesn’t want you to go back to the Magisterium, he’s got to want to know you’re safe.”

“Yeah,” Call said, thinking of his father slumped against the wall of the storage room, wondering how dedicated he was to chasing after Call and killing him. “Maybe tomorrow. After we find out more dirt on Jasper. And eat all the food at the buffet. And swim in the pool.”

“And we can get some magic practice in,” said Aaron with a grin. “Master Rufus won’t know what hit him. We’ll be through the Second Gate before everyone else.”

“As long as it’s before Jasper,” said Call. Tamara laughed.

Havoc rolled onto his back, snoring gently.