The Bronze Key (Magisterium #3)- Holly Black Page 0,45

been there squinted out at Tamara suspiciously.

“What’s going on?” he asked. He looked like he was about nineteen, with shaggy black hair. The uniforms of the Collegium were a deep navy, with stripes of different colors down the sleeves. Call suspected the colors meant something — everything in the mage world did. “What’s up, kid?”

Tamara restrained her annoyance at being called “kid” admirably.

“The Masters want to see you,” she said. “They said it’s important.”

The boy swung the door wider. Behind him, Call could see the antechamber, with its sofa and dark red walls. The tunnel leading away into the distance. His heart pounded. It was all so close.

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” the boy said. “Why would the Masters want me to leave my post? And why would they send a runt like you to get me?”

Aaron exchanged a look with Call. If the Collegium guy didn’t cool it, Call thought, he’d end up on the floor with Tamara’s boot on his neck.

“I’m Master North’s assistant,” Tamara said. “He wanted me to give you this.” She held out the guide-stone. The boy’s eyes widened. “It’ll take you to where the meeting is — you need to give evidence about the protections here. Otherwise you could be in trouble, or your boss could be.”

The boy took the guide-stone. “It wasn’t her fault,” he said, sounding resentful. “Or any of the guards’. That elemental came from somewhere else.”

“So go tell them that,” said Tamara.

Clutching the guide-stone, the boy stepped out into the corridor. He slammed the door behind him, and Call heard the tumblers of a dozen locks as they slid into place.

“Better scram,” the boy said, glancing briefly over the three of them, and then headed off down the hall.

When the guard was out of sight, Call fumbled the key out of his pocket.

There was a spot in the huge door into which it fit neatly, and when it was placed there, an entire tracery of symbols began to glow all over the door. Words Call had not seen before revealed themselves: Neither flesh nor blood, but spirit. As Call was puzzling over that, the door opened, swinging inward.

They headed inside, passing quickly through the antechamber and into the dark red corridor. It was short, leading to a second, massive set of doors that went up and up, reaching over Call’s head, the size of the doors of an enormous cathedral.

But there was a spot in them, too, a tiny hole, almost too small to notice. Call swallowed and fit the bronze key into the spot. The second set of doors opened with a groan.

They stepped through.

Call didn’t know what to expect, but the sudden heat of the room beyond surprised him. The air was heavy and smelled sour and metallic. It felt like a place where a huge fire was blazing, but no fire was visible. He could hear the rush of water in the distance and the roar of flames, much closer. Arched doorways in the stone led in five different directions. Chiseled in the rock were familiar words: Fire wants to burn, water wants to flow, air wants to rise, earth wants to bind, chaos wants to devour.

“Which way?” Call asked.

Aaron shrugged, then spun around with one arm out, letting himself point randomly, like a weather vane. “There,” he said when he’d stopped. The arch he was pointing toward seemed to be much the same as the others.

“Warren?” Call called under his breath. It seemed like a long shot that the little lizard would hear them down there, but Warren had shown up in strange places and at odd times before. “Warren, we could really use your help.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tamara said, heading in the direction Aaron had picked. “I don’t trust him.”

“He’s not so bad,” Call said, but he couldn’t help thinking of how Warren had led them to Marcus, Master Rufus’s former Master, now one of the Devoured, drawn into the element of fire by using its power too much. Still, Marcus hadn’t hurt them. He’d just been scary.

It was dim beyond the archway, less a corridor than an empty space of tumbled stone with a path cutting through it, leading into further darkness. A torch was embedded in one wall, burning greenly; Aaron took it down and led the way, Call and Tamara just behind him.

The path sloped downward, becoming a ledge over a deep pit. Call’s heart started to thud. He knew that large elementals were imprisoned here, knew that theoretically