The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)- Holly Black Page 0,4

they walked out the door. “He’ll be good. And he deserves an award, too.”

“Absolutely not,” said Alastair.

“Is it because you don’t trust him around the Assembly?” Call asked, though once he did, he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

“It’s because I don’t trust the Assembly around him,” Alastair replied with a stern look. Then he headed out the door, leaving Call no choice but to follow.

THE COLLEGIUM, LIKE the Magisterium, was built in such a way that it was concealed from non-mages. It rested beneath the Virginia coastline, its corridors spiraling deep below the water. Call had heard of its location, but still wasn’t prepared for Alastair to stop them as they were walking along a jetty and indicate a grate at their feet, partially concealed under leaves and dirt.

“If you put your ear close to that, you can usually hear an incredibly dull lecture. But tonight, you might actually be able to hear music.” Although Alastair’s words weren’t particularly complimentary to the Collegium, he spoke in a wistful way.

“You never went here, though, right?” Call asked.

“Not as a student,” Alastair said. “There was a whole generation of us that mostly didn’t go. We were too busy dying in the war.”

Sometimes Call thought, uncharitably, that everyone should have left Constantine Madden alone. Sure, he’d done terrible experiments, putting chaos into the souls of animals and creating the Chaos-ridden. Sure, he’d reanimated the dead, looking for a way to cure death itself and bring back his brother. Sure, he was breaking mage law. But maybe if everyone had left him alone, so many people would still be alive. Call’s mother would still be alive.

The real Call would still be alive, too, he couldn’t help thinking.

But Call couldn’t say any of that, so he said nothing at all. Aaron was looking out over the waves at the setting sun. All summer, having Aaron at the house had felt like having a brother, someone to joke around with, someone who was always there to watch movies or destroy robots. As the drive to the Collegium had gone on, though, Aaron had become quieter. By the time Alastair had parked his silver 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom near the boardwalk and they had passed a giant weird statue of Poseidon, Aaron had pretty much stopped talking entirely.

“You okay?” Call asked as they walked on.

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that I was prepared to be the Makar. I knew it was dangerous and I was scared, but I understood what I had to do. And when people gave me stuff, I understood why. I understood what I owed them in return. But now I don’t know what it means to be a Makar. I mean, if there’s no war against the Enemy, that’s great, but then what do I —”

“We’re here,” Alastair said, coming to a stop. Waves crashed on the black rocks around them, kicking up salty spray and frothing in little tide pools. Call felt the light rain of it, like a cool breath across his face.

He wanted to say something to reassure Aaron, but Aaron wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was frowning at a scuttling crab. It crossed a braid of seaweed, tangled with a piece of old rope, the threadbare ends floating in the water like someone’s unbound hair.

“Is this safe?” Call asked instead.

“As safe as anything connected with the mages,” Alastair said, tapping his foot on the ground in a quick, repetitive rhythm. For a moment, nothing happened — then there was a grating sound and a square of rock slid aside to reveal a long spiraling staircase. It wound down and down, like the one in the library of the Magisterium, except there weren’t rows of books here, only the curving staircase and, at the very bottom, a glimpse of a square of marble floor.

Call swallowed hard. It would have been a long walk for anyone, but for him, it seemed impossible. His leg would be cramping by the time they got halfway down. If he stumbled, it would be a very scary fall.

“Um,” said Call, “I don’t think I can …”

“Levitate yourself,” Aaron said quietly.

“What?”

“Levitation is air magic. We’re surrounded by rock — dirt and stone. Push down on it and it’ll lift you. You don’t have to fly, just float a few inches off the ground.”

Call glanced toward Alastair. Even now, he was a little wary of doing magic around his father, after all the years Alastair had spent telling him that magic was evil, that